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Concordia Thread
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@Buttercup It’s a pretty complex situation and people have complex feelings about the use of ChatGPT and similar software. People are going to draw the line around that in different places and for different reasons. What is true for me is not going to be true for anyone else.
Personally, I think that there is absolutely room in our hobby to make use of ChatGPT. That isn’t what bothered me, per se. I think what got to me more was the lack of transparency in their approach.
It’s kind of funny, actually, because they were explicit, crystal clear about the use Midjourney to create PBs for their many characters. In fact, they were so good around their communication there that they even provided guidance around how to use Midjourney to create PBs for the game and in general use.
However, when it came to their use of ChatGPT, they did not call out their use of that as an assitive tool. They have not been clear about where and how they used it.
Beyond that, there is something to be said about the quality of the material produced using ChatGPT even beyond the ethics of it. Bluntly, ChatGPT produces shallow, reductive, artificial and artificially glossy content. It doesn’t have the texture or nuance of human-created content. It’s often also coming from an extremely narrow worldview which can lead to some pretty bland presentations with a serious lack of diversity.
Those are not things I enjoy in theme, setting, characters, or RP.
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Thank you, that makes sense.
I didn’t realize it was being used in RP for GM sets and scene RP I must have missed that in the thread somewhere. I can understand that and why people wouldn’t want to be part of that. Granted, it’s still probably better than my writing! Lol. I don’t think I could pick it out if someone was using it with me.
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Thank you for the explanation.
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@Roz said in Concordia Thread:
@Pink said in Concordia Thread:
I feel like it’s a trend with new Ares games.
This isn’t an Ares game trend; it’s an Every MU Ever trend (in my experience). New games open, there’s a big rush, and then it settles down. I think we may just see it happen more visibly nowadays because the technical barrier is a lot lower when we have resources like Ares that make the setup a bit easier for less technical folk.
I will say that on a non-Ares MU if I decide, hey, I want some random RP, I can go into a public room and chill and if someone wants to join they can and if no one does no big. While on an Ares game I have to start a scene and throw out a first pose and then my failure to draw people in will be a feature of the active scenes page until I finally give up and go weep in a corner. And then if I’m proud of my failure I can make certain it is permanently made a part of the public record.
Concordia never really hit with me. I’m not sure what I wanted, but it felt like a lot of people weren’t really sure what they were doing and then they got successful and then they really didn’t know what they were trying to do. My favorite part was when they set up official house positions, but each house had like twenty positions to fill. Like, there were not nearly enough players to fill these spots, and the big holes in the rosters just looked silly.
Some players did some really impressive worldbuilding there, especially with work on their houses and home worlds, but the day the head of the game was like “we have no intention to do any all-game crises” after the big event that had everyone in the same city, I knew it wasn’t gonna maintain any heat. They were taking away a key reason for everyone to RP. You won’t find me bristling with compliments for Arx, but it had a clever reason for everyone to be in the same place rather than going home to their home domains. Concordia didn’t seem like it even wanted that.
love that perfect frown
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This post is deleted! -
I just deleted cause I rambled a lot about too many princesses, but I like the game runner and realize that the game runner and the staff worked hard on the game and just because I don’t like that style of game, doesn’t mean its not a good game!
But sum up what I in the post I deleted, to many princesses is pretty much why I didn’t play.
But the staff and players were great.
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For me, I honestly thought I had the skillset and resilience to run a game. That disciplinary issues would be simple to handle, that people would read content and guiding story would be the vast majority of the work. Personally I think some people also approached it expecting like peak Arx, which the game never was going to be.
Unfortunately though, I was quite wrong in both my assessment of that and just how creepy, sexual or downright rude to each other people could be. In an incredibly short space of time we had:
Someone who was sliding into the DMs for every male presenting character wanting to hook up.
Someone who was encouraging them to trade the logs.
Yossarian.
Dealing with that on a daily basis was just exhausting for me, taking away from the fun that I have around roleplaying and world building. There’s also systems and processes that I do wish I got in at the start, positions and structures from the very beginning.
If I ever was to restart, I think there are elements I’d bring across but certainly some things I would do to improve. But ain’t anybody’s first attempt at something like this incredibly successful.
You live, learn and improve.
Current Projects:
Twitch -> https://www.twitch.tv/dukewhisky
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I appreciate you making the game, putting in the work and running it. It is always a lot harder to run a game and staff on a game, than to arm chair judge how it is going. I say this as a person who has never staffed and never plans to staff.
If we didn’t have players out there who were willing to run to games and put in in the work, we wouldn’t have games at all.
Sadly there is a lot personal problems on mushes. And is not only male presenting players who are creepers and female presenting players who get hassled.
A female presenting player pushing for hooks up from most male presenting characters is far from uncommon in mushing. I have def seen it.
Your game wasn’t really for me for various reasons - but I still appreciate that you spent your time, energy and creative efforts in making a world for other people to enjoy.
I hope continue with world building and game running, but I very much understand if you do not. It is personal choice if one wants to devote that kind of time into entertaining others.
The world building is the fun, creative and low drama part. It is us mushers who are arrive with all our problems that create the problems.
We could also stand to understand how hard staff works to build worlds and be as excellent as possible while on games.
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@Tez said in Concordia Thread:
Also, Baldur’s Gate came out, sooooooooooo.
I’ve observed more than once lately that Baldur’s Gate 3 stuffed a big ol’ Spear of Shar in your average MU*er’s time and engagement since it came out.
There are other games, too. 2023 has been a video game release deluge, at least in terms of stuff that appeals to me.
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That is a good point. The game might really pick up once people get their fix of other things.
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@Duke-Whisky said in Concordia Thread:
For me, I honestly thought I had the skillset and resilience to run a game. That disciplinary issues would be simple to handle, that people would read content and guiding story would be the vast majority of the work. Personally I think some people also approached it expecting like peak Arx, which the game never was going to be.
Unfortunately though, I was quite wrong in both my assessment of that and just how creepy, sexual or downright rude to each other people could be. In an incredibly short space of time we had:
Someone who was sliding into the DMs for every male presenting character wanting to hook up.
Someone who was encouraging them to trade the logs.
Yossarian.
Dealing with that on a daily basis was just exhausting for me, taking away from the fun that I have around roleplaying and world building. There’s also systems and processes that I do wish I got in at the start, positions and structures from the very beginning.
If I ever was to restart, I think there are elements I’d bring across but certainly some things I would do to improve. But ain’t anybody’s first attempt at something like this incredibly successful.
You live, learn and improve.
This post gives the (possible) impression you’re closing Concordia down, just FYI. I don’t know if you are or not, just thought I’d point that out.
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@Vulgar-Boy said in Concordia Thread:
Some players did some really impressive worldbuilding there, especially with work on their houses and home worlds…
This was a thing that is gonna be a hit for some players and a turn off for others. I can see why people would be down for the chance to feel as though they co-created the world. The feeling of player investment is real and valid! Detailing their lands, their houses, even their own gods and religions: I have no doubt that there are a lot of people who would be thrilled by that.
But it’s not for me.
I prefer a clarity of vision that comes from staff so that players can continually drag it off course and make it really reductive and insist that those guys are pirates, these guys are slutty, and those guys all worship spirits and not gods.
Obviously there are challenges with either approach.
For me, however, it contributed to the empty ChatGPT hollow I felt.
she/they
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@Duke-Whisky That’s rough stuff. I know other popular games take a similar toll on people dealing with interpersonal and behavioral issues. Sorry you had to go through that.
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@Tez said in Concordia Thread:
@Vulgar-Boy said in Concordia Thread:
Some players did some really impressive worldbuilding there, especially with work on their houses and home worlds…
This was a thing that is gonna be a hit for some players and a turn off for others. I can see why people would be down for the chance to feel as though they co-created the world. The feeling of player investment is real and valid! Detailing their lands, their houses, even their own gods and religions: I have no doubt that there are a lot of people who would be thrilled by that.
But it’s not for me.
I prefer a clarity of vision that comes from staff so that players can continually drag it off course and make it really reductive and insist that those guys are pirates, these guys are slutty, and those guys all worship spirits and not gods.
Obviously there are challenges with either approach.
For me, however, it contributed to the empty ChatGPT hollow I felt.
