state of RL and RP

So I haven't been posting on these blogs, I've been Rping, somewhat, but neglecting the blog part, only posting in my Babbage blogs, wich sort of defeats the purpose of keeping seperate character blogs, that being, to keep blog posts recorded should NB ever decide to change websites again. RL has been chuggng on. I managed to get a temp job for a couple months filing for my landlord's company. Unfortunatly the landlord also got back with his ex, who decidedthe basement should not be an apartment and it should be the 'common room' instead (IE his tv room). so I'm in a much more cramped spce for the time being. The temp job jut ended, but I've already been contacted for a graphics project, and an interview end of the week for a real job with a normal schedual. My primary goal for now is to get to a point where I can move out to a place ofmy own, preferably with no housemates or live-in, manic depressive landlords who mistake me for their therapist. Anyway, I've been on my alt more often the last few months. Attempted to kick off an RP with him involving hypnosis devices. I built the devices and put them around New Babbage, and in typical NB fashion, most ignored them. After a few months of occasional mention by well meaning types, and semi-IC snark, finally had some get interested. And so far it's gotten good, with robotic raptor attacks that even other people are making more IC comments on. I'm coming to te conclusion I can only really pull off roaming monster RP if I want to get the rest of the town involved. Unfortunatly, the temp job I was working in RL ended about the time rent on Dr. D's airspace was due, and it's a little too soon to blow up the airship. Fortunatly I've gotten an offer to house his tardis on their land for a time, so he has a base at least, and can always rezz the airship when it's needed. That's the nice thing about airships, they're mobile. Grendel, I hven't done as much with inworld. It's easier for me to RP on grendel when he has a lab or location for his less than ethical experiments in human reanimation. And with the current broke status again, and the destruction of Wylde Hospital, he's without such a space currently. I have plans and future RP for him, but most of the old Ordo Absconditus/Footman Industries crew aren't around the stamlands as much either, with Gizzy leaving SL and Langain giving up on Babbage. Star's still around but mostly focused on her own evil alt, so maybe it's time to give Grendel a short vacation and let a character unassociated with Footman Industries do his thing for a bit. I'd say Dr. D could be the next Dr. O, but frankly, that would involve more of babbage actually considering him a threat.

alot in RL has happened

Hadn't actually been in New Babbage much for about half a year, or in SL at all really.  RL has seen fit to give me a constant sucession of setbacks, first Irene last year caused my basement to flood, causing the destruction of the majority of items for my ebay store, a few hundred dollars in art supplies 3/4ths my comic book collection that went back to my dad's time,  paypal killing my RL businesses (finishing off my ebay business for Irene in the process) leaving me penniless for at least 2 months.  I then lost my home to disaster, hospital time as a result, my laptop that wasn't destroyed in one of the 2 disasters, finally died on me when the power slot died. intense stress, frustration, and depression, a  forced  last moment move when I could ill afford to, and for the first time in five years, I've had to go back to retail hell, not one, but 2 retail hells, causing most of my time to be devoured by ranting idiots.
I have gotten a laptop that *sort* or works, though it handles SL like a pregnant yak in heat handles moving, and for january into mid-february refused to go online at all.  and currently renting out a basement apartment that is a far cry from the home I once had.

I am doing better though, slowely working on getting myself back to where I was before everything happened.  I've been sending out resumes, applying for real, non-retail-jobs, going to portfolio reviews for the sudden mass of graphic design jobs in the area i'm suddenly seeing advertised, and so on.

So, obviously, SL hadn't been much of a priority through all this.  I've logged on occasionally since gettingthe computer to recognize internet again, mostly for rare appearance of dr. dinosaur at parties.  I had not participated in Loki's RP last year, as it came about in the middle of everything, have not built anything for oiler's festival, and have not really worked on any new RP's to kick off on my own.
Footman Automotons had been returned as I knew it would be, I did write a blog in the BAR to explain where it went (usually if I know I won't be keeping land anymore, I blow my building up or otherwise RP why it is now an empty lot, the one thing that kills immersion in babbage is how cities disappear overnight with no word, leaving behind a perfectly cobbled vacant lot), but that's about it.   Until I can improve my work situation, wich my goal is end of summer to have a real job and be back to where I was, I'm not sure when I'll be renting land again, and have learned it's much easier to support and run an RP plot if you have land (if for no other reason than to have a place to barricade out the anti-rp faction).  I am slowly getting back into building, and considering meshes, though the hoops i hear you have to go through is daunting, and I'm unsure if I have time right now, Otherwise I do have some future RP plots floating around that I hope to be at a point to kick them off by the time RFL ends (another reason I've largely been absent, though last year they weren't forcing RFL on you as much)

let go of old spear house, barely been in SL at all this summer

So I had started a new job beginning of the summer, wich cut severely into my SL time, as in obliterating it completely.

