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MU Peeves Thread

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Rough and Rowdy
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  • G
    Gashlycrumb @Tez
    last edited by Gashlycrumb 16 Jun 2024, 00:22

    @Tez said in MU Peeves Thread:

    I’m not saying that everyone that uses a VPN is bad or has malicious intent. I used a VPN for a while because it helped me with my MMO connection, and broadly I support the right of all people to protect their privacy online, because god knows that no one else will.

    But.

    Why is it that when I get the ick, like 50% of the time they are connecting via VPN?

    Probably because MUs don’t collect the browsing infomation you might want to keep private. They don’t collect your credit card number or your social insurance number or your medical records or data about your pr0n-viewing habits.

    I have only encountered two reasons for a person to use a VPN to connect to a MU. 1: They have it on for other reasons. 2: They have an ‘illegal’ alt.

    Certainly stalking on and across MUs is a thing. But unless it’s an unlikely situation where somebody like Faraday is stalking you, the only stalker a VPN is likely to protect you from is a wiz-level staffer, who probably only has that power on one game. Nobody else is seeing your IP info. “Don’t play MUs where the game-runners are stalking you,” is a pretty obvious rule for protecting yourself, and a VPN isn’t enough in that situation anyway.

    Using VPNs to do the stalking, however, can be effective.

    I had somebody make a dozen alts to attempt to play with somebody who didn’t want to play with them. This poor player was having a weekly experience of finding out that NewPC was, in fact, AnnoyingPlayer. PoorPlayer would then ask AnnoyingPlayer to leave them alone. Not complying with such a request was a bannable offence. AnnoyingPlayer would abandon NewPC and make a new alt, EvenNewerPC, and pounce on PoorPlayer.

    I made registering alts mandatory, and regularly looked for matching IPs. People using VPNs would regularly forget to turn them on, so yeah, I could see that a PC was logged on from Davenport, Iowa, and then again from Anchorage, Alaska, less than two hours later, and knew that the set of alts associated with those two IPs were probably all the same person. So, I’d ask them to register their alts and they’d either do it, quit the game on their own, or get banned for being bad at lying to me. Easy-peasey.

    I felt hesistant about this because of the idea that ‘alt privacy’ is and should be a thing, but it didn’t take me long to feel confident it was a good choice. SO much, so very much, fuckery simply disappeared when the players themselves could spot stalkery shit, and conflict-of-interest shit, and cheaty shit. The game was empowered to police itself. And it allowed players more freedom – I could allow people to have alts in potential-conflict-of-interest situations and trust that they wouldn’t cheat in that way. Because if they did, it’d be obvious to everyone.

    "This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
    – A. Bertram Chandler

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
    • P
      Pavel
      last edited by 16 Jun 2024, 08:49

      I know I connect to places through a VPN from time to time, but only really when I’m out of the house and checking in from public Wi-Fi or doing something else that requires a VPN. Using a VPN just to connect to a MU seems needlessly expensive.

      He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
      BE AN ADULT

      A 1 Reply Last reply 16 Jun 2024, 17:20 Reply Quote 1
      • A
        Alveraxus @Pavel
        last edited by 16 Jun 2024, 17:20

        We had a player who was using VPN to break our alt rules.

        I’ve encountered players elseMU who have used VPNs to shield their identity when connecting to a game to violate non-contacts.

        I’ve also had players that use a VPN because having it active is the best way to preserve their connection. Or because they are connecting from a work computer (I always recommend against that for any number of reasons, but what people want to do is their own thing).

        I have a number of IT friends who run OpenVPN on their router at home. One is a crazy paranoid nutjob, another uses multiple devices to watch things in a buccaneer style.

        VPNs make it easier to hide who you are, but personalities and bad behaviors tend to sneak out eventually anyway, and are a better way to keep tabs than IP addresses anyway. Especially since there are plenty of other ways to switch IPs.

        We also had a situation where a crackdown on someone violating alt-rules ended up catching someone else who was NOT doing that when we were doing a look at logs and IPs, and (rightfully so) despite how careful we were in approaching them for discussion, they got upset and ended up leaving the game. A lesson learned for us in terms of how to handle.

        The short answer, like with anything else - running a game is hard.

        G 1 Reply Last reply 23 Jun 2024, 00:02 Reply Quote 1
        • J
          junipersky Administrators
          last edited by 18 Jun 2024, 02:20

          I miss some of my characters like mad and get hit with random wants to play them.

          Today I saw a clip from a show called Banshee that had the PERFECT look for Isi. I wish her story hadn’t been cut short in such a gross way.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 7
          • R
            RightMeow
            last edited by 18 Jun 2024, 16:24

            I miss RPing. I’ve filled my hours with other things, but I miss logging on and writing stories with people. I also miss the daily chatting with people I use to chat with about random stuff.

