Patuk
Shartist
Posts: 552
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Post by Patuk on Jul 28, 2014 11:07:49 GMT -5
Posted all of two times. Still got banned.
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mood
Displaced Tuluki
JOHN DARNIELLE #1 FANZONE
Posts: 335
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Post by mood on Jul 28, 2014 11:13:15 GMT -5
i also got banned for posting in that thread. lmao
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Patuk
Shartist
Posts: 552
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Post by Patuk on Jul 28, 2014 11:28:07 GMT -5
Huh. Good on us, I guess? I sometimes wonder what arm would be like without a gdb, but then I think it'd make the cliquishness even worse.
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Post by nessalin on Jul 28, 2014 11:40:46 GMT -5
I had something on mind that I wanted to share with you guys.
About once a month or so I will get a day off. I don't mean like a weekend - even on the weekend I have some work to do or my friends expect me to be somewhere or I get busy somehow. Pretty typical for most adults over the age of 40, really.
But today is different. Even before noon I had all of my errands run, had cleaned my apartment, hit the gym...really everything I should conceivably do today, is totally complete. The rest of the day sincerely belongs to me.
What I mean to imply is that today would be a fantastic day to be playing Armageddon MUD. My friends won't even be done with work for another six or seven hours so I've got nothing but time on my hands. Nothing would make me happier at the moment, then to jump on my imaginary horse and go riding off for adventure over the imaginary harsh rugged landscape of Zalanthas.
But I can't. The staff are too likely to spoil things.
It's politics. I mean, I've never really been in any serious trouble with the MUD, at least not for a decade or so. I don't have an extensive prior record with them. You'd think that they'd be happy to just leave me alone and to make some video game friends and go riding around pwning scrabs and stuff and just chilling in a virtual apartment smoking imaginary spice.
But they can't. My in-game behavior has shifted a lot over the years in order to avoid staff attention. Once I stopped PKing people (in my second year), staff attention dropped off something like 80%. Next I stopped playing sponsored or karma-based roles, and attention on me dropped off like another 90%. Also I had made a point to copiously avoid game plots and related activities, which had effectively cut my staff interaction down to approximately nothing.
But still they just won't leave you alone.
What's confounding about it, is that once you attract their attention, there seems to be no good or reliable way to shake it easily. Since I have no (real-life) rapport with most of the staff, I don't have any good way of settling the matter (through discussion) the way that I fairly easily resolve most work-place or friendship disputes.
It's a darn shame. Their copy-right is decent - I love the game setting. Even the code-base is pretty good, compared to where DIKU started out so long ago.
But the staff simply have no interest in developing the maturity needed to make the game a safe and fun place to roleplay.
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yoashi
Clueless newb
Posts: 101
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Post by yoashi on Jul 28, 2014 12:18:43 GMT -5
Its not even about the brown nosed people being sheep, its BECAUSE discussion like that gets Nyr'd out of existence. On one hand, not the best stuff to put out to the public, calling out a staffer, but on the other they were part of a discussion and calling out someone who is TRUSTED AS A STAFFER AND MANAGER OF PEOPLE, who is telling us that "Unless you impress us, we don't care what you want" and "If you don't like it there are other places for you to go".
Those are, really, the MOST inappropriate responses for someone in Nyr's position to be putting out there, and to retcon the discussion to fit his needs really seems to just exacerbate the reasons people use to say they do not like him.
Nyr really needs a fucking PR manager. Even if tomorrow he became the best staffer in the game, his PR is just a nightmare because of how he responds to people and seems to have no reins or people saying "Knock that shit off, we need players as much as they need us."
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Post by jcarter on Jul 28, 2014 14:24:33 GMT -5
lol more nyr highlights-
gee nyr thanks for pointing out that the best way to be a spy is to not be an obvious spy. how silly for the pbase to expect that the mind-reading templarate, the least powerful members of which have coded powers include hearing the thoughts of everyone in the within the room/area, instanteously reading backgrounds, and monitoring all way communication in the game world would be able to detect spies who were socialites and were within throwing distance of muk utep, a prophet who can see all the futures and has a ridiculous amount of plot-power.
seriously though how do you 'blend in' when your cover is being a bard? you're a public figure. people are going to be interested in you. nobles will want to use you, and i would imagine the templars of the brainwashing city would make sure that bard kept spouting favorable things and wouldn't ever try to incite any distaste. being a bard is a terrible cover. now, being a poor commoner who dredges up clay in the pits is a good cover. forgettable hunter #1532 who will probably die in two weeks is a good cover. but 'bard who joins poets circle discussing politics' isn't a good cover.
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Post by jcarter on Jul 28, 2014 14:29:10 GMT -5
and holy fucking lol- I don't think you understand what I am saying. I think you are ascribing godlike powers or impassible barriers to entry for either city-state. I think you are also assuming that the virtual world and NPC templars weren't taken into account. Both assumptions are incorrect. Given your restating of your cynicism I'm not sure why you would believe this but take it for what it is worth. yeah guys how could you get the idea that the omniscient muk utep or tektolnes with his unfathomable power is even close to being godlike??? |
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Patuk
Shartist
Posts: 552
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Post by Patuk on Jul 28, 2014 14:45:45 GMT -5
None of them actually met Muk Utep. Big M doesn't visit every Hlum ceremony, and I doubt he visited the one with the spies, as Utep being basically anywhere tends to show on the chronology page. That said, yeah, for a freaking pair of bards, as well as a Hlum and his consort to be entirely unnoticed by an army of Charles Xaviers is ridiculous.
