The Improbable Island Enquirer - Forums

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Fri, 18 May 2012 12:00:43 +0100

By: Cherriki+Ten

DUCKY!

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Fri, 18 May 2012 11:58:26 +0100

By: Cherriki+Ten

Quote by: Twosocks+Monkey

Quote by: Cherriki+Ten

Quote by: CavemanJoe

OH THAT GRIM MOMENT OF REALISATION. When the blood drops from your face, and the icefingers curl around your sides, and the shivers shiver up your spine. When you look at your hands - twisted by your keyboard into withered, gnarled claws - and you shake them to the heavens, whispering, damn you, Caveman Joe. Damn you for sucking my very life away, through my atrophied eyeballs. And then the worst of it... that the information was right there all along, at the bottom of every page, black and white, if only you'd looked, if only you'd looked.

Mmm. Delicious. :D

You can be a very creepy man sometimes.

Isn't that part of the appeal?

-Rose

Yes, but I am positive that it has not, in fact, been pointed out in a while. And I, being one of those to suffer the inconvenience of atrophied eyeballs, felt the need to express my creeped-outness at that tidbit.

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Fri, 18 May 2012 11:37:28 +0100

By: Twosocks+Monkey

A brief intermission.

Fin.

Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: "If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands".

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Fri, 18 May 2012 11:24:50 +0100

By: Twosocks+Monkey

Quote by: Cherriki+Ten

Quote by: CavemanJoe

You can be a very creepy man sometimes.

Isn't that part of the appeal?

-Rose

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Fri, 18 May 2012 07:36:06 +0100

By: CavemanJoe

Quote by: TeddybearofDeath

I was never asking about copyrighted characters! I was asking about characters of races/origins outside of the story line! Things that are not Human/zombie/mutant/robot/midget/kittymorph, or that arrived by means other than airplane drop! That was my question! I don't get why this is pissing you off so bad, just forget it! I'll never ask a question again!

8O :| :?

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Fri, 18 May 2012 05:59:43 +0100

By: Cherriki+Ten

First off: this made me giggle a little.

Quote by: Mercury

. I grumble, complain, grind my teeth, complain some more, then Cherri gives me a cookie and tells me to get over it. And I do, and I eat my cookie, and I watch.

Secondly: Teddy

I think you are reading way too much into this.

Sweetie, from what I read, your question wasn't formulated well enough to make that distinction. I thought you were arguing (and getting upset) for the point of nintendo characters, not races not preset by CMJ.

I've seen races outside the ones created for the game that are done really well. I think where I stand on the matter of fifth wall characters is with Mercury there. I don't mind them but if they are going to be brought to the island but you better have a damn good story line to back up the characters that you are bringing to this island. That said:

I am not going to say that I am speaking for CMJ here, but this is how I interpret his arguments thus far and changes he's made to the island for the almost three years I have been here.

He created the race changer to give his players more wiggle room to muck around with their characters. So instead of Cherri being just a joker, she's actually a walking plushy. Instead of her being a kittymorph, she's a fox squirrel and so on a so forth. These are just examples mind you.

The only thing he doesn't care for is, again, the fifth wall characters but even then, he's not putting a direct stop on it. He's just saying he doesn't care for it. It is an opinion not a directive. He might be the creator and yes, that demands a certain respect but he is also a person who has the right to express their opinions without having someone taking it as "This is wrong, don't do it."

It's like if I wrote a book and then made my own fanfiction site. There might be pairings and crossovers I don't particularly care for, and I may say as much, but I am also not saying that you can't write it.

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Fri, 18 May 2012 05:15:51 +0100

By: Cherriki+Ten

Quote by: CavemanJoe

You can be a very creepy man sometimes.

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Fri, 18 May 2012 05:14:13 +0100

By: TeddybearofDeath

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Fri, 18 May 2012 04:03:28 +0100

By: CavemanJoe

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Fri, 18 May 2012 03:37:34 +0100

By: CavemanJoe

What the fuck ambiguous dude what but I've said what do you even what

Okay, spelling it out again:

Importing characters from other games bothers me, and it apparently bothers some others. It is not against the rules, and is not likely to be. I'm not in the habit of making rules against things that other people find fun, just because it bothers me a bit.

You're talking about being banned for an unintentional misstep, now? Dude. What did I just say?

What I wrote was "how I feel," not "ten per cent of how I feel and you can guess the other 90% because I'm too polite to say it."

I am a lot less complicated than you think I am!

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Fri, 18 May 2012 01:49:57 +0100

By: Ada

You're not going to get banned for playing "out of canon", don't worry! CMJ himself said there is no such rule, unambiguously. Just keep on doing what you like. :)

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Fri, 18 May 2012 01:41:28 +0100

By: TeddybearofDeath

Quote by: Full+Metal+Lion

My current theory is that she respects you a lot. My other theory is a long, barely-coherent rant about how kids these days are too polite, and back in my day you said what you meant and you meant it, there were none of these darn guessing games. But those are just my grass-tinted glasses...Get it? 'Cause red is opposite green on the color wheel? ...Well, I tried.

