@Tez Yeah, I feel like we should be crotchety and stuck in our ways (in our rocking chairs on the front porch) about “pb/played by” versus “faceclaim.” >.>

@Pyrephox said in AI PBs:

Honestly, I don’t think the vast majority of people care where someone’s PB comes from so long as it’s a reasonable image of the supposed character…and it’s hot enough to want to fuck, let’s be real.

I don’t think less of anyone who uses a Midjourney PB, and I’m pretty irritated that such a cool tool has been set up in a way that fucks over a lot of artists instead of licensing material or paying royalties or something. I don’t see it as a Big Ethical Question–I just wish the companies in question would be forced to pay the artists for the training data they’re profiting off of.

You got a +1 for the “hot enough” aside, for the record.

More to the point, namely your last sentence in particular, is where I’m at right now (of due compensation being a necessity here).

@sao said in AI PBs:

@MisterBoring It’s not the fact that it is for profit that makes it theft, no. What makes it theft is the stealing people’s work and feeding it to the training data of the generative AI.

On top of that, the for-profit and not generative “AI” providers are not disclosing the training data (for obvious reasons related to sao’s post). It’s one reason why I’m absolutely appalled by the increasing amount of content online that is using ChatGPT and other LLMs as a source of authority (wtf?!), and I haven’t even touched on the hallucination part of LLMs.

With respect to art-based generation, I did like playing with sifting through prompt results in my brief time using Midjourney, but my internal scale tilted away from using generative-“AI” due to the ethics and for-profit nature as we’re discussing. My current take is that it’s basically equivalent to selling an imitation of an artwork as your own, but putting a pretty spin on it to say HEY LOOK AT THIS NEW TOY YOU CAN PLAY WITH.

You are still going to have to pry my Concordia kitty from my cold dead hands, though.

@Tez said in PBs:

Where do you find your PBs?

It’s completely circumstantial. Sometimes I find something on somewhere like DeviantArt, sometimes a face jumps in my head that resembles someone in real life, and I have used Midjourney on one game for pictures, for my OC and their associated (NPC) family (and the sweet chonkers who now lives rent free in my head and on my desktop and phone lock screen).

@tsar said in Your Latest Batch of (Silly) Drama:

@dvoraen I’m about to have so many snails.

Does this mean you’re playing this game and are going to catch a lot of croblings snails?

FOUND: @tsar’s runaway Ares s . They’ve been hiding as not-crabs.

BONUS: A bad (Dad?) joke.

Q: What is the most useful computer science knowledge a Pern dragonrider can have but never applies for in chargen?

Spoiler

@Snackness said in Real Life Struggles/Support/Vent:

My mom died today.

I’m sorry for your loss, having been there myself nearly 28 years ago. I’m glad to hear you both have a support system during such a time.

@junipersky said in Real life happy:

Kiddo has been missing her siblings badly, so I conspired with older sister’s foster mom and we suprised them both with a sleepover. Her foster mom passed me a bag, then I picked older sister up from camp (she was sssoooo confused it was me and not her foster mom) and told her she was getting a sleepover, and then we were waiting for kiddo when she came home from camp. She got really excited and chattered all the way back to our place with her happiness over seeing V because (see non happy thread in a bit.)

We locked the front door and lied that the garage door was broken so they had to come around to the front. Thus when kiddo knocked to be let in older sister opened the door and all nonchalant went “Oh? Do you live here? So do I for the night!” Kiddo almost lost her mind with excitement.

Despite non-happy post, this made me melt from happiness just imagining Kiddo’s reaction.

Our next topic in things that require adult supervision.

Is this the true Pilk?

(it’s a large image and I have no idea how to resize it since it shows up resized fine in Discord)

Spoiler

The other three flavors when I found this were MAX (caffeine) chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla milkshake.

Also, I’m still waiting for someone to tell me about how cleaning your ears is a “crunchy experience.” I’m still concerned about that part and need expert opinions.

@Pavel said in World Tone / Feeling:

@real_mirage said in World Tone / Feeling:

laying taxes

Taking the “fuck the state” idea in a whole new direction.

I never thought I’d see “sex worker” meaning “tax collector” in even a fictional government, but here we are.

@Pavel said in Player Ratios:

@dvoraen said in Player Ratios:

@Pavel said in Player Ratios:

@Faraday said in Player Ratios:

incentivize the behavior you want, without incentivizing negative behaviors

That goes double for taking things that are typically “free” (staff attention, entrance into plots, add your own example here) and making them require points. The EA or Ubisoft approach to staffing.

Don’t you dare try to coin “microstaffing” or “microplots” as if we’re going to reach the MU* equivalent of microtransactions.