As a result, alot of plans for RP I wanted to do, never got done, and aside from 1 tenant, never had too much interested in renting a room at the old spears house (considering it was another location for RP as well as cheap rentals, and given the bi-polar attitudes, it was iffy)  I finally had logged on after 2 weeks gone, to find it was 10 days overdue on tier.

So, since I hate buildings just quietly dissappearing in the city (kills the immersion for me) I dd my usual, blew it up.

THings are slowly calming down (through being unemployed now) but I'm waiting to start anything off, since another babbage RP is hitting off soon,  (and I feel like a jerk having one of my own monsters running around while one of the babbage mysteries are going), likely will be somewhat involved wit zomie week provided nothing comes up though

death of a sim and new land in babbage

So, Cala Mondrago sank, I feel bad for Miss Namori, and so let her keep the rent she tried refunding me.

I've now gone and bought another plot at babbage, and opened The Old Spears House.
Keeping with my regular deal with land, supporting RP, damage on, no flight, but it's slightly different in that I'm renting out rooms.  Already had one rented by one Miss Daxxian.
The rentals are cheap, 20L$ a week, for about 20 prims, but I'm mostly looking at the new arrivals to Babbage, help them settle a bit, my main rules, don't walk around the bar downstairs naked, and respect that there might be RP going on.

It's possibly the most mundane building I've made, a rickety old ouse with pipes all over one corner, and a room with a mythos circle on the floor and a tesla coil in the center of that.

I have also moved Dr. Dino's Tardis over the house, freeing more land at the factory.
Currently I'm trying something new there on the non-RP front, and allowing a friend to rent a skybox over the factory for her cyberpunk character's IC apartment, we'll see how it goes, she plays in Insilico, I've had some bad experiences there, so if any insillicans show up on my land insulting people, it might be the one time I have ever banned anyone, but I'm letting her have her skybox there as she's helped me alot with builds in the past.

Insilico looked interesting to be honest, and I actually do like the cyberpunk genre just as much as steampunk.  I had gone into Insilico last year intending to play a character , basically heavily scarred and on portable life support, more or less the cyberpunk version of my babbage persona, and immediatly had a woman claiming to be a GM there get nasty over my skin, they don't allow zombies or fantasy creatures, but my skin was less zombie, and more scarred, I was even wearing normal eyes and replaced my heart chamber with a tony stark style arc generator, wich apparantly was still too fantasy.  alright, I can always wear my one normal skin I  guess if scars are to fantasy, except the woman was getting downright insulting, words like 'retard' and 'fag' were used by her, aong with references to furries wich I didn't for the life of me understand what they had to do with anything.   I got pissed, started pointing out everything that made their 'hard science sim' as stupidly un-scientific as possible, and left, never to return for a year.

hence why I'm being careful, I already told ann under no circumstances was she to invite that woman.

I have started to slowely venture back, on my Dr. Dinosaur alt, after a conversaton with An, the woman apparantly is a GM, but a loud obnoxious one everyone either avoids or ignores, and much their 'anti-fantasy' guidelines are RP'd around by her and others.
So, as a time travelling Raptor/timelord hybrid.  Dr. D now can go to the future city of Insilico, with a holographic disguise to look human, and the Time Egg hidden.

seriously they can't hold it against him if his profile just claims he's a time travelling raptor afterall.




Not that I've done much with that end of RP, or any lately really.
After receiving notification that the budget at my museum job had not been approved, I had to get another job, sadly in retail, in the most half-assed company ever created.  As a result of their insane way of schedualing, it's cut into alot of my SL time, so I haven't had much chance to work out the warbot fights, or kick off any rp plots sadly.
This is only temporary however, as I intend on getting control of my schedual back, or a better job.

