Long, eventful day (FFXI and MUSH)
Jul. 29th, 2006 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserZzzzz. Did so much today. Day didn't have a great start (I never thought that "getting up on the wrong side of the bed" was a real thing, but this morning I woke up in an awful mood for no good reason), but luckily it got better.
BRD static met today, and for the first time ever it was a little rough. I died twice, though once was the game's fault. (Our puller and other party's puller hit a mob at the same time, other party got the claim. Other party escaped, and the beetle came and attacked us since our puller did damage. The name remaining purple as it killed us one by one.) The other time was just because we had an add and I couldn't keep it asleep. *gnaws on Mary's Horn* Thanks, silly sheep-horn.
Then a Besieged hit, which I should have been YAY about. It was time to try out my plan! Go as BRD 39! Well, on the up side: I did get full reward (and only one death!), but on the other? It lasted more than two hours, the last hour spent on a NM who could only be meleed -- magic healed him. So there I was, DRK 75, at the event as BRD 39, when melees were needed.
This NM was something else. 700+ people meleeing him (every other mob dead) and more than an hour later it still had 25% of its life left. This would have been all well and good if I were: 1) A melee, and 2) Didn't have people waiting on me. :(
I guess either I'll go back to Besieging as a DRK or just stop going. 700 XP for two hours work is seriously sucky. I know I used to go because it was fun, and maybe it would be if I had been DRK and not BRD, but today it wasn't any at all.
And as the last event of the day, wonderful![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
loneguardian lead a small group of us around to get those portal thingies for Assaults! Yay! I have four of the five (missing only the Mamook one, because we're waiting for the chocobo NPC to come back). I can say that if my RL life depended on me getting the one in that undead place (with all the ships, the one where COR is opened) I wouldn't be around to be typing this post. Forget about aggro, so many chances for wrong turns! (For people who don't know me, saying I have no sense of direction is an understatement. I've been living in this apartment for 5 or 6 years, and I can still get lost in my own neighborhood if I don't follow my exact route. Construction blocking a road? Send out the search party for me!)
I'm so very very very happy to have those portals. Yay!
This isn't the first time I've set out to post about this. I've tried (and then deleted) three or four times before. (juliansinger spotted one attempt when I failed to edit the title.) In the end I felt that since I was staff, I should not write anything unless I could say glowingly positive things. However I'm no longer staff, so now I'll say what I feel.
Reminder: These are only my opinions, my point of view, etc. They are in no way an official statement from PokeMUSH-whatever-its-name-is-now.
Two years ago, PokeMUSH closed. The game I had put many years of my life into, more hours a day than my RL job. It lasted a long time, way longer than most MUSHes, and while it's closing was sad, it was the right thing to do. (Better closed than full of sucky RPers/players.)
About six months ago, a former player approached me and asked if she could re-open the game and try to run it herself. I let her. I seriously, seriously, seriously questioned how much success she would have (I know what it takes to make a game successful, I know what it takes to be the headwiz of a game, and I know just how (un)popular Pokemon now is), but hey, no skin off my nose if she wanted to try.
The game gathered dust, and then a couple weeks ago a former staffer approached me to ask if she could try reopening it. I explained that I gave it to the player, and if the two could work it out, go for it. I had some of the same doubts, but hey, if nothing else I'd see some of my old friends on a MUSH again. Since I wrote the majority of the game's code, I signed on as code wiz and nothing else. (Alix wrote a lot of the early code, a lot of important stuff, then I added a ton more.)
All along I said I didn't want to be involved in anything but code -- no players, nothing else, just code. And, as with the earlier attempt to bring the game back, I kept saying and telling myself that I didn't care. The old game closed a long time ago, and even if they reopened without changing anything, it wouldn't be the same. I don't care, I don't care, I don't care.
But I did, kinda. No matter how much I told myself I didn't, I did. But I said I wanted to be hands-off, and I did want to be hands-off, so I sat back and didn't get involved in anything other than code-related stuff. No matter how strongly I disagreed with some decisions, no matter what wrong paths I thought people were on, unless it was code-related (or a few colorful bits from our history) I kept my mouth closed.
Some things were asked of me that I didn't like (such as listing the pokemon that I am in my +finger -- I can't think of a single pokemon I'd want to be associated with.), but they was mostly harmless so I gave in on them.
Then I was told that I'd have to change my name. Not only have I been nothing but "Thistle" online for more than five years, the request seemed very... dishonest to me. The head wiz asked it of me because she wanted no ties to the old game, yet the same grid was being used, the same code, the same help files, much of the same news files, etc. It was the exact same MUSH, with a few minor changes (and an expansion on the theme).