            However, the idea of making a new character makes me feel like I don’t have the mental energy. Then I’m not sure how well my RP will be after the ‘break’ I’ve been on.

            Anyways, in conclusion – if we’ve RPed at all, you’ve been on my mind and you rock - so thank you for writing stories with me.

            H 1 Reply Last reply 19 Jun 2024, 01:34 Reply Quote 11
            • H
              Hobbie @RightMeow
              last edited by 19 Jun 2024, 01:34

              @RightMeow said in MU Peeves Thread:

              I miss RPing. I’ve filled my hours with other things, but I miss logging on and writing stories with people. I also miss the daily chatting with people I use to chat with about random stuff.

              However, the idea of making a new character makes me feel like I don’t have the mental energy. Then I’m not sure how well my RP will be after the ‘break’ I’ve been on.

              Anyways, in conclusion – if we’ve RPed at all, you’ve been on my mind and you rock - so thank you for writing stories with me.

              I don’t post here very often, if ever, I’m mainly content to just lurk and read and keep up to date.

              But this hit me like a brick.

              I’ve got no game to play on right now and haven’t for over a year. Part of it is because I’m picky, another part is trust issues, and a third is a general lack of time. But every so often, at least twice a week, I think back and I miss logging on to a grid, seeing the familiar faces, and getting stuck into a bit of chaos.

              I’m despondent that the last game that I invested a lot of time in went up in a sea of toxic flames, and I’m saddened by the lack of anything equivalent out there that’s similar in systems and size. I miss the people I don’t talk to anymore, and I miss playing in a codebase I understand.

              I would love to find a game out there that fits my specific niche, but at this point I’d have to loosen my stifling standards and try something new.

              I think I’ve been sitting on this for a long while, and I needed to let it out.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 11
              • S
                Snackness
                last edited by 20 Jun 2024, 02:39

                Wrong-funning. Still around after all this time.

                B 1 Reply Last reply 21 Jun 2024, 01:36 Reply Quote 9
                • B
                  Buttercup @Snackness
                  last edited by 21 Jun 2024, 01:36

                  Not a peeve I guess.

                  My hands are killing me from my earlier years breaking them in MMA overseas. I have a hard and slow time typing. Does anyone pose through speech to text? If so, what device? And it is it too much of a pain?

                  I guess my peeve is at me for taking too long to type too large poses. Although thank goodness for ASYNC.

                  L J 2 Replies Last reply 21 Jun 2024, 09:29 Reply Quote 1
                  • L
                    L. B. Heuschkel @Buttercup
                    last edited by 21 Jun 2024, 09:29

                    @Buttercup I know we have a couple of sight impaired folks on Keys who use various devices. Unfortunately, I don’t know which devices.

                    But if you want to pop by and talk to them, look for Rhia and Araminta (character names, not player names).

                    Any pronouns. Come to Chincoteague. We have ponies. http://keys.aresmush.com

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • J
                      Jumpscare @Buttercup
                      last edited by 22 Jun 2024, 19:50

                      @Buttercup if you’re comfortable RPing with a phone, the built-in speech to text is pretty reliable there!

                      Game-runner of Silent Heaven, a small-town horror MU.
                      https://silentheaven.org

                      B 1 Reply Last reply 22 Jun 2024, 23:42 Reply Quote 1
                      • B
                        Buttercup @Jumpscare
                        last edited by 22 Jun 2024, 23:42

                        @Jumpscare

                        I just picked up and iPad Pro on a recommendation of the speech to text performance and will give it a shot.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • G
                          Gashlycrumb @Alveraxus
                          last edited by Gashlycrumb 23 Jun 2024, 00:02

                          @Alveraxus said in MU Peeves Thread:

                          VPNs make it easier to hide who you are, but personalities and bad behaviors tend to sneak out eventually anyway, and are a better way to keep tabs than IP addresses anyway. Especially since there are plenty of other ways to switch IPs.

                          Certainly there’s no reason to be suspicious about somebody who connects from several different IPs – it’s probably home, work, the library, the coffee-shop. I never looked at the geographical locations unless I was fact-checking a story. No reason to be suspicious of people using VPNs, either. I figure you’re streaming Anishinaabemowin-language television the way one does.

                          There’s not much reason to be suspicious about two people connecting from the same IP, they’re house-mates or they use the same library or whatever. I’d ask and make a note.

                          It’s a good thing to keep an eye on, not hard proof of anything. And should be tempered with a good dose of “could I give a shit?” in a lot of cases – OMFG the horror if it turns out my suspicion is correct and Abelard and Bridget are really the same person and not neighbors. If they’re not making trouble, cheating hard, or squashing people’s fun, could I give a shit? Hell, odds are pretty good that Abelard just didn’t want to tell Camille that they really like her but sometimes don’t wanna chat and made the Bridget set of alts to avoid the conversation. I don’t even want to push an admission of this pretty-normal-but-embarassing situation.

