@Faraday This is my initial, immediate reaction, so I have not really sat down and thoroughly thought this through.

• tour lets you create a (temporary) character flagged as a guest, with a hardcoded -Guest — or equivalent, maybe (Guest)? — tacked on to the name for communications purposes. The flag and moniker/suffix indicating a guest character would poof if that player applies and is approved.
• Players “could” have the option to specify a name when touring (admin setting?) or use a predetermined one chosen from a list (also admin setting?). This is one point I haven’t thought all the way through, because of the potential abuse factors (such as harassing and/or impersonating players with similar names, even with the clear “GUEST” designation that would be appended).
• Should guest/temporary characters have their own database table? That would largely deal with the need to track them as far as data goes (e.g., preserving communications), but I did not dig into the database part of the Ares codebase to see how you handled characters in general, or if this would be an absurd refactor. It would be a much easier process to purge (all of) them when they’re in their own table, though, if the need arises. Name collisions would have to be a special check, though, not to preach to the choir.

On a less technical side:

• I’ve wondered why I’ve seen some games have their Guest characters get into the teens for numbering, because I had thought Guest chars were recycled on disconnect, so I always wondered how this was happening.
• I was never really a fan of the “anonymous” guest nomenclature, tbh. Thank the creepers and other memorable folks (hi Jill!) for that.
• Being able to preserve guest communications would be useful insofar as potential players is concerned. This is partly why I mention the possibility of conditionally allowing “real” character names for guest characters. Certainly, they should be able to rename (once?) during chargen when they want to be serious about playing. (The rename would be part of the actual application. This does put an onus on staff for name vetting.)

@Prototart said in I need an adult:

@Pavel said in I need an adult:

@dvoraen said in I need an adult:

FEMININE, BUT DEADLY

Ideal for the kiss of death. Looks can kill, but seal it with a kiss. Tho-Radia: A special job a day keeps the children at bay.

The ads write themselves.

we are so smart and the nuclear regulatory commission is so, so stupid

I mean, that kind of makeup is almost literally a glow up.

@Prototart said in I need an adult:

anyway this is now a beauty thread and Erin Parsons found radium lipstick and i am making it everybody’s problem

THO-RADIA

So it’s femme fatale makeup? FEMININE, BUT DEADLY.

10/10 adults needed if those really contain radium.

@Pavel said in I need an adult:

@dvoraen Perfect for my Aural Sex fantasies.

Oh is that the “crunchy feeling” experience so advertised? Is that part of the BE AN ADULT thing? (This is specific to you @Pavel, and yes I remember the source of those caps words.)

@Pavel There are actual (retail) products with a light and a camera that will transmit over wifi (the device itself has a no-internet wifi signal) to a phone app you install from the app store, so you can see exactly what you’re doing. I’m still a little leery about the device itself having wifi capability, even if it presumably doesn’t connect to the internet.

Yes, but what is the crunchy part of this equation?

Saw this while shopping for replacement stuff because my curette of choice broke.

My initial reaction: “lol what type of experience is that supposed to be?”

@Jennkryst said in MU Peeves Thread:

@lordbelh Pick a pic, describe the pic, wheee

I still don’t even know where to start for describing hair styles, facial features — what constitutes “angular” that I’ve seen in writing? — let alone clothing intricacies. It’s not for lack of trying; I just have nfc how people know this stuff.

@Third-Eye said in AI Megathread:

@MisterBoring said in AI Megathread:

Science AI model releases an open source schematic for a water powered drive system for cars that gets 450 miles to a gallon of water and can drive at freeway speeds. crickets

That’s not driving advertising dollars and making anyone’s money. ChatGPT does…somehow…

Honestly, I see a lot of promise in narrowly-tailored AI designed to wade through data and do pattern-recognition, but that’s not atm a money-maker for anyone.

And to say this (bolded part) is beyond ironic is a colossal understatement. How much money would be saved having a properly trained AI do the work of what would otherwise be thousands of data analysts? Part of the point of an AI is to be able to do the things a human cannot do, because a computer’s speed is significantly higher.

AI has potential, but oh boy are “we” more determined to churn out slop than quality with it, right now.

@Hobbie You mean you don’t want me to tell you your post was PoWeReD bY AI like has been thrown at us for every. single. fucking. thing. that’s on a computer these days?