Another steampunk sim bites the dust

I had a small shop/lab in the Republic of Cala Mondrago, a morroccan/middle eastern steampunk sim owned by Miss Bianca Namori.  She had some good ideas, it was an original setting for steampunk, and was supportive of RP. I hadn't been inworld much lately due to a new job, that seems to enjoy springing an insane schedual on me, but that's a different topic, I've managed to onl really logg on once or twice this past week to pay tier, I had received a notice from the Cala Mondrago group that due to financial issues and the fact she wasn't really getting enough rentals, that she had been looking to downgrade it to a homestead sim.  I was willing to cut my prims to help, as were many other residents there, Tod I logged on to a notice that it was reclaimed by the real estate group.  TPing there, it's just an empty sandy sim now.  It's a sad thing when a good idea is killed flat (and I'm sure some of the naysayer's in Babbage will point to the RP friendly nature of it for it's demise, wether it's the case or not) and I actually liked the sim, it's the first one I went and rented space outside of Babbage.  (I did try once to rent in Armada, my other favorite place to visit, but it seemed overly complicated at the time and involved trying to contact people I rarely saw).
It was an original setting, and Miss Namori had some good ideas, such as her breedable horse aucion house, and breedable clockwork pets, and races (wich like most events right now, I've missed out on sadly)
the rent was low, the people were friendly, and it had a fantastic middle eastern/medditerranian flavor to it.
Hopefully it will return in some form or another, eitherway, it will be missed.

if anyone was interested in pictures or info about the past sim, here you go :
http://calamondrago.ning.com/

A history of RP

So, as I'm pretty sure I've made clear by now to all that know me, I'm a roleplayer.
a largepart of why I'm in SL, immersive RP I could never find in other MMOs.

I started out with Shadowrun, instead of most RP geeks that start with DnD, then played RIFTS for awhile, then DnD (around 3rd and 3.5 edition). I've played DnD 4th edition, but to be frank, in their attempt to streamline it, they've dumbed it down, alot, all classes feel the same, more of a focus on encounters (I like combat, but really prefer a balance), spells are bland and don't stand out, any non-combat skill is virtually useless, and there's less feel of being a party of adventurers in a fantastic world, and more of a feel that you're doing a raid in WoW, but in tabletop form.  I will admit the boardgames are fun, and the rules work well for them, but a boardgame, i'm not expecting much immersion.  I haven't yet played Pathfinder, but I'v been eying it, it looks like what I enjoyed about 3rd edition DnD.  Currently in RL, I'm in a Rogue Trader/Dark Heresy campaign, I always liked the setting of Warhammer 40k, and an RPG in that setting was something I couldn't pass up.

I got into MMO around Everquest, shortly after high school.  where I plaed a dark elf necromancer, and was in a pretty decent RP guild for a time, dark elf themed (they took alot from the forgotten realms dark elves). I played it about up to the point where it suddenly was updated, to be impossible to run on my old HP.
Then I moved on to WoW, after playing a friend's beta.  I got my hunter as high as 50, before I got irritated by the fact every expansion required me to be 20+ levels higher, just to see most the new stuff, plus, as I have a life, I couldn't play 2/7, and as a sub based MMO, every time I wasn't playing, it felt like I was wasting money, plus there really was no RP, even on the RP servers, I was in a RP guild of a friend's for a short time, but the RP was sparse.  I looked into SL about this time, but when all I could find was bad looking buildings, malls, dance clubs, casinos, and sex sims, I got bored with it fast.
I then got into EvE Online, (wich I still go back to on occasion), it's spaceships, I don't really expect much RP, but it's still fun.
I returned to SL around 2008 or 2009, first joining CoLA, where the original Grendel Footman, was a crazed phsycic with white eyes.  It was interesting, combat was fast with the meter (when the whole sim wasn't impossibly laggy), some of the stories were interesting, others were just dumb, and there were too many vampires wanting to 'turn' me, eventually I left. I joined Ravenscraig roughly about the time I first found babbage.  I don't really play there that often now, but I would point to it as one of the better run RP sims (despite being mistaken for a GM once by the sim owner, we had the same first name), it usd meter, but managed to balance out combat with RP, had their rules (some of them stupid, but not totally irritating) but were flexible, and had an interesting story, good builds, and great people. I was a necromancer named Abraxxus who worked for one of the noblewomen, secretly a succubus, I raided ghosts for her (I had left before we worked out a way for corpses to be raised).
 Then I found Babbage, and steampunk always having been something I was into in RL, (plus I was in a DnD campaing at the time and getting tired of pseudo-european fantasy), joined. despite the wierd bi-polar attitude towards RP, I knew from the beginning it was optional, but had no idea how vehemently they try to shove it down throats at times.   I rented a place in the row houses, and had some small RP mostly in my own newly formed RP group.
THen moved to an airship in Palisades, where I organized things with another avi I knew, and started my first open to anyone, city wide RP, the loose velociraptor, wich got a good amount involved, Arwen said she had some interesting RP from it herself, and ended in a fight between the dinosaur, myself, a female jaeger, and another person, again, small numbers, but not bad.
Then I moved to the first Footman Industries site in Babbage Square admisdt th Dr. O takeover, that caused so much angst for the anti-RP crowd, and was about when I first realized how bi-polar the town can be over it.  Ideas about meters, shouted down, OOC tags if you're not interested in RP, shouted down, lots of gnashing of teeth and cries of "THey don't get how we do things here!" when there was no real clear 'how we do things here', and comments from one of the merchants how RP chases away business, despite the fact most her business was probably from roleplayers.  It eventually cooled down after "RP is 100% optional!!" being regurgitated from half the avis, those of us who enjoy RP were mostly quiet and just kept our RP under cover for a time.  But this was about when I set up the first FI, the power plant.  with damage on, no flight, and RP in mind. the damage was because of Babbage's anti-meter stance, (I don't think they all fully understand meters much), to allow fights, without the argument I ran into during the Dr. O takeover with a pirate rabbit, who apparantly could Neo away bullets when we just text-RP a gunfight.  I had plenty of space for people to move and RP, and tred to make it an interesting area, with what prims I could (the graveyard was what really seemed to attract people).  THere had been an attempt before at a total RP area in Babbage, Sparowwood, but it failed and went away (noone really would go there, and I suspect I was the only one donating to it)   the plant was the same idea as SW but on a smaller scale (one building rather than a city block), and there's been some good RP, implemented by myself and others, the zombie plauge started there, brain surgery a few times, experimenting on my secretary, the fire, haunting, ghost machine, possessed pengi, urchins stealing eels, slenderman. the dissappearance was a flop, the interest was there, but noone really bothered with the clues.  I had let it go after the holidays when I found i had 1 day left on it, and no money I could spend fr a week.  So, since I still wanted to support RP in Babbage (wich I will always do until I am banned), and didn't want to see the graveyard replaced by a mall (I hate how a landmark that had been there for awhile, can just mysteriously dissappear, it kills immersion, so, I blew up the plant), I offered to give it to whoever will keep it RP friendly, and keep some form of cemetary there.  After one woman came to see it, then proceeded to lecture me about how other people would want to see their visions, I found just the right person, he didn't just keep the graveyard, he improved it, alot.