                          We also had a situation where a crackdown on someone violating alt-rules ended up catching someone else who was NOT doing that when we were doing a look at logs and IPs, and (rightfully so) despite how careful we were in approaching them for discussion, they got upset and ended up leaving the game. A lesson learned for us in terms of how to handle.

                          I’d ask what was rightfully so about it, but I think we all know. People here have posted that it’s not gamerunners’ responsibility to deal with players’ past MU-related traumas. True enough. Howeever, the fact that it’s well known to be difficult to ask someone a question like this, and that ragequit is a usual result, makes it clear that there’s a “missing stair” right there.

                          "This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
                          – A. Bertram Chandler

                          A 1 Reply Last reply 23 Jun 2024, 00:51 Reply Quote 0
                          • A
                            Alveraxus @Gashlycrumb
                            last edited by 23 Jun 2024, 00:51

                            @Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:

                            I’d ask what was rightfully so about it, but I think we all know. People here have posted that it’s not gamerunners’ responsibility to deal with players’ past MU-related traumas. True enough. Howeever, the fact that it’s well known to be difficult to ask someone a question like this, and that ragequit is a usual result, makes it clear that there’s a “missing stair” right there.

                            I think we didn’t handle it as tactfully as we could have. The player was freaked out that we knew their IP address, and it kind of escalated from there. I personally could have handled communicate a bit better, I think.

                            Lessons learned from first time adminning and all.

                            S 1 Reply Last reply 23 Jun 2024, 02:15 Reply Quote 1
                            • R
                              Roz
                              last edited by 23 Jun 2024, 01:14

                              I can understand someone getting annoyed at their IP accidentally being caught up in a blacklist, but I agree that it’s weird to go off on someone and ragequit over it. Unless the person has some sort of other issues going on.

                              she/her | playlist

                              G 1 Reply Last reply 23 Jun 2024, 03:26 Reply Quote 4
                              • S
                                Snackness @Alveraxus
                                last edited by 23 Jun 2024, 02:15

                                @Alveraxus Maybe this is a kind of tech privilege I’m speaking from here but…how does a player not know a game has access to their IP address?

                                How does ANYONE on the internet not know ALMOST EVERYONE has access to their IP address?!

                                P K 2 Replies Last reply 23 Jun 2024, 10:25 Reply Quote 8
                                • G
                                  Gashlycrumb @Roz
                                  last edited by Gashlycrumb 23 Jun 2024, 03:26

                                  @Roz I was thinking it wasn’t a blacklist, but a situation where Player was innocently being a player when staffer pages them some variation of ‘your IP and so-and-so’s IP match, please explain?’ and things went pear-shaped socially.

                                  @Snackness I dunno. I recall my ex being surprised that I knew he’d been using a website of mine from his work, and when and for how long.

                                  I kinda get it as a thing that everybody really ought to know but it’s still somehow creepy to say, “I know your IP address.” Watch Daniel Radcliffe in Guns Akimbo freak out about it. And anybody can look up a geographical location associated with an IP but I might be creeped out if a gamerunner or forum admin or whatever was to tell me where I live. (I told a “player” who was attacking a game their work supervisor’s email address, but that was war.)

                                  "This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
                                  – A. Bertram Chandler

                                  R 1 Reply Last reply 26 Jun 2024, 18:35 Reply Quote 0
                                  • P
                                    Pavel @Snackness
                                    last edited by 23 Jun 2024, 10:25

                                    @Snackness said in MU Peeves Thread:

                                    How does ANYONE on the internet not know ALMOST EVERYONE has access to their IP address?!

                                    There are people on the internet who do not know that email and the internet are the same place. We know, so we expect everyone to know, but IP addresses aren’t a fact of life for most people.

                                    He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
                                    BE AN ADULT

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • C
                                      catzilla
                                      last edited by 26 Jun 2024, 03:50

                                      “iT’s jUsT whAT my ChARACter WoULd dO!”

                                      J P 2 Replies Last reply 26 Jun 2024, 04:34 Reply Quote 6
                                      • K
                                        KDraygo @Snackness
                                        last edited by 26 Jun 2024, 04:27

                                        @Snackness There are new hires these days in the workforce that do not know what a zip file is.

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • J
                                          Jennkryst @catzilla
                                          last edited by 26 Jun 2024, 04:34

                                          @catzilla said in MU Peeves Thread:

                                          “iT’s jUsT whAT my ChARACter WoULd dO!”

                                          Look, my character is pretty manic and sociopathic. Yes, they COULD torture you because it would be funny. Or they could just let you go free on a whim. Whether or not this is a scene you want to do is the deciding factor on what the voices in my character’s head told them to do today.

                                          Mummy Pun? MUMMY PUN!
                                          She/her

                                          C 1 Reply Last reply 26 Jun 2024, 04:45 Reply Quote 0
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