GraspingVileTerror

It's an idea which has come up from time to time in the past: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/26189-random-costume/ https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/25776-de-randomize-random-in-character-creator/ Hopefully a Dev will pick it up as a personal project, or the Dev Team will expand to include someone interested in doing it.

So, just saw Free Guy. Was a good movie! As ever, Ryan's a darling. A true Canadian treasure! Pretty good messaging too, for the most part. Struck a few nerves (in a good way) regarding game development and shutting down an MMO (sound familiar, anyone?). Also struck a nerve or two in a less-than-good way here and there, but not enough to totally undermine the good elements. It's kind of funny . . . I was wrestling with making a ranty/thesis'y post in the forums a few weeks ago, but I never got around to it. If I were to post it now, though, I think this movie might slightly undermine the foundation of that post's central message. So, I'll put it on hold for a while longer, and maybe try to rework the message so it won't sound so echo'y of the core message from Free Guy. In short . . . I recommend it to anyone who knows that: It's never just a game. *looks toward all those fellow players who were /em holdtorch'ing back in 2012*

The idea, @Magairlín, is to eventually arrange for various "roleplay seeds" and "caretakers" for each day and/or location. I would set them up with some items to help incentivize and reward roleplayers . . . buuuuut I'm not there yet. So, in the meantime, I just encourage anyone and everyone to check out the various Roleplay-a-Day sites around their preferred playtimes, and see if they don't bump in to fellow roleplayers. Basically, just another tool for the community to use, if they want, to facilitate roleplay and meeting fellow roleplayers, just like the OOC/RP Global Channels.

I think it would be interesting if we had a version of Zeus that was unabashedly hedonistic and self-centred (whether the host was Cole, Richter, or someone else entirely), much more like the version from mythology I am familiar with, while simultaneously we had a more noble form of Tartarus as the divine punisher of the truest evils and warden of the most dangerous threats. What would THAT have looked like?

I like @Cirque's suggestion for a middle ground. Maybe a minor, non-intrusive visual effect which pops off next to the player-character's name bar, maybe a little fanfare. I'm imagining a costume contest event where it's like a little mini fireworks display. Public, but not "scored" on a permanent tally card. Kudos, Cirque.

I thought this topic had come up a time or two before, and I've found the one I was looking for! https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/11057-question-on-playing-a-truly-vile-villain/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-127992

Given the rest of the architecture and city planning Blueside, are you really that surprised?

The biggest concern I have is suggesting that Badges (or any kind of "scoring") is added to this idea. If the "Likes" remain entirely private to the player, then I certainly wouldn't object. But in tying any kind of public way to review it will only "gamify" it. Once gamified, the original intent as you describe it @Phanto would be largely lost in the pursuit of players gathering Likes from friends or alt accounts expressly for increased points. While it has potential merit for market research, that wouldn't need to be public to players. But then we would run in to problems with that data being potentially misinterpreted or tailored to fit an agenda. I had unreasonable hopes for the Reputation system here on the forums ( https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/15491-forum-reputation/ ). While it's been somewhat fun to review them and theorize on the implications, they've been weaponized and subverted an inordinate number of times. Their positive informative value has seriously been eroded due to that. I expect that something of that nature added to the game itself would be treated very, very similarly. So . . . I'm not necessarily against it, but I do recognize it as being a potential can of worms. (Personal experiment time! I'll decode https://forums.homecomingservers.com/profile/42940-graspingvileterror/?status=84&type=status if someone reminds me to do so after a couple of weeks have gone by. Will be nice to be wrong.)

Where "Enough" is an entirely subjective quantity, based on your personal satisfaction and the amount of time you personally deem appropriate.

I speak to the other player(s) involved in the roleplay, and we hash it out together. Sometimes we have characters who have "holding patterns" which we agreed to either before or after, which may recontextualize certain narrative elements, but largely keeps the story cohesive. Other times we play it so that the characters' stories only progress when we're both/all online together, or sometimes when a couple of us are online together if not all of us (if 3 out of 4 players are on together, so sorry to that 1 who isn't, but we're moving on). And other times still, the characters just have whatever encounters they do, and overarching narratives get thrown on their heads or out the window as necessitated by the other encounters. I generally aim for them in the order I listed here when I get to choose to prioritize. In the absence of being able to communicate with the other players, for example with Meana on my @ImpousVileTerror account, where one of the two key players for that character's personal story stopped playing during the height of the pandemic, I held out for a long while, but ultimately made the call to consider that half of the story broken, and moved on with the other player.

I'm generally supportive of additional options, but I think this might be best solved with a keybind: /bind KEY "tell $target, (( Nice look! ))" If the Devs feel up to adding that as a new default keybind for new characters, I wouldn't be opposed. Just so long as it doesn't override any players' existing personal keybinds.

Also of note: Victory Rush doesn't work on your Pets or ally's Pets. Just player-characters. I'm not sure why it was designed with this limitation, but it means that what at first seems like a great way to prevent your Henchpets from running out of Endurance, actually isn't.

I think it was implied to be, yes. Can't think of anything explicitly stating so, though. Maybe it was something from an A.M.A.?

Then we would be on the correct timeline, rather than the one which Silos fudged up, @TraumaTrain.

https://thegamehers.com/vote I figured I'd make a little effort to signal boost this, and tag a few folks who I think may be interested in checking it out: @EmmySky, @TwoDee, @CrystalDragon, @MunkiLord, @HelBlaiz, @teamtr, @TorrentYed, @betsumei, @Sunsette, @rookery., @Fermmoylle, @toxiclight, @BluWitch, @Rikti Apologies if I misread any of you as being interested, and apologies to anyone who I may have missed or forgotten!

Alternatively, adjusting the Steel Canyon spawns so that the Council don't always get annihilated by the 5th would go a long way to alleviate the problem. Maybe stage a few spawns where the tables are turned, and one 5th soldier is at the mercy of seven Council members instead.

Poor @Lunchmoney. The necromancer's post has been hidden or deleted, leaving Lunch holding the bag.

Oh, I don't mean the Recipe, @Troyusrex. These were the completed Enhancements. But, yeah. Recipes are dirt cheap. Back in 2019, before I realized how silly it was to do, I would buy level 50 Recipes for 500 Inf or less, and Vendor them. Not a productive thing to do, but still profitable, even today.

Not sure if scathing takedown of existing content on the forums at large . . .

Ah, fair. Would you be able to let us know which software it was that you used, so we may avoid it, please?

"Alarm" for the Endurance thing? I don't follow.

I'm probably overdue for another Rikti Monkey Fight Club event ( https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/15702-monkey-fight-club-its-not-a-secret-anymore/ ). If anyone's interested, that is. While not a guaranteed place for Redside hanging outs, I -think- it's been fairly productive at getting some Redside roleplay brewing from time to time.

Not to discount any of the other impactful contributions from other community members in this thread, but I just want to express special kudos to three of you: @teamtr: Thank you for this thread. Thank you! @TwoDee: Might I be able to do anything to encourage you to post more often? On a few occasions now you've been able to encapsulate thoughts I've had much more efficiently than I could (particularly some key points in that recruitment thread from June). More, please. @Kelri Irris: Big round of applause for you too! My personal view is kind of a combination of the three of yours. I think if I were to try to add anything further, then I might be crossing the line in to "overshare" territory. I'll do it, but only if enough people actually want to see that sort of thing.

Just make sure that you're not hiding any real bigotry behind those themes, as people tend to pick up on that with relative ease, and it will be rightly reported to the GMs for review. ie: Being a human supremacist who wants to destroy magic, gods, and the like would probably be fine to roleplay as. Targeting a specific faction in the setting which is represented by a marginalized group (ie: Specifically targeting Croatoan Witches with an anti-magic screed) is probably pushing it. Inserting any kind of allegorical association between the magical characters in the game with a real-world group of people and calling for their wholesale extermination is definitely crossing a line. NOTE: I am not a GM. The above is merely my reading of the Code of Conduct as it applies to your question. I'll tag a few GMs who may wish to further delineate where they feel the line starts, and where it's definitely considered crossing it. @GM Impervium, @GM Kaiju, @GM Widower, @GM Kal (apologies to any GM who I may have forgotten who tends to perform outreach in regard to these sorts of questions.) Also note: Just because a GM doesn't feel a player has crossed an actionable line doesn't mean that the character, concept, or roleplay is necessarily appropriate either. One may still end up driving away any other players, even if the roleplay isn't a clear violation of the Code of Conduct. Persistently trying to get other players to engage with subject matter which they are not comfortable with could be grounds for reports of harassment. Just things to keep in mind. But . . . all that said . . . There is definitely merit in exploring such subject matter through the safety of fictional roleplay with informed consenting partners. Play responsibly and with respect for other players and real-world peoples, and you should be fine.