I made my alt, Dr. Dinosaur, during this time, and with a couple linden got airspace for him, the idea was a villian, mad scientist yes, but kind of an idiot as well, he doesn't think things through basically.
So trying to establish him as a new villian in Babbage, I created the doom clock RP, getting permission from people to rezz doomsday devices on their land, had set it all up, had clues as to how to stop them, and was anticipating something like a confrontation on top the airship.  Instead I had one returned by an individual who didn't even own the land it was on, and despite my having said to IM me if there's an issue, everyone instead ran to whine t the sim owner about the ticking, and I had him tell me to quiet them or he'd return them all.  So chalked it up to another failed RP, but as I wasn't just going to let it fade away, had worked something out with another, where his horse character had been going around smashing them all (they were unsmashable, but since he's a type of demon horse, was eas to fudge).  After that I pretty much figured it was much easier to get an RP going, if I have my own land and can tell naysayers to suck it.

So after a few months of mostly solo adventures, exploring new areas or sims and coming up with an IC story to it (similar to a friend of mine rom Caledon), I got a plot in wheatstone and built my new factory.  So far not much RP there yet, (but it's pretty damn LOUD at times, as it should be).  Aside from some solo blog rumblings about Footman's experiments.  But I haven't had many visitors either, this one's more enclosed than my old plant, so it is possible people may not realize they can enter and look around, and RP.  I may open a wall, maybe have an out of control automoton smash through a wall.
Eitherway, I did my second attempt at Dr. D being a villian, the Clockhaven Plant takeover, wich was semi more successful, (again, I was half expecting someone to come into the plant and confront Dr. D, but the person I thought might possibly try to stop him inworld, ran into technical issues, otherwise at least people reacted, and the fires at the end weren't ignored ).

And now I've found a Warhammer 40k themed RP sim that I may be dividing my time between that and the steamlands.  I had looked when I first came back to SL for a good warhammer themed sim, but all the ones I found tossed RP out the window in favor of running around what looked like a lazer tag arena shooting each other and yelling LOLZ (wich I can get from any number of MMO), were all cartoon foxes in space marine armor (I'm fine with furries, just not when they're shohorned into a setting they're not from, or trying to be a species they aren't) or space marines with giant smiley faces and coyboyhats (or afros), this sim so far though seems to be more into the RP aspect, (based moreso on Dark Heresy) aside from some issues with the cannon (female marines, female orks) and the fact they go with Angron's magic gun theory (ork tech only work because orks beleive it does, wich is not the case at all and makes no sense!)