This.

All I really wanted was a straight answer to a question I've outlined twice, but that's not going to happen, I don't think. Just deflecting questions to questions. God knows why we can't have a 'yes' or 'no' instead of being subjected to individual interpretation and hoping we don't get banned for an unintentional mis-step.

My conclusion is, until I'm directly told otherwise by someone who matters like a mod or CMJ, I'm going to keep playing my accounts the way makes me happy (within the rules.), cannon or not. If I do something wrong, I hope someone let's me know and explains it to me, and things don't continue to be ambiguous. For now, I'm tired of worrying about it. I want to have fun, and I'd prefer to do it with my friends here. I hope that's ok.

Feature Requests, Ideas and Feedback :: Re: Walls and Shops

Fri, 18 May 2012 00:09:01 +0100

By: Full+Metal+Lion

Quote by: Nekops

Keep in mind the fact that a breached Outpost is a deathtrap for low-level or poorly equipped characters. There's no display, really, that warns folks away, so having the walls there keeps people alive. Walls allow lower-level characters to stay and fight for their homes, folks who can survive Jungling and can use the extra Req payouts but wouldn't last long in a Breach... and that is by no means a bad thing.

After all, we're all periodically in that low-level, ill-equipped group, as long as we're hunting the Drive.

Oh yeah. Forgot to account for them. Nevermind, I guess.

Feature Requests, Ideas and Feedback :: Re: FEEDBACK: Puzzle Combat

Fri, 18 May 2012 00:01:51 +0100

By: Full+Metal+Lion

Quote by: Awesome+Fred

Still, is there anyone else who uses it constantly?

Yes, yes I do. But I'm not sure it does anything but kill me with Strong Attacks and Guarded Spots.

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Thu, 17 May 2012 23:40:58 +0100

By: Matthew

Page gen: 1.923s / 38 queries (0.26s), cache 228 successful (0.047s) / 8 failed. Average for this account: 0.217s - 230151.827/1058608

230151.827 seconds

3835.863 minutes

63.931 hours

2.663 days

oh christ

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Thu, 17 May 2012 23:35:46 +0100

By: Full+Metal+Lion

Quote by: LydiaDefountain
Fixed for canon ;) :p

*Silently fumes at someone else poorly photoshopping something.*

Quote by: CMJI say again, what is it about my saying "It bothers me when you play a Nintendo character" that makes you think "I have to be a certain, very specific type of character," rather than "CMJ is bothered that I'm playing a Nintendo character?"

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Thu, 17 May 2012 23:32:11 +0100

By: Mercury

I remember satisfying my own curiosity by poking through the Gallery Of Shame and basing my approximate Join Date by which images I remember being uploaded, and it turns out I've been playing since the last Quarter of '09. Damn. Wasn't that, like, right near the end of S1? Or something? I remember the Island died once and we were all stuck on a Forum for a week or so...

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Thu, 17 May 2012 23:27:28 +0100

By: Mercury

Quote by: Lunasol

No one minds out of canon chars, as long as they're made well. No one, canon or not, likes a over powered god char. No one like a 1 DK char who can do anything anymore than say a proper Joker who can do anything. It's truthfully how it's played, and that's all that matters.

This is what I have to keep telling myself. Cherri and I have had discussion after discussion about my... "Firm opinions" on this subject matter, as derailed from the original post as it is, and I must say, she's done a wonderful job of not allowing me to destroy any reputation I might have fooling anybody into believing I'm anything other than an angry, opinionated, misanthropic little curmudgeony twat. Can I use that word? Curmudgeony?

I'm going to clear the air a little right now: I have very strong elitist tendency's. I have been playing this game nearly three years, and I have seen all sorts of Roleplay quality. I've seen disasters of characters, simply wondrous plots, and everything in between. I've seen characters start bad and redeem themselves, I've seen"unsalvageable" characters scrapped, I've seen great characters gradually fall from grace. I've seen wonderful, week-long story arcs, mutings, bannings, drama, good pals and beautiful romances. All told, I've had a long time to see things, read a lot, see the game develop (Remember when there was no Banter? No Timed Combat? The BiCyclops?) and become very opinionated about just about everything.

More often then not I can suppress these opinions, my elitist attitude, smile and go about my business. I know it's dickish, I know it's not exactly right, and I know nobody likes a prat (A PRAT is a different story), but there are one or two odds and ends that really grind the gears on the suppression machine, and it goes offline for a time. This is one of those things. It's one of the major reasons I went offline for four or five months; A spate of the things that throw a spanner into my Ion Engine started cropping up everywhere, and I determined the best thing to do was hanger the ship and let the engine rest and repair before it exploded from the strain.