I get that, tho it’s going to happen anywhere that you have a theme people care about enough to get involved in. Just look at the unofficial stuff on the lux of Arx, and the way that expanded out wildly with everyone needing to find the one thing their house was famous for. Our county is known worldwide for our tree-fresh maple syrup! Well our march is beloved for our crisp Russian vodka (don’t think about it too hard)! Well, our duchy is known for our rum, even tho historically rum has been reliant on a ready access to sugarcane, which grows in tropical regions, because I saw a documentary about a captain named James S Parrow where it was implied that pirates like rum and we’re pirates! House Grayson? Oh, we make cellphones.
It’s just Concordia offered a way for players to make it official. Well, “official”. It was mostly the same in that no one was really paying any attention to it except for the core audience of other people in the house. At least on Arx you could do an action, which would more-or-less force staff to make a Vox which said “boy, everyone sure loves House … Crampton’s … famous taters?”
On a recent game where I played I kept a personal list of local businesses I’d made up, just so I could reference it if I needed to name a convenience store or florist and there wasn’t one built. But I got that no one could have possibly cared but me. It made me feel like things were a little more alive. And my wretched, dead heart craves things that are alive.
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Having a mental breakdown and losing my job really killed my desire to play on MUs. And not just on Concordia, but everywhere I played. I still haven’t felt a desire to really log in anywhere.
Also, it’s far easier to hide in Baldur’s Gate and Starfield for escapism than writing, so that’s mostly why I vanished.
If all of that hadn’t happened, might’ve been different as I really liked what Concordia had to offer.
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@Vulgar-Boy said in Concordia Thread:
I will say that on a non-Ares MU if I decide, hey, I want some random RP, I can go into a public room and chill and if someone wants to join they can and if no one does no big. While on an Ares game I have to start a scene and throw out a first pose and then my failure to draw people in will be a feature of the active scenes page until I finally give up and go weep in a corner. And then if I’m proud of my failure I can make certain it is permanently made a part of the public record.
Or you could go sit in a public room and chill and if someone wants to join they can and if no one does, no big. (Though web-only players would not be able to join.)
Or you could create a scene on the active scenes list and then do scene/stop when you give up, and no one will ever see that scene again. If there are no poses yet, you can even straight-up delete it.
I personally fail to see why having an empty scene on the ‘active scenes’ list is any more or less of a perceived failure than sitting around on the +where list in a room by yourself, but YMMV.
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@Faraday said in Concordia Thread:
I personally fail to see why having an empty scene on the ‘active scenes’ list is any more or less of a perceived failure than sitting around on the +where list in a room by yourself, but YMMV.
It’s great that you don’t feel that way personally, but it does involve an extra level of leaving oneself exposed and there’s no harm in acknowledging that.
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@Faraday said in Concordia Thread:
@Vulgar-Boy said in Concordia Thread:
I will say that on a non-Ares MU if I decide, hey, I want some random RP, I can go into a public room and chill and if someone wants to join they can and if no one does no big. While on an Ares game I have to start a scene and throw out a first pose and then my failure to draw people in will be a feature of the active scenes page until I finally give up and go weep in a corner. And then if I’m proud of my failure I can make certain it is permanently made a part of the public record.
Or you could go sit in a public room and chill and if someone wants to join they can and if no one does, no big. (Though web-only players would not be able to join.)
Or you could create a scene on the active scenes list and then do scene/stop when you give up, and no one will ever see that scene again. If there are no poses yet, you can even straight-up delete it.
I personally fail to see why having an empty scene on the ‘active scenes’ list is any more or less of a perceived failure than sitting around on the +where list in a room by yourself, but YMMV.
It’s okay if not 100% of people like 100% of a thing you made. Call it a personal failing on my part, I guess.
love that perfect frown
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@Vulgar-Boy said in Concordia Thread:
It’s okay if not 100% of people like 100% of a thing you made. Call it a personal failing on my part, I guess.
I don’t actually care if someone likes it or not, but I feel it’s misleading to imply that you can’t just sit on a public grid and wait for RP on an Ares game (you can), or that an attempted-then-aborted scene somehow stays on the active scenes list as a badge of embarrassment indefinitely (it doesn’t).
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@Faraday As someone who has opened my fair share of scenes and thrown out a pose and had it sit unjoined for days it IS very discouraging. Sure in a grid room you can be sad you’re in pub zero and everyone joined pub two, but in that case you just leave the room and that’s that.
Some games don’t seem to allow you to delete scenes so not only do you then close out your lonely scene, the game will remind you it happened as it encourages you to share that disappointment for awhile until it finally deletes.