If you want to make a new game, then make one. Don't take the years of work, thousands of hours, and slap a new name on it and call it a new game.
I am Thistle, and that database is PokeMUSH. Renaming either does not change what they are, and if anyone believes that to be the case, well then I'll have to disagree with you. :)
To try to be fair to both sides: 1) When I okayed the changing of ownership of the game, I was told they were thinking about making some pretty radical changes in theme, and I said that was fine. 2) A week or so ago the headwiz asked me if I thought players would get confused and come to me for stuff, thinking I was still head wiz (I replied that I'd just correct them if they did). So while the name thing didn't totally come out of the blue, changing it from something to think about to a demand was.
firebyrd, I know my wording here is more certain than it was in my email to you. It took me a day of thinking about it to realize that "dishonest" was what I was feeling when I commented about the game being opened as a "new" game when in fact it very much isn't.
So, as I said in my resignation letter, I wish those left on the project the best of luck.
Man, that took way too long to write. I'm up too late again! I'm so bad! To bed with me!
BRD static met today, and for the first time ever it was a little rough. I died twice, though once was the game's fault. (Our puller and other party's puller hit a mob at the same time, other party got the claim. Other party escaped, and the beetle came and attacked us since our puller did damage. The name remaining purple as it killed us one by one.) The other time was just because we had an add and I couldn't keep it asleep. *gnaws on Mary's Horn* Thanks, silly sheep-horn.
Then a Besieged hit, which I should have been YAY about. It was time to try out my plan! Go as BRD 39! Well, on the up side: I did get full reward (and only one death!), but on the other? It lasted more than two hours, the last hour spent on a NM who could only be meleed -- magic healed him. So there I was, DRK 75, at the event as BRD 39, when melees were needed.
This NM was something else. 700+ people meleeing him (every other mob dead) and more than an hour later it still had 25% of its life left. This would have been all well and good if I were: 1) A melee, and 2) Didn't have people waiting on me. :(
I guess either I'll go back to Besieging as a DRK or just stop going. 700 XP for two hours work is seriously sucky. I know I used to go because it was fun, and maybe it would be if I had been DRK and not BRD, but today it wasn't any at all.
And as the last event of the day, wonderful
loneguardian lead a small group of us around to get those portal thingies for Assaults! Yay! I have four of the five (missing only the Mamook one, because we're waiting for the chocobo NPC to come back). I can say that if my RL life depended on me getting the one in that undead place (with all the ships, the one where COR is opened) I wouldn't be around to be typing this post. Forget about aggro, so many chances for wrong turns! (For people who don't know me, saying I have no sense of direction is an understatement. I've been living in this apartment for 5 or 6 years, and I can still get lost in my own neighborhood if I don't follow my exact route. Construction blocking a road? Send out the search party for me!)I'm so very very very happy to have those portals. Yay!
This isn't the first time I've set out to post about this. I've tried (and then deleted) three or four times before. (
juliansinger spotted one attempt when I failed to edit the title.) In the end I felt that since I was staff, I should not write anything unless I could say glowingly positive things. However I'm no longer staff, so now I'll say what I feel.Reminder: These are only my opinions, my point of view, etc. They are in no way an official statement from PokeMUSH-whatever-its-name-is-now.
Two years ago, PokeMUSH closed. The game I had put many years of my life into, more hours a day than my RL job. It lasted a long time, way longer than most MUSHes, and while it's closing was sad, it was the right thing to do. (Better closed than full of sucky RPers/players.)
About six months ago, a former player approached me and asked if she could re-open the game and try to run it herself. I let her. I seriously, seriously, seriously questioned how much success she would have (I know what it takes to make a game successful, I know what it takes to be the headwiz of a game, and I know just how (un)popular Pokemon now is), but hey, no skin off my nose if she wanted to try.
The game gathered dust, and then a couple weeks ago a former staffer approached me to ask if she could try reopening it. I explained that I gave it to the player, and if the two could work it out, go for it. I had some of the same doubts, but hey, if nothing else I'd see some of my old friends on a MUSH again. Since I wrote the majority of the game's code, I signed on as code wiz and nothing else. (Alix wrote a lot of the early code, a lot of important stuff, then I added a ton more.)