I myself have read, carefully as I can, every little scrap of Island Canon I've come across (Mostly) and have tried to fashion my dear character into it as closely as I can. This game is worth playing. I *love* it, and as far as I'm concerned, it's worth throwing everything I can into it. Mercury has page after page written about her that nobody sees, nobody reads but me. It's reference, it's her history (Her -whole- history), her mind, her Code of Conduct, her likes, dislikes. It's her life. It's my beloved character (Beloved by me, anyway!) and it's my favourite pet-project ever, hands down. It is my own second life, my brainchild, carefully crafted around and inside of the brainchild of another.

In fact, I'd like -more- Canon, more information to work into my character. We have computers again, but they're massive, difficult to operate things. Cool! What's the music like? Has Classical become the popular thing again, without Auto-Tune and Laptops dominating that particular media form? Are Radio Dramas big again? Shakespearean plays? Do we have some new, totally- foreign-to-the-modern-day method of entertaining the masses -besides- dropping kidnapped innocents onto a brutal, unforgiving Island disconnected from the rest of reality to broadcast to an audience of potentially millions?

Not the point. Now I'm derailing my own post, the original point of which being to ruin my nice guy reputation, take a seat, and tell you how I really feel.

I can't whole-heartedly agree with this, but I can half-ass it. I mind Out Of Canon characters. I do. It always gets my hackles up, palming my face, and spitting "AWWW!'s, groaning and sighing heavily when I see one. I grumble, complain, grind my teeth, complain some more, then Cherri gives me a cookie and tells me to get over it. And I do, and I eat my cookie, and I watch. Sometimes these Out Of Canon characters, these entities that shatter the Fifth Wall and laugh at it's corpse, these folk who flagrantly disregard the Canon I so crave and love, sometimes these people turn out to be really, *really* good fun to play with. So much that they earn complete redemption in my eyes and we laugh and frolic and make sandcastles out of Improbably Sticky Sand together. It's a good time.

Most of the time, they do not surprise me, and I go about my business. They're clearly having fun, I won't stomp on their thing (like I am now), and I'll go have fun with someone else. Generally speaking I stay where I am and just try to do my own thing there with other folks present. These people aren't hurting anyone, really. I guess. They tend to do a decent job mixing their Canon with ours, and honestly? I respect that kind of footwork. Most of the time they can give me a valid explanation about why X=Y and justify their narrative choices with more or less believable rationale.

That said, there are a few out there that *do not* properly follow their separate canon properly, or cannot justify the character beyond a MacGuffin and/or Deus Ex Machina and a flimsy post about Improbability, and *these*... THESE are the ones that drive me bat. Shit. CRAZY. I'm not going to cite examples, there's no need to pick fights, but I will make mention that the Canon's in question are, generally speaking, Canon's that I love as dearly as the Islands, and to see *both* Canon's twisted and bastardized with eachother so poorly makes this jaded, angry nerds heart cry. CRY in abject agony to see such things happening. It's like loving Oranges and Apples, but watching somebody smash, grind, squeeze and blend the tasty fruits together until they taste like Brussels Sprouts and ass.

These people I avoid, like plague rats, in order to keep my faith in Humanity at the level it's sitting. These people I quietly slip out of Outposts when I see writing in Story or Banter exclusively so I don't tarnish the name of Character and Clan when the Dam inevitably shatters and I start making a scene. These are the people I see and send Distractions or IM's to my Roleplay Partners and politely ask to be written out of the scene so I can log off or traipse away. If I look at a character and think to myself "My GOD! DID YOU EVEN READ THE SOURCE MATERIAL!" because of how *grossly* misrepesented their chosen Canon is, then I refuse to associate with said character. And I cry myself to sleep that night.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TL;DR: I don't like Non-Canon Characters, they bother me, but I do my best to tell myself I'm just being unreasonable and an asshole to think so, and I give them their fair chance. Some do *very* well, remarkably so, some are passable, and a few make me want Humanity to suffer a *real* Electro-Magnetic disaster so I won't be able to watch them systematically destroy two of my favourite Canon's anymore when the Internet, and all every computer, dies.

Feature Requests, Ideas and Feedback :: Re: Walls and Shops

Thu, 17 May 2012 22:22:51 +0100

By: Count+Sessine

Quote by: Ada

You can Danquest in a breached outpost - just enter the jungle directly, instead of going to the outpost first.

Nekops: Joe's Dojo closes at level 8, before the walls are breached. The CG is accessible from everywhere, so it's not a huge loss if it can't be reached from one outpost. City-specific things usually close at threat 7, so they're down before walls are, too. I believe the only exceptions are the ones in Cyb and IC.

You can get into the jungle from the map to quest without going through a breach, sure. You'll still have to get out, though, through the outpost -- which may involve a detour to the Failboat and the loss of all req accumulated while you were questing.

If you want to have full use of an outpost, it's better to be proactive and help to nail those monsters before they get up to numbers that would fuel a breach.

Again, let me put in a word for Buddleia's most excellent spreadsheet, http://tinyurl.com/IslandThreats. Whenever you have a choice about where to fight, it's worth checking that to see where your fighting skills would be most useful.

Feature Requests, Ideas and Feedback :: Re: Walls and Shops

Thu, 17 May 2012 21:04:43 +0100

By: Ada

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Thu, 17 May 2012 20:56:38 +0100

By: Lunasol

I think everyone here agrees... No one minds out of canon chars, as long as they're made well. No one, canon or not, likes a over powered god char. No one like a 1 DK char who can do anything anymore than say a proper Joker who can do anything. It's truthfully how it's played, and that's all that matters.

The best you can do is create a char and play them the best of your abilities and have fun. If others get upset, then try listening to some constructive criticism and hope you can make your char better for it.

Feature Requests, Ideas and Feedback :: Re: FEEDBACK: Puzzle Combat

Thu, 17 May 2012 19:03:22 +0100

By: Count+Sessine

When I wrote that parts of the game would need to be re-thought I was thinking mostly about Onslaught. That's expecting players to slaughter hundreds of monsters in an evening -- which is fine if each monster takes two seconds. Quantity versus quality... if each monster kill required twenty seconds from a player, the OST would have some difficulty, I expect, getting ten times as many recruits.

Then there's the way xp awards shift the numbers of monsters for each level as the DK count rises. At 145 DKs, most of my time each run is now spent fighting level 1 monsters. That's all right when it's 'click-BAM' each time, but if each fight took long enough for stun sequences to kick in, I'd be seeing, and having to focus on, the same twenty creatures over and over and over again. This would not improve my playing experience.

Many of the Hall of Fame lists would also become much harder for new players to advance in, giving an unfair advantage to those of us who racked up scores in the old system.

Puzzle Combat isn't going to be abandoned. As I understand it, it's a foretaste of what we'll get in Season Three -- after a full reset, with a brand new combat engine, and with all of the things that you mention (along with many others) being indeed rebalanced to produce a game with a very different feel to it.

No doubt that new system will turn out to have its flaws, too. But they'll be different flaws, and we will be able to spend endless enjoyable hours here in the forum, analyzing how that, in its turn, can be improved! :D

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Thu, 17 May 2012 17:18:55 +0100

By: LydiaDefountain

Quote by: Awesome+Fred

CMJ, you missed the sign on this thread.

Fixed for canon ;) :p

...rather poorly done edit too.. ya... I should have worked more on that but I found it funny personally..

Anyway I'm going to agree with most people here that the main goal is to have fun, canon or not, and I fully agree that the canon here is great. I enjoy it myself but everyone has their own interpretation of canon even still. And to me... that's all good. I'll nurse my little gripes about what I think is bad rp quietly in the corner here where no one can really see me. >.>

As I've heard it said: Opinions are like assholes.. everyone has one and it's hard not to end up looking like one when you share it.

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:01 +0100

By: Trowa

See, now, I was going to be all proud of not spending my whole life on this game and still getting as far as I have, and then you two went and ruined it with the revalation that "0.22s" is not really given in the correct units. It ought to be 0.22s/p, so show "seconds per page" of average page load time so the ratio next to it makes more sense! :lol:

And hey, Sessine! Only 1 day, 22 hours, 41 minutes, and 33 seconds left before you hit the big 1,000,000 seconds mark! :mrgreen:

As for remembering when I joined, that would be when I came across someone's depiction of their new kittymorph character on DeviantART in late December of 2010. So, like Lydia said, for me it's about remembering a specific event. (I may even rediscover the link to that picture sometime, but I think the player has since left the game.)

Feature Requests, Ideas and Feedback :: Re: FEEDBACK: Puzzle Combat

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:49:11 +0100

By: Awesome+Fred

Quote by: Count+Sessine

Yes. Yes I do.

Thing is, if this ever changes -- if the underlying battle engine changes to make fights last long enough to allow stun sequences to be a significant factor for high-DK players** -- much of the rest of the game will also need to be re-thought.

The honest truth of the matter is that I wonder sometimes how much weight this argument holds about the combat system. Currently, there's no limiting factor, no plateauing, no logarithmic growth inhibitor, etc. Maybe I'm unfairly grossing over the few things that ARE in place, but by and large, it looks like the current design is so unbalanced that trying to make a band-aid fix in order to make combat more interesting (by necessitating the stun sequence with longer fights) might be worthwhile.

When it comes to something like this, breaking a broken thing isn't always regrettable.

Puzzle Combat definitely has the potential to be a fun design. It's interesting, and strategy would make a real difference. I don't want the idea to be abandoned over its "failure" to take hold. We need to rebalance combat damage, HP, and maybe even Fight Stamina (for patience reasons) to get it right, but I think it might totally be worth it.

Still, is there anyone else who uses it constantly?

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:45:58 +0100

By: CavemanJoe

Quote by: Awesome+Fred

CMJ, you missed the sign on this thread.

DAMN IT I KNEW I MISSED SOMETHING! :mrgreen:

Feature Requests, Ideas and Feedback :: Re: Walls and Shops

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:40:59 +0100

By: Awesome+Fred

Don't forget Dan's Quest.

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:39:56 +0100

By: Awesome+Fred

CMJ, you missed the sign on this thread.

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:13:01 +0100

By: LydiaDefountain

I think mine is at 17.3 hours in about a years time. I only know I've been back.. from my hiatus.. (Rl stuff.. really did like the island... though I do remember it being really chaotic from the change from the pilot..) for about a year. I know this cause I came back about the time portal 2 was released mid April last year.

But ya to figure out when you joined.. only things like forum accounts or guessing or remembering a significant event will work exactly.

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:59:37 +0100

By: Count+Sessine

Quote by: Trowa

As for how long I've spent playing... I'm not sure how to read this:

Page gen: 0.02s / 4 queries (0.001s), cache 30 successful (0.002s) / 0 failed. Average for this account: 0.22s - 102746.575/466855

Do I look at the larger number? Is it in milliseconds or centiseconds? If centiseconds, then I've only "played" for 77.8 minutes in over a year. :D

That's your 'page gen' time, in seconds. That means you've spent about twenty-eight and a half hours... not playing the game. No. Waiting for the Island to respond after you clicked a link.

And the Island has showed you over four hundred and sixty-six thousand pages while you were logged in and playing Trowa.

Don't worry, though. You're not even in the Top 100 List of Island Obsessives. In any contest about who's spent the most time staring blankly at a screen just waiting for the Island to come back with the next page... I'd win. 9 days 15 hours 5 minutes 7 seconds, and counting. That's only Season Two. It's true, I have no life.

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:42:32 +0100

By: CavemanJoe

You keep talking about specific, predetermined roles. And specific ways to play. And coloring within the lines of a highly specific story.

I say again, what is it about my saying "It bothers me when you play a Nintendo character" that makes you think "I have to be a certain, very specific type of character," rather than "CMJ is bothered that I'm playing a Nintendo character?"

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:38:00 +0100

By: CavemanJoe

Page gen: 0.02s / 4 queries (0.001s), cache 30 successful (0.002s) / 0 failed. Average for this account: 0.22s - 102746.575/466855

To interpret this data!

Page gen: 0.02s (this is the amount of time it took to render this page) / 4 queries (0.001s) (the number of MySQL queries it took to do this page, and how long they took), cache 30 successful (0.002s) (the number and time of MySQL queries that we didn't have to do because their results change seldom enough that we can cache them) / 0 failed (the number of times we've tried to do a cached query but the cache was out of date or whatever so we ended up doing a normal MySQL query instead). Average for this account: 0.22s (your average page load time) - 102746.575 (total time, in seconds, you've spent loading pages) / 466855 (total number of pages you've loaded).

Hey Trowa, you're coming up on half a million pages. :) Also, a few centiseconds or milliseconds at a time, you've spent 28 hours of your life waiting for Improbable Island to load.

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:30:46 +0100

By: Full+Metal+Lion

Wow. I like cannons as much as the next guy, but roleplaying your character entirely within one? Seems like it'd get boring. And may The Network have mercy on your if someone decides to light the fuse...

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Thu, 17 May 2012 14:38:55 +0100

By: Trowa

I know in my case there was a good few weeks between registering in the forums after registering in the game. That was because the forums are really quite overwhelming for a noob. Occasionally I will dig through them and find some gems, or to remind myself why certain things are the way they are.

As for how long I've spent playing... I'm not sure how to read this:

Page gen: 0.02s / 4 queries (0.001s), cache 30 successful (0.002s) / 0 failed. Average for this account: 0.22s - 102746.575/466855

Do I look at the larger number? Is it in milliseconds or centiseconds? If centiseconds, then I've only "played" for 77.8 minutes in over a year. :D

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Thu, 17 May 2012 05:19:33 +0100

By: TeddybearofDeath

Quote by: CavemanJoe

For a start, mate, there isn't a damn thing that I'm too polite to say. I'm an evil overlord. What I wrote was "how I feel," not "ten per cent of how I feel and you can guess the other 90% because I'm too polite to say it." This, here, what you're doing, isn't just putting words in my mouth - it's putting thoughts in my head.

Is anyone fanatical about canon? How have we gone from my aversion to 1990's Nintendo characters to super-correct conformity?

Let me apologize then, because putting words in your mouth was not my intention. My point was, since I've been on this website and heard you speak, I always heard mostly positive things. I always thought, for better or worse writing and ideas, you looked at the site and said, "Wow, look at all these people enjoying what I've created." No matter how they were enjoying it (within the boundaries of the rules).

What I got from your post was, you looking at a typical snippet of Newhome, probably my own writing included and shake your head saying, "Well, there goes the neighborhood. Instead of building upon my ideas in the rules I set out, they've broken everything and made a mess of it."

Maybe I just interpreted it wrong, but it made me sad to think I might be contributing to that feeling in something you've worked so hard on and put so much thought into. I just wanted to have fun in a great community! It never occured to me that my using my own ideas outside of your established guidlines might be an unhappy thing for you.

As for your second note, are you kidding me? YES, some people are that fanatical about cannon! Did you see Dizzy's post earlier? That was one of the more polite ones, compared to how I've seen people freak out over cannon. Oh my god, I've had people flame and troll and freak out in banter conversations about how much they hate every character that breaks THEIR OWN interpretation of cannon, and how we shouldn't play at all if we can't keep cannon. Brought the topic up just out of curiousity in Kittania after I posted here last night, got chewed out and harrassed by a player instantly. Actual quote, 'If you can't play within the cannon, you shouldn't be here.'

I didn't used to care about what they thought. I used to just shrug it off, figuring everyone's entitled to how they want to play, and if they don't want to write with me because I don't suit their styles, they are ABSOLUTELY entitled to that. But when the game's creator tells you 'I'm writing things to try and get people to stop playing that way because I actually do not want you playing that way. It's not just whatever your comfortable with, THERE IS A SPECIFIC WAY TO PLAY.' I suddenly feel bad, because I didn't realize things were that way, and I feel like I've disrespected you now. That is what I meant.

I always had fun on the Island, because that's what I thought it was about. Doing what made you happy, within the rules. Not filling specific specific predetermined roles, and coloring only within the lines of a highly specific story.

I'm sorry, I should have exercised better judgement and probably kept these feelings to myself. I've probably made things worse, making you think I've put words in your mouth. But now that I'm in it, I want to at least try to clairify what I meant. I still don't know if I should stay on the Island or not. I'm not entirely clear on what our situation is. Do you think we shouldn't play, if we can't keep to strict cannon races, island entry, and story rules? Your opinion on this is the only one that influences my decisions because, this is your website and I don't want to be a part of a problem.

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Thu, 17 May 2012 05:15:36 +0100

By: Daedalus

Umm, did you mean from the date you created your (first?) Island character, or the number of hours that you have been logged on for since then? (which is what I think CMJ's reply is referring to.)

If it's the former, your forum user info says you registered on 7th December '09. (It's just over there in the User stuff next to your posts.) Was there a long delay between joining the Island and registering on the Enquirer page? Anyway, you can say 'at least since then', I guess.

D.

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Thu, 17 May 2012 04:44:04 +0100

By: CavemanJoe

In the fine print at the bottom of every page, you can see the total amount of time you've spent waiting for the server to process your requests.

Not the total amount of time you've spent playing, mind - the few centiseconds that happen between your request reaching the server, and the response being sent. For some of you, it's more than a day. Remember at the end of Final Fantasy, where it said "You've been playing for forty hours"? Like that, but instead of spending forty hours playing, we don't actually know how long you've spent playing - all we can tell you is that you've spent forty hours opening and closing the drive tray.

Feature Requests, Ideas and Feedback :: Re: Walls and Shops

Thu, 17 May 2012 01:56:05 +0100

By: Nekops

Keep in mind the fact that a breached Outpost is a deathtrap for low-level or poorly equipped characters. There's no display, really, that warns folks away, so having the walls there keeps people alive.

In addition, Joe's Dojo for the respective race, the Common Ground, the Pubs (as mentioned before by Ada) and various other city-specific resources are available to a city with walls... they're hardly useless. Walls allow lower-level characters to stay and fight for their homes, folks who can survive Jungling and can use the extra Req payouts but wouldn't last long in a Breach... and that is by no means a bad thing.

After all, we're all periodically in that low-level, ill-equipped group, as long as we're hunting the Drive.

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Thu, 17 May 2012 01:16:02 +0100

By: Harris

Quote by: Twosocks+Monkey

Quote by: Count+Sessine

Quote by: Hairy+Mary

Personally I rather prefer consistent, coherent "canonical" RP, but it's not the most important factor in how much I enjoy somebody's RP. Two kittymorphs smooching away is arguably plenty in canon but is also as dull as ditch water. On the other hand, my favourite RPer of all time (I'll go out on a limb and name names here, Uncle Bernard) played very fast and loose with canon. He'd use it if it was useful to him and ignore it when it wasn't. He also scored the highest on the Hairy Mary Grin Index of anybody.

I'd much rather that people were enjoying themselves in a stress free environment than spending all their time worrying if I liked it or not.

This.

Despite all my rants on Maniak's thread about RP, thirded, with vigor!

Also, hugs and cookies all around? We might be Island Family, but family doesn't always get along...and sometimes that's half the fun? (sometimes)

*Distracts everyone*

YAY FOR 10 COOKIES and DANCING!

:D

-Rose

Yes. Agreed. :mrgreen:

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Wed, 16 May 2012 23:39:32 +0100

By: Twosocks+Monkey

Quote by: Count+Sessine

Quote by: Hairy+Mary

This.

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Wed, 16 May 2012 23:13:56 +0100

By: Count+Sessine

Quote by: Hairy+Mary

This.

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Wed, 16 May 2012 22:26:01 +0100

By: Hairy+Mary

Quote by: dizzyizzy

Quote by: Count+Sessine

But then there's the ever-shifting, multi-strand Island of player story. Sometimes it is much like CMJ's Island. Sometimes it is very far removed -- and, you know, that's all right.

Why is that all right?

If you take a look at this here list, you'll find dozens and dozens of LoGD-based servers. Most of them are shit, and on those it's fine to have children and be a magical sex demon with a TARDIS or whatever's cool today. Why is that acceptable here? This is CMJ's Island. It has a canon, and a pretty freakin' cool one at that, one that is tons of fun to play within. What's the point of having CMJ at all if we're going to ignore his canon, just for the sake of not angering the shitty portion of the playerbase?

My you must have an angry, frustrating life. Isn't it easier and more fun to just ignore people who's RP you don't enjoy and go and do your own thing elsewhere instead? It's easier to put on a pair of shoes than to cover the world in leather and all that.

Personally I rather prefer consistent, coherent "canonical" RP, but it's not the most important factor in how much I enjoy somebody's RP. Two kittymorphs smooching away is arguably plenty in canon but is also as dull as ditch water. On the other hand, my favourite RPer of all time (I'll go out on a limb and name names here, Uncle Bernard) played very fast and loose with canon. He'd use it if it was useful to him and ignore it when it wasn't. He also scored the highest on the Hairy Mary Grin Index of anybody.

I'd much rather that people were enjoying themselves in a stress free environment than spending all their time worrying if I liked it or not.

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Wed, 16 May 2012 21:50:51 +0100

By: Lunatick

I always just figure the kids on the island were a result of being de-aged when they passed through the improbability bubble that surrounds the island. But I don't really RP so it never bothered me. As much as this is CMJ's game, it's our world and what we make it. Just take a look around the island at all of the crazy random Places that exist. IMO, this game is about having fun in whatever way you enjoy. If you want to focus on building great! Titan hunting? That's cool too. Etc etc. If someone wants to play as a kid I don't see a problem with as long as it doesn't get CMJ into any kind of legal problems. We're all adults here and everyone I've met so far has been pretty damn intelligent; childish people won't stay around because the game is all text based anyway. This community does a damn good job of self-regulating and I'm certain that if any of us saw something that was in poor taste we'd report it.

All that being said, I really don't understand the point of this thread. If you don't like RPing with people playing as kids just ignore them or go elsewhere.

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Wed, 16 May 2012 21:06:25 +0100

By: Ada

Quote by: CavemanJoe

Quote by: TeddybearofDeath

But now that I know that CMJ feels like we're stomping all over his idea, and is too polite to say so out right..

...

I don't want to piss on something so important to CMJ. I don't want to infringe on his ideas and creative freedoms. I don't feel like that's right...

Quote by: TeddybearofDeath

...I'm not saying this to say anyone else is wrong in wanting to play strict. I just had always hoped the Island wasn't that place where everyone was fanatical about cannon and super-correct conforming to ideas which aren't necessarily their own.

Is anyone fanatical about canon? How have we gone from my aversion to 1990's Nintendo characters to super-correct conformity?

CMJ, I think what Teddy means here is to compare the Island to other roleplays, where people ARE fanatical about canon. Of course, Teddy can answer that precisely, but it's definitely something that sets the Island apart from some (many?) other roleplays. I'd never roleplayed anywhere else before because anywhere I was linked to seemed so bloody complicated, all these rules to learn and character proposals to fill out and what if I screwed up.

Teddy's reaction basically sums up what I had thought about saying earlier but hadn't: I don't think writing more stories will really mean that more people follow the established CMJ-says canon. The people who "break canon" are, I believe, completely aware that they are doing so, and do so because they want to. Unless you also put up a big ol' sign that says "Hey new people, please follow the canon and don't play dragons or pokemon or whatever!", I don't think you'll see any change in the proportion of people playing canon/not-canon.
(But, really, as much as I dislike seeing characters that don't seem to fit in any way with the Island "aesthetic", I can't see any logical game-reason to do so. We fight Mario in the jungle, so when we see Contestant Mario, can we really be surprised?)

Out-of-Game :: Re: How Long Has It Been?

Wed, 16 May 2012 20:49:18 +0100

By: Ada

Pester a mod? (Don't everyone do this at once or they will come after me!)

Places: General :: Re: Getting past Onslaught to the Scrapyard

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:29:28 +0100

By: fledermaus

I've updated my daily status script to track hunger too.
It harvests the 'still hungry/room for more' etc message
after you eat at a restaurant, cook up a kill, or eat a
rat pack (or chug an energy drink).

http://users.pepperfish.net/vivek/ii/ii-daily-status.user.js

Let me know how it works.

As to levels... the monster increase rate is randomised
per outpost, and also tied to the number of people who have
been logged on (anywhere on the island) in the last "while".

So if there were a lot of people on a while ago, and now
nobody's around, any outpost with a high spawn rate is going
to head into trouble.

I think we can see that in the patterns, although the random
nature of the spawn rate might cloud the issue.

Kitt and NH never seem to be in any kind of danger. I'm not sure
anyone even needs to fight there to keep them safe.

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Wed, 16 May 2012 17:25:14 +0100

By: Count+Sessine

Quote by: CavemanJoe

For a start, mate, there isn't a damn thing that I'm too polite to say. I'm an evil overlord.

Believe it, Teddy! :mrgreen:

But... I will let you into a secret -- this evil overlord is a very nice guy. He actually wants you to have fun.

The downside of being an evil overlord is that people will go and extrapolate an expression of mild distaste into a decree. This is a mistake, folks. If there's ever a decree -- I promise, you'll know it.

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Wed, 16 May 2012 16:10:00 +0100

By: CavemanJoe

Quote by: TeddybearofDeathBut now that I know that CMJ feels like we're stomping all over his idea, and is too polite to say so out right..

...

I don't want to piss on something so important to CMJ. I don't want to infringe on his ideas and creative freedoms. I don't feel like that's right...

Quote by: TeddybearofDeath
...I'm not saying this to say anyone else is wrong in wanting to play strict. I just had always hoped the Island wasn't that place where everyone was fanatical about cannon and super-correct conforming to ideas which aren't necessarily their own.[/p]

Is anyone fanatical about canon? How have we gone from my aversion to 1990's Nintendo characters to super-correct conformity?

Out-of-Game :: Re: No, you cannot have children, stop yer asking.

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:34:15 +0100

By: Awesome+Fred

I don't understand this topic.

Fictional child-sex is illegal under the UK's broad child protection or obscenity laws, and the onus falls upon the site's host. By the frequency of sexual content on this site, pretending to be a child or have a child cuts too close to the danger zone, so it should be against site rules for the sake of legal safety.

Roleplaying a pregnancy in a war-torn environment isn't wrong because it's realistically stupid (it's, in fact, stupidly realistic), it's because it introduces the potential for legal repercussions.

Almost every one of you people who likes to play pretend enjoys some players' ideas and dislikes other players' ideas, CMJ included. Big whoop. CMJ said it himself, his "because Improbability" catch-all makes almost ANYTHING fair game.

Still, we play within an established universe, which has a canon. Most people enjoying a story want to see it being internally consistent, which is made easier when things can be explained "because Improbability". If the writing of the game keeps mentioning that almost everyone is infertile, then that's canon for this game's story, and you can choose whether to respect it or not. (Although... wouldn't it be IMPROBABLE to be having a baby even though everyone's infertile?!)

OT: "Everyone can RP the way they want, except for child porn, though I personally find some RP annoying." Yeah... that about covers it.

FML speaks the truth. This has been the case, and it still is the case. Don't involve children because of legal issues. Don't be a dick. Otherwise, go wild.

For the record, I like seeing the pokemon and batman and all the other pop-culture references and fanfiction cross-overs. I think it comes together to make the Island more amusing, like a cosplay convention of sorts.

Places: General :: Re: Getting past Onslaught to the Scrapyard

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:34:14 +0100

By: Trowa

Ahh.... Okay! So the New Day Tracker is really only good for non-Joker and non-robot characters. It's probably useful for WCG folks, though? (Of which I'm not because reasons....) I suppose that's alright. I was hoping the tracker was extracting information from some hidden source so I could see what my hunger levels were for picking the days to maximize my stamina at Mutated Munchies. :lol:

(I was just realizing we should probably make a new thread for all these non-council-office-related GM scripts...)

So, back on topic: Are we starting to see some daily patterns yet? I try to get on in the mornings now to log the threat levels. It feels like we're back in the pattern of early-morning threat levels rising while there's fewer people online.