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Post by Prime Minister Sinister on Jul 28, 2014 16:16:05 GMT -5
I agree that there's bias and favoritism and unfairness. I don't agree that it's dangerous to the game. In fact, I'd rather the staff favor a stellar roleplayer with stellar roles, than give stellar roles to random dorf amos teh lil teefy guy out of "fairness." What's fair to the game, isn't necessarily what's fair to individual players. We'll all have our turn at being butt-hurt, and we'll all get over it. In that sense, it IS fair. Smiley I... what? |
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Jeshin
GDB Superstar
Posts: 1,515 
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Post by Jeshin on Jul 28, 2014 16:42:44 GMT -5
Muk Utep or someone posing as Muk Utep in disguise was at the Hlum ceremony. I have logs from another play who was in attendance. Muk Utep appeared as a commoner who patted the newly minted Hlum Chosen on the back with a big smile. Then all the Templars begin speaking Tatlum and then commoner turned into Muk Utep who was like Tuluk yo! Then he left.
PS - Templars displayed shock, fear, and adoration at the poser. So it was someone high enough in the pecking order that they should have immediately been aware.
PPS - The spy was still a chosen consort and thus should probably have been mind probed.
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Patuk
Shartist
Posts: 552
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Post by Patuk on Jul 28, 2014 16:58:28 GMT -5
Oh. Well, oh. Dayum.
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Post by lyse on Jul 28, 2014 17:07:20 GMT -5
Muk Utep or someone posing as Muk Utep in disguise was at the Hlum ceremony. I have logs from another play who was in attendance. Muk Utep appeared as a commoner who patted the newly minted Hlum Chosen on the back with a big smile. Then all the Templars begin speaking Tatlum and then commoner turned into Muk Utep who was like Tuluk yo! Then he left. PS - Templars displayed shock, fear, and adoration at the poser. So it was someone high enough in the pecking order that they should have immediately been aware. PPS - The spy was still a chosen consort and thus should probably have been mind probed. So staff driven cheese, ok. Getting something done in a sponsored role, up in the air. They've really alienated a lot of players this go round. All that's going to be left is high post count havin shitty RPers by August. I think I will app a character on SOI. |
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jkarr
GDB Superstar
Posts: 2,070
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Post by jkarr on Jul 28, 2014 17:26:24 GMT -5
I agree that there's bias and favoritism and unfairness. I don't agree that it's dangerous to the game. In fact, I'd rather the staff favor a stellar roleplayer with stellar roles, than give stellar roles to random dorf amos teh lil teefy guy out of "fairness." What's fair to the game, isn't necessarily what's fair to individual players. We'll all have our turn at being butt-hurt, and we'll all get over it. In that sense, it IS fair. Smiley I... what? makes sense to me. if u haven't demonstrated that u have the responsibility or rping capacity to do handle lesser roles, theres no excuse for them to fuck around with that special role by wasting it on someone who hasnt demonstrated the above |
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Post by jcarter on Jul 28, 2014 18:17:40 GMT -5
you can't even make this shit up- Have you ever heard of the term 'security through obscurity?' Don't look like something you need to target and you won't be targeted. It doesn't always work, but there you have it. These were spies. They went in with a specific mission, but their primary purpose before being told their later goals was "avoid the notice of the templarate" and they were given specific instructions representing years of training. As I said earlier, we expected at least one of them to get caught at some point, likely due to a screwup. The whole point of being a spy is to avoid notice. If you have a templar interrogating you, you are boned (I believe we went so far as to let each player know that if they ever got interrogated, they had essentially lost). Again, spy operation, compartmentalization of activities, etc...a lot was taken from fictional and real world accounts of how such things would work. For instance, as the plot and game progressed, each spy grew to know each other spy, so that was one more area of implication they could provide if they were ever interrogated...but they weren't, because they seemed normal, because they passed muster, etc. You don't investigate people that seem normal, do you? Except...now, in Tuluk...you might. Because of this. This was also an intentional part of the plot--if the spies had been all captured/killed, we would've rolled with it and that would've made things amp up faster as far as Tuluki oppression PRIOR to the battle at Tyn Dashra...but that didn't happen, so we were able to utilize it later. This will (probably) be harder in the future because of the notoriety of this particular case, but certainly not impossible. Each one had specific instructions to initially observe and report. They had to blend in and escape notice. And they did. ******This is the scene where Alize plants the seed of joining the Grey Hunt in Rider's mind. Staff had never mentioned Hlum to me, nor were enthusiastic or dismissive when I talked about it in my reports. I had know idea where this plot-line would end up! I was told it neatly dovetailed into staff wanting to get rid of the Hlum when I stored her at the end of the storyline. Background: Xen, who Alize had been kanking in the hope he'd drop secrets from his position with Tenneshi, has died/gone missing. She's having to pretend to mourn which she's finding boring, and is working out what she can do next to keep spyness rolling. She's now an apprentice bard of Elkinhym, and a partisan/aide for a Faithful Lord (who she only very rarely sees). She and Rider have a budding friendship at this point, and later that day he starts providing her with food from his hunts, and then a few weeks after starts training her in combat.****** "guys the spies were laying low and would never have been noticed. now here's a log from an apprentice bard who worked as an aide for a templar and became a hlum consort." |
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Post by jcarter on Jul 30, 2014 7:23:56 GMT -5
if you people keep posting off-topic in this thread i'm going to ban you without further warning.
lol just kidding i'm going to actually just split this off into a separate thread now like a normal adult instead of showing off my internet muscle
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