The one other RP sim I always sort of hoped to find, but never did was a Transformers RP sim, maybe based on Cybertron, there's a ton of TF avi's, some even transform, but no real tf RP

the Babbage Cycle

the usual routine in Babbage:

1. come up with a new idea, RP, or concept

2. make a thread on the website about it, or mention it in group chat

3. see comments devolve into "I don't like it, so noone should do it"

4. whatch 'I don't like..." cmments pile up, and either

4a. begrudging acceptance

4b. originator of idea shy's away from negative "I don't like" comments

5. rinse repeat


The thread on 'what do we do to get more people and keep them' is continuing, with the only the occasional snipes against RP now, and naturally, any new ideas presented, are quickly met by 'I don't like' comments
the bobbies idea, has been met by one so far declaring how 'he doesn't like it and would leave if that happened' (personally the idea sounds dumb for what they want it for, only plus I see is the immersion, but I'm not about to go declaring how I dislike something, so it should never be iplemented).  And then the discussion goes towards Facebook, to be met with "I don't like it.".
When someone in Babbage says 'I don't like it" they mean "I don't like it, so it should never be brought up again. "  with so much negative comments to pretty much any new idea for the sims, it's a wonder they get anywhere really.

Most the time, when the chorus of "I don't like it..." starts, then the idea is pretty much dead ended and won't go further (case in point, meters for RP fights, OOC tags for those not wanting to RP, magic based characters, wich still flops back and forth), there's been some rare times, when dispite "I don't like it" opposition, a new idea or concept manages to get through, the existence of Cuffs admidst all the cries of "I don't like combat" (I'm not too sure how often they get action there however, but still, the fact it's there and all).
Personally, as long as I have land in Babbage, and I'm not breaking the sim rules (no rule saying 'Don't do what they don't like" that I know of anyway), I've just given up bringing it up on the site, or asking opionions in chat, and just done it.  turning damage on in my factory, turning off flight, having had gunfights in the past, making an OOC tag in my RP group and setting it anytime I actually am OOC, possibly the fact I am almost always RPing, despite Babbage's frequent moods of 'I don't like RP".

I have had ideas and plans I really hadn't worked on though either, trying to make my warmechs metered to fight, using somethng similar to ICS, I'm not really a scripter, and when making the mistake of asking in group if anyone could point me to a good script to pull off what's essentially a wearable ironside, I got met wit snark, some people onl replying 'I'm allergic to combat'  not helpful.

I'm mostly speculating, but I suspect alot of the 'Don't like' crowd had had experience with a sim that did something similar to the idea they're against, and did it poorly.  maybe they logged into a sim just to shop, and got 20 rules NC's immediatly, maybe they made a mistake of going to a dedicated RP sim and ran afoul of the 'IC zone", maybe they went to a sim with an IC police force that wasn't controlled very well.  And so they retreat, and in their mind, because that one sim handeled the concept wrong, than the idea itself must be bad and so should stay out of the grey RP sim that is Babbage (yeah I went there).
I half expect if one of them had a bad experience with 7seas, that they'd flip out and declare 7seas as a sim killer and keep it out of Babbage.

There's alot of things I don't like, I don't like refering to everything, attachment, structure, vehicle, as a build, I don't like referring to the real me as 'my typist', I'm not a big fan of dances, though I go mostly to be social, and also support whoever's having the dance.  Not once have I ever responded to anyone using these terms or hosting a dance with "I don't like" in that way they do.

Heck, if I owned the whole Babbage sim, I'm pretty sure most of them would say "I don't like.." then leave after I told them "and I don't care."  the very fact I'd be more supportive of the RPers, and make it more a grey RP, steampunk version of Ravenscraig (wich I need to go back and check out sometime, it strikes me as one of the best run RP sims I've seen, I've just gotten out of pseudo-european fantasy lately, so haven't been active)

The facebook page, I've already liked, on my FB account, Grendel Marsh, and plan on being supportive, if the bobbies idea does get through, despite the fact I think it's sort of a waste to set them all up to be bumblers and tour guides, I'd support that as well. (of course there's nothing stopping anyone from making their own group, bow street runners or something, not nessicerily official or anything, but they try and solve crimes).
I'll also continue to be supportive of dances and balls, even though they're not my thing