We aim to give every player some pride in accomplishment.

“I do hope you’re satisfied with our product.”

^ You could’ve done that quote/GIF from BladeRunner. But you didn’t.

Getting a little bit back on topic, I find it a little interesting how some posts are aiming to quantify a standard for storytelling. This isn’t meant as a criticism, but as someone eyeballing data analytics/data science as a career, it intrigues me how we’re trying to take something I very much find qualitative (how much can a storyteller handle and who the recipients of their time are) and trying to put a definitive value to certain points of interest (“green/yellow/red” players as @Gashlycrumb went into).

I’m not saying we can’t ascribe numerical analysis here insofar as MU* participation (both giving and receiving) is concerned, but like D&D, the numbers are a guideline and the DM can (arguably?) yeet them whenever they want.

@Pavel said in Player Ratios:

@Faraday said in Player Ratios:

incentivize the behavior you want, without incentivizing negative behaviors

That goes double for taking things that are typically “free” (staff attention, entrance into plots, add your own example here) and making them require points. The EA or Ubisoft approach to staffing.

Don’t you dare try to coin “microstaffing” or “microplots” as if we’re going to reach the MU* equivalent of microtransactions.

@Roz said in World Tone / Feeling:

@Ominous said in World Tone / Feeling:

The grim/noble dark/bright alignment system might be helpful: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/s/bB0gvqrwjL

I feel like Nobledark and Grimbright are my favorite sandboxes to play in.

I think Arx corrupted me.

On a different note, I love the Enshrouded team’s patch notes writer. The little comments make me lol

I kid you not, this is in the official patch notes from today.

@Pavel said in Celebrities We've Lost 2025:

Loretta Swit, Emmy-winner who played Maj. Houlihan on pioneering series ‘M.A.S.H.,’ has died at 87

I loved M.A.S.H. much more now than I did as a kid. It’s hard to explain why, because I haven’t rewatched it, but every time it comes up I feel really fond of the show.

@sao said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

@dvoraen the part where you had to acknowledge how many years you have been in this hobby

“Yes.”

Next question.

@bear_necessities said in General Video Game Thread:

@dvoraen said in General Video Game Thread:

I need to know what everyone who has finished Clair Obscur — Expedition 33 felt about the story right meow.

(No spoilers. FEELINGS ONLY.)

I had a lot.

33/10 story.

100000000/10 rating.

I’m devastated. This game is going to leave a hole, and I don’t know if there’s another game out there that can fill it right now.

But now you know everything…

…

…

(I have high expectations for this IP.)

I just want to know what the first question to the survey I can no longer take was, to see if I should feel attacked too.

@Faraday This is my initial, immediate reaction, so I have not really sat down and thoroughly thought this through.

• tour lets you create a (temporary) character flagged as a guest, with a hardcoded -Guest — or equivalent, maybe (Guest)? — tacked on to the name for communications purposes. The flag and moniker/suffix indicating a guest character would poof if that player applies and is approved.
• Players “could” have the option to specify a name when touring (admin setting?) or use a predetermined one chosen from a list (also admin setting?). This is one point I haven’t thought all the way through, because of the potential abuse factors (such as harassing and/or impersonating players with similar names, even with the clear “GUEST” designation that would be appended).
• Should guest/temporary characters have their own database table? That would largely deal with the need to track them as far as data goes (e.g., preserving communications), but I did not dig into the database part of the Ares codebase to see how you handled characters in general, or if this would be an absurd refactor. It would be a much easier process to purge (all of) them when they’re in their own table, though, if the need arises. Name collisions would have to be a special check, though, not to preach to the choir.

On a less technical side:

• I’ve wondered why I’ve seen some games have their Guest characters get into the teens for numbering, because I had thought Guest chars were recycled on disconnect, so I always wondered how this was happening.
• I was never really a fan of the “anonymous” guest nomenclature, tbh. Thank the creepers and other memorable folks (hi Jill!) for that.
• Being able to preserve guest communications would be useful insofar as potential players is concerned. This is partly why I mention the possibility of conditionally allowing “real” character names for guest characters. Certainly, they should be able to rename (once?) during chargen when they want to be serious about playing. (The rename would be part of the actual application. This does put an onus on staff for name vetting.)

@Prototart said in I need an adult:

@Pavel said in I need an adult:

@dvoraen said in I need an adult:

FEMININE, BUT DEADLY

Ideal for the kiss of death. Looks can kill, but seal it with a kiss. Tho-Radia: A special job a day keeps the children at bay.

The ads write themselves.

we are so smart and the nuclear regulatory commission is so, so stupid

I mean, that kind of makeup is almost literally a glow up.