But on the serious, I’m 100% with you. Tired of seeing Gemini, Copilot, and all the others flung at me as if they’re trying to honeypot me with the latest tech buzzwords*. I don’t need AI to do my job for me; I do need AI to do things for me that are far beyond my capacity. Like massive quantities of data analysis and collation.

AI is way oversold and way underdelivered, and I dare say that the “AI” products being thrown out are not, strictly speaking and technically (pun!) actual AI, but more a heuristic algorithm like pathfinding algorithms such as A*.

* ETA - It’s so bad I just had this comparison come to mind: “They’re acting like MU* sex pests pretending not to be sex pests.”

I need to know what everyone who has finished Clair Obscur — Expedition 33 felt about the story right meow.

(No spoilers. FEELINGS ONLY.)

I had a lot.

33/10 story.

@DrQuinn said in Pretty Princess Simulator:

Just don’t ever have the Royal Heir played by anyone. No one has ever seen them. They’re off fighting a war/building treaties with other people/etc. And while they’re gone, their family has just decided to get them married.

Then they appear at the final event to select the person by…points, cards, gossip, whatever.

lmao

I’m just picturing this from the perspective of a BIG REVEAL scene at the end of the “season” so to speak.

Staff-played prince(ss) shows up all “YOUR MAJESTY I’M HOME!” “GREAT, YOU’RE NOW MARRIED TO <name>!” All of the court gasps at realizing this is who they’ve been scheming over. What that sentence means is the whole point I’m trying to make here.

I also like “the bubble.” It was one of the reasons I became really engaged in Concordia, for example. Coming up with Alistair’s cat was a happy bonus to that. That cat was a built-in bubble for me, because I could just make up vignettes/short stories about him. >.>

As to the “burst bubble” status, so to speak? I don’t think I could even opine upon this, to be honest, and I’d be preaching to the choir and/or broken-recording what’s already been said in this thread. The people that will stay, will stay, and for their own reasons: plot involvement, friends they enjoy IC and OOC interactions with, bar rp, and so on.

Personally, I don’t think a game should “entice” people into playing via anything other than the theme and any game-specific features/rules its runner(s) want to have.

In other words, the game should speak for itself.

@Snackness said in Real Life Struggles/Support/Vent:

We are trying to figure out if my mom is “actively dying”. Dementia fucking sucks.

;.;

There’s been some side-eying given to a family member in my case as well, because they have been saying and doing certain things that seem like a precursor to it, or outright misremembering if not forgetting certain things.

@Faraday said in Why MUSH?:

There are plenty of styles of online RP, from forum PBP to freeform discords to hybrids like Storium. What do you like about MUSHing specifically?

It’s a very selfish reason, in my case:

To try and prove I can write. I like the imagination component and the dynamic nature of RP with other people. It’s very stimulating to my brain when I really get into things.

Unfortunately, it has also made me something of a snob.

Recently finished FF7:REBIRTH for PC.

15/10 OST.

Can’t say more because don’t want to spoil anyone.

@Roz said in Celebrities We've Lost 2025:

Val Kilmer, Film Star Who Played Batman and Jim Morrison, Dies at 65

RIP good sir. I will always remember you from Willow as Madmartigan, let alone Top Gun.

@dvoraen said in General Video Game Thread:

Claire Obscur: Expedition 33 Release Date Trailer

Well, I know what I’ll be doing on April 24th.

I don’t normally endorse these kinds of videos, but…

XBox Deep Dive into Expedition 33

(ETA)“This team gets it.” is basically where I’m at. I mean, even just talking about why there’s a world map I was like: snap point(/ETA)

Also, I would go gay for the Creative Director because of his accent.

@Meg said in Meg's Mu* Mist:

Updated. Trying to get back into this lil hobby, this quaint what did you call it? RP? Are you sure? Well, if you are sure you want to call it that. Sounds a little sexual tho.

meg I couldn’t decide whether to do a “one of us” GIF or the “come play with us” creepy girls from the Shining to try and sound sinister. Please advise.

@Solstice said in General Video Game Thread:

@dvoraen It’s been quite some time since I saw a trailer, raised a brow, and immediately set a reminder for the launch date on my phone. That looks like it could be pretty damn rad.

Go back to my first post (in this thread) on the subject. This is how I feel about the score: