Thank you Waverly,

I tried to write a meaningful post back but all I really want to say is Thanks and Good Post.

-Rose

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moooooooooo Visit and help me finish the monster list: goo.gl/rpBGe (Ya'll mostly know me as CLOG, fyi)

This post makes me sad.

Because it is true.

I am the same. When I started playing II, it was all about the socialising. Doing the things that I have just dismissed as "inane" and "unnecessary". I had a great deal of fun just being silly hanging out with friends.

Then I saw some people doing really interesting writing. I was inspired; I wanted to become A Better Writer, and started logging scenes - and thinking of them as Roleplaying Scenes, written by narrators about characters, rather than just "hanging out having fun with friends". I started putting in a lot of effort, really thinking through each line I posted, trying to write A Good Story and A Good Scene and A Good Character. I became disappointed in and no longer enjoyed what I had learned to judge as Not Good Writing and Not Good Characters/Plotlines/Scenes/etc. I became one of the Veterans With Standards.

What does this mean for me? I hardly roleplay at all, nowdays. When I do, every word is agonised over, and I have much less fun. I no longer have any close friends who I play with. I spend most of my time travelling and hunting and building/writing/programming my Places, or lurking to read other peoples' writings.
What does this mean for other people? They see hardly anything of Buddleia at all - though what few scenes they may find in obscure places are perhaps tolerably well written as stories to be read.
What does it mean for CMJ? Less load on the servers from my posting, certainly, but also less in donations. I totted up how much it's been since I started playing, and I'm not going to publicise the total - but I gave more than half of it in my first year, and it's been steadily tailing off. Admittedly I lost my job and there are now fewer Shiny Things to buy which I don't already have, but nowdays I mostly donate to say "thanks for fixing that bug, it pleases me" or "want that shiny" rather than "thanks for all the awesome times and delightful fun you're providing me with".

So, yes, thank you for posting that, Waverly. It really reminded me and really got the message across that other people are having fun and if I'm not enjoying it then that's my problem.



Ok, that was off-topic for the original purpose of the thread. I'll go back to Global Banter now.

So far, I haven't really liked it because, as above, I have become a critical recluse, and suddenly everywhere there were lots and lots and lots of people posting very fast having fun and I couldn't make head or tail of any of it. The few things I wanted to see got scrolled off the page within minutes. Yup, chaos, just as I predicted.


Oddly enough, seeing where it's going, I find: I would actually like there to be a Local Banter in outposts (for local scene-related messages), and a Global Banter for everything-related everything, and a Different Global Banter equivalent for ... for things which aren't socialising. (IE, Location Four.) Since there's a Story channel, Location Four for rookie questions and Titan-spotting / free logs / today's foods / etc, and now the 25c-a-post Noticeboard ... ok, how many channels can we fit on a page, and which should be viewed via a link?

- I'm happy with L4 being in a sidebar link, though if it's going to take the place of the old Global Banter as an island-wide Slow Discussions thing then it would be nice if it was available from everywhere like Old Global was.
- New Global Banter as it is ideally would be in the same Banter channel position.
- New Local Banter, if it comes back, also ideally would be in the same banter channel position.
- Outpost Noticeboards, I guess it makes sense that those are only visible from in Outposts?
- And Story is everywhere except the places it isn't (though of course having more Story channels in restaurants as well as pubs, map, outposts, Places etc would also be cool).

What I think would be cool, for managing all these different channels ... would be if we could chose which ones were open and closed, and how to stack/split them. My ideal arrangement would be

Storystorystorystorystory
Storystorystorystorystory
Storystorystorystorystory
Storystorystorystorystory
-------------------------------------
LocalLocal | GlobalGlobal
LocalLocal | GlobalGlobal
-------------------------------------
NoticeboardNoticeboard
NoticeboardNoticeboard

(Horrible ASCII Diagrams a speciality! Contact your nearest Buddleia to commission Even Uglier ASCII Arts!) But this will be different for everyone, and I may want to turn off Banters as and when. Of course, we can't have infinitely many channels to post into, and they can't all be on the screen all the time. I dunno. Yes, you can use gchat and Distractions and so on for most things, but there are many things I miss about having a Local Banter and a slow Global Banter.

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Improbable Reference Links - goo.gl/MRBnb -------------- Land Registry (map of Places) ---- goo.gl/bpkRR

Buddleia, I'm a master at ASCII art, drop a line when you need it.

EDIT: Odd, it seems a link is created when you type GLOBAL in code.

I like the new banter...

mostly because.. why my character has ic'ly become a bit reclusive.. she heads out to outposts on occation just.. not as much.. there hasn't been much new of trouble or anything that has reached her, and she doesn't need to go in to get her training/fighting done...

For and I don't have as much time to rp for hours in outposts where the posting speed is faster then perhaps I can do while doing housework(or particularily avoiding housework) while rping.

I Really like global banter because I can just post random sillyness, it can become a bit of a scene if I can post a few quick posts but then I can be silent and just read up at my leasure and enetertainment and not worry about feeling I need to post quick.. because it is banter not story.. it is the place of sillyness and ooc interactions

and now I'm not just the slow posting recluse in my Oasis.

I find it great for building.. sure there was the old global banter and I could rp a bit with Sonny and Omega and full Metal lion as the mood struck but being in a new tab I tended to forget I have it open and stop posting.. and if people aren't posting within 5min or so there well everyone seems to leave... which happened often.

The place options sound awesome too and will likely help ease up on the speed of the one big Banter.

I Really like this banter.

I don't think it's a problem that folk have their, uh... "romantic fun pile" (for lack of a better term, I swear!) that they're writing in Banter. I don't think it's a problem to have or to write. I DO think it's a bad thing to write that only in Banter, though.

I remember before we had banter, when folks would post the sort of antics we're now used to seeing in Banter, in Story. And yeah, many of us who didn't initiate any such thing, myself included sometimes were not in the mood to participate, or even address anyone in such a confusing morass of plotless goofiness, BUT.

As has already been said in here, what happened to art for art's sake? -What happened to goofiness for goofiness' sake in this game about fighting the Improbability Drive on a reality TV show with Robots and Midgets? It has largely moved to Banter. Why? I would speculate that it's because writing all of that in the chat channel is easier than writing it in Story- it's easier to go where there is no necessity for making sure you're staying in a coherent plot/ interacting with the setting in meaningful ways/what have you.

The reason why I say posting the truly insane goofiness only in Banter is bad twofold- because THIS IS IMPROBABLE ISLAND. It has chainsaw chuks, foetid Midget brothels, and that truly terrifying silent killer... THE MOOSE.

No no no no no NO, this is NOT a game for SERIOUS BUSINESS.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't mean serious stories (or subplots)have no place. They do. Good humor is balanced by a good balance with tension/drama/etc., and good drama is balanced well with a well-timed joke or two. Or nine. I just mean that SERIOUS is NOT a PREREQUISITE, and don't let ANYONE tell you OTHERWISE.

(This message brought to you by Corporal Punishment)

The final point that I find the completely unstructured silliness being kept in Banter is this: Ever sat down to play a game with friends, and you all got together to play this game, and all said you wanted to... and a group splits off from everyone else to do their own thing, while everyone else is still playing the first game? And neither of the (NOW two groups) ends up paying much attention to each other, because they're no longer playing the same game, and are naturally focused on each separate thing they're doing?*


*Yes, I have. I play tabletop roleplaying games regularly, and OH BOY is this easy to have happen.

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"Ain't nothin' left to do but smile, smile, smile." -The Grateful Dead

Footnote: I just realized I have no idea how to talk about this feature without talking about what we have been using it for, just as much as what we can use it for. Hmm...

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"Ain't nothin' left to do but smile, smile, smile." -The Grateful Dead

We're certainly learning things, aren't we?

Even if we do end up going back to local-only Banter (and I still think it's too early to say whether we will or we won't), we've certainly come away from the experience wiser for having had it.

No kidding. Waverly's post in particular was the most interesting that I've seen for a long time.

Grey, interesting point you are bringing up with the meaning of banter.

Hairy Mary, Fred and Sessine, thanks for your insights/advice/examples on debating, I will try to remember and use them.


Waverly, Buddleia, Grey and also Fred, you explained it perfectly.
It feels to me like sometimes the same sort of separation of groups also permeates the forum, and some might try to force their standards on all the rest. Then, once their counterparts get tired of it and stay silent, an agreeable consent is found, everyone left moves to a new topic, and the rest is forgotten. In short, discussing till enough people give up so their controverse opinions can seemingly be dismissed and never acknowledged again.
Eventually someone new might bring it up, only to be directed to the old thread and sort of told that things have been decided to be so and so, and that's it, or the same process happening anew.

Mind you, I might exagerate a bit, and I'm not saying it is always happening. It could easily be only me being very sensitive to any sort of peer pressure and elitism and whatever else there is, and as was said by other much better, people might not be aware of others percieving it as such. I really don't intend to accuse anyone in specific, I just try to express my thoughts, and hope I did it better this time.


And Harris, yes, I have no experience in debating, I try not to take it personal, but I don't know what you want to hear. I won't do any name-calling, and I can't make a list of all the bits that led me to my conclusions or what exactly caused me to voice them here just now. If you feel offended by my unexperienced attempt at preventing what I thought might happen again as described above, and reminding everyone, including me, to be courteous, considerate - and maybe that some just want to post what they wanted to say, and not get further involved in lengthy discussions. That some are just new to the game and not prepared to be bombarded with deep analyses of their opinions by people with years of experience in this game and knowledge of all the discussions that came before . That too much dissecting and countering of their posts might keep people from coming back - well, then I seem to have failed. Sorry.
I hope it wasn't too vague for you this time.


I had no time to take a look at the new banter in places, but I think there are many that will like being connected to the rest of the island while building or RP. It's a good feature, and bound to have more activity compared to the other global. (because there is no alternative )


LydiaDefountain, yes, I also often forgot I had global open when I did other things simultaneously, but at least it was slow enough to catch up when I remembered about the Island.
I prefer slower outposts, because it gets stressful to try and keep up with the fast RP, and it's too easy to overlook the partner's lines. Not that I played much in the last months, but I at least had to try the new features. =)


And to Harris' other post. I think I understand what you mean there. It really can be hard to find the right balance.
RP depends a lot on the payers' moods. Maybe that also feeds into your theory, in that at some point the funny, crazy sort of stuff shifted too much into banter and story became more and more serious, because the players at that moment looking for fun found it in banter, and those looking for the serious stuff in story? Then over time it just amplified, till now the fun and crazy-centered stories tend to happend somewhere else?



CMJ! You gave us some interesting and cool new things lately. Thanks for them, no matter how much I complain, or this new banter turns out!


I think this was enough for now, and you might not get another reply out of me for some time :3

**foot shuffle**

I'll admit. I have warmed up to the new banter. 's not so bad.

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"Optimist: Person who travels on nothing from nowhere to happiness." -Mark Twain.

:/ I still prefer old banter with Global being separate.

I still believe the new banter will slow down as the place options roll out.. are they coming before we declare if the experiment is good or bad? please? it would likely drastically change some peoples opinions if we had a better idea of what all it is going to be together... I know coding takes a bit longer but... pretty please?

I think when people have banter options the global banter will move a bit slower as some of the rp specific banter gets to be in their place

I dunno, it's warming up to me too.

Instead of logging on and being bored, at least now I always have someone to talk to. And the hugglepouncesquee, I noticed, is lessening a bit. But it's not too serious. We are at an acceptable level of silly.

So. We're learning about how people use Banter for different things, and how people use Banter for Story-related things (which was originally a BIG part of why I made the Banter channel in the first place).

Would there be any interest in a feature where you could type, say:

And it would show up as:

01m02s Admin CavemanJoe passes you a box.00m50s Admin CavemanJoe says "The box I just gave you has an amorous badger in it."00m20s Player McConfused opens the box. "Oh... my."

And the Aside comment would auto-GREM itself thirty seconds later?

My preciousss..... Ahem. I mean, yes, I would have much interest in playing with this feature.

That seems rather useful.. especially for when in a outpost and people are rping quicker.. And maybe even for things like ooc in common grounds.. ya that seems cool..

Though just as a question would a /aside60 be doable as well

Just cause I'm not sure I see most posts with 30 seconds.. when my connection was bad I had to manually refresh and didn't see the posts for 45 secs at the fastest.. but when in an outpost now with a decent connection I think seeing something within the min is doable..

To differentiate it, the output could be

Oh, another thought. Maybe go a bit further, and to separate it from actual in-character roleplay, surround it in parenthesis?

So becomes:



Just got another suggestion: why not use the disabled `J blue color for those?

Would these Asides be posted into Story or Banter?

It does sound like they might be rather cool (and I do like the idea of their transience being indicated somehow), but they would only work for people who

a) have Autoupdate turned on, and
b) Autoupdate is working correctly for them, and
c) they are paying close attention to the correct channel at the right time.

For instance, I usually leave UA turned off. Even when roleplaying - just hitting Refresh every few minutes is fine with me, if people aren't posting a mile a minute. So unless an /aside300 or more was used, I wouldn't see them.

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Improbable Reference Links - goo.gl/MRBnb -------------- Land Registry (map of Places) ---- goo.gl/bpkRR

I would agree with Buddleia. Anything self-deleting sounds good, but a minor technical hitch or a real-life distraction would be all it would take to make it defeat its own purpose.

Speaking for myself, I can't make use of auto-update most of the time, so anything less than a few minutes would have a good chance of being effectively invisible to me.

Self-destructing posts?! That is so fucking brilliant I have to go change my pants.

I do agree they should be differentiated from normal posts, too, maybe with parenthesis (normal for ooc comments in roleplaying chatrooms in my experience) or something else extra-special.

As my own aside: I've toyed with the idea of using the `m code to make text invisible in Story posts to provide beneficial (or silly) information to the other player(s) without ruining the flow, but I'm not entirely comfortable with it because sometimes it's easy to miss, especially considering I don't know how the other person's screen looks (or if they use a screen reader, maybe! that would be awkward).

Aside-aside: I agree with lots of the posts since Waverly's. The most interesting aspect to me is that many of us have had such similar experiences.

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Something something unintelligible gibberish something.