All along I said I didn't want to be involved in anything but code -- no players, nothing else, just code. And, as with the earlier attempt to bring the game back, I kept saying and telling myself that I didn't care. The old game closed a long time ago, and even if they reopened without changing anything, it wouldn't be the same. I don't care, I don't care, I don't care.
But I did, kinda. No matter how much I told myself I didn't, I did. But I said I wanted to be hands-off, and I did want to be hands-off, so I sat back and didn't get involved in anything other than code-related stuff. No matter how strongly I disagreed with some decisions, no matter what wrong paths I thought people were on, unless it was code-related (or a few colorful bits from our history) I kept my mouth closed.
Some things were asked of me that I didn't like (such as listing the pokemon that I am in my +finger -- I can't think of a single pokemon I'd want to be associated with.), but they was mostly harmless so I gave in on them.
Then I was told that I'd have to change my name. Not only have I been nothing but "Thistle" online for more than five years, the request seemed very... dishonest to me. The head wiz asked it of me because she wanted no ties to the old game, yet the same grid was being used, the same code, the same help files, much of the same news files, etc. It was the exact same MUSH, with a few minor changes (and an expansion on the theme).
If you want to make a new game, then make one. Don't take the years of work, thousands of hours, and slap a new name on it and call it a new game.
I am Thistle, and that database is PokeMUSH. Renaming either does not change what they are, and if anyone believes that to be the case, well then I'll have to disagree with you. :)
To try to be fair to both sides: 1) When I okayed the changing of ownership of the game, I was told they were thinking about making some pretty radical changes in theme, and I said that was fine. 2) A week or so ago the headwiz asked me if I thought players would get confused and come to me for stuff, thinking I was still head wiz (I replied that I'd just correct them if they did). So while the name thing didn't totally come out of the blue, changing it from something to think about to a demand was.
firebyrd, I know my wording here is more certain than it was in my email to you. It took me a day of thinking about it to realize that "dishonest" was what I was feeling when I commented about the game being opened as a "new" game when in fact it very much isn't.So, as I said in my resignation letter, I wish those left on the project the best of luck.
Man, that took way too long to write. I'm up too late again! I'm so bad! To bed with me!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-30 07:08 am (UTC)This is in no way meant to be inflammatory or insulting, just an attempt to further explain my reasoning, since I guess I didn't put it across very well. I know that there were certainly times when you pissed me off, and I'd like to think that I've grown as a person the past several years, so perhaps I'm just projecting and my decision as such is totally wrong. Time will tell.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-31 04:14 pm (UTC)No problem, and taken as such (eh, that it was an attempt to explain, not taken as an insult).
no subject
Date: 2006-07-30 07:37 pm (UTC)Basically, a head wizard has to make decisions. These can't make everyone happy and sometimes piss people off. People hopefully grow and change over the course of a few years and might be worthwhile people to interact with that wouldn't play if they're reminded of negative feelings they have in the past. Since people have given me second chances before, I want to both give them the benefit of the doubt (though I am willing to smite them later if necessary) and be in a position where they'll give us the benefit of the doubt (i.e. new names showing that things are not exactly as they were when they left). That's why we all have new names, and to me, it seemed especially important that you have one because as head wizard, the buck stopped with you. Even if you weren't the originator of a decision, even if it was the right one to make, no matter how underserved, you'd get the blame for things.
I guess, possibly because I didn't put so many hours of work into the grid and code, that I view things a bit differently in regards to that. To me, I see something that has a lot of what we need, is working, I'm familiar with, and that isn't being used. Rather than reinventing the wheel and wasting all the effort of those gone before, I'd like to take the shell and use it for my purpose. Along the same lines, if we were starting from scratch, I'd get something like TinyMux or TinyMUSH (because I'm relatively familiar with them), and set common things like bboards with snippets of code that other people have written, rather than starting out with trying to write my own MUSH codebase. Again, my viewpoint could be different because I didn't spend the time on things that you did.
I'll try to stop babbling in your LJ now. I just do want our parting to be amicable and there not to be drama and yet I also keep hoping I can at least show you where I'm coming from, even if we still don't agree when it all comes down to it.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-31 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-31 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-31 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-31 04:13 pm (UTC)Yep, and I had been curious which way you'd go on this.
To me, I see something that has a lot of what we need, is working, I'm familiar with, and that isn't being used. Rather than reinventing the wheel...
Understood, and not unexpected (since I did okay it).
I also keep hoping I can at least show you where I'm coming from
While I didn't (and don't) agree, I saw where you were coming from even as it was happened. No worries. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-31 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-31 04:09 pm (UTC)