Gabriele Graves

I used to roleplay heavily back in the early years circa 2008. Gor (as a free woman in the Guild of Scribes, the blue robes, if you are wondering), City of Lost Angels, where I eventually became a vampire and many other roleplays. In the beginning of my time in Gor there were some great story lines, some quite epic, like one that nearly ended in a war between the Ubars of my home city and Port Kar due to an unfortunate incident where myself and another free woman happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnessed something we shouldn't have. The Ubars backed down after much chest beating and sword play as you might expect. However as time went by all the great story lines disappeared and even the OK stories faded away and what replaced it were a lot of interpersonal dramas and infighting. More and more it became a game of making the free women into slaves for any tiny infraction of the rules or via raids and then they were handed around like candy. Even though there were plenty of slaves there. There was no imagination left to any of it. In the end I did the only sane thing I could do, I left. I had an RP limit of not being made a slave and so that was that. None of it was officially sanctioned by the region owner and I don't think they realised the half of what was going on with their players. I lost all interest in Gor at that point. I cannot comment on any recent Gorean RP because I never returned to it.

Hah! You should witness some of the Bellisserian dramas before coming to that conclusion.

From the conversations at the time, I would say that this is a certainty. There have definitely been harsher times in the recent past. It's a difficult job to get right. There were better times before that and it's reasonable at the moment in my opinion.

I think the forums have always had those personal discussions. If anything they're are much less than they used to be. There has also always been and continues to be a sharing of talent as well. I think it's just that for the most part the forums are much quieter due to less people participating on a daily basis that there used to be a long time ago. Though people do come back now and then even if they are not participating regularly. In addition a lot of the battles on hot button topics have been fought many times and people are probably mostly over them in a big way. @Quistess Alpha is right in that new rules were introduced. This brought a change of atmosphere and participation here and not one for the better. Moderation is generally a better balance now than it was when those new rules were introduced though.

I think Qie makes a good point. It's absurdly easy to fool the human mind and I think that is exactly what is happening right now with regards to AI in general, it's usage and especially with regards to AI consciousness. It's a clever enough simulacrum that people are being fooled into believing that we are getting anywhere close to any real type of consciousness. On top of that clever simulacrum that we have a bunch of hype-sters using their reputations to make audacious claims about it knowing that very few people will have the knowledge and expertise to refute the those claims. There are and will be clever uses for it, no doubt. It is, at the end of the day though, just another tool, albeit advanced, that humanity (mis-)uses and that's it.

Just a small amendment here about Nautilus City. All of the yellow parcels there are owned by rental companies, every single one. There is no land legitimately for sale there and hasn't been for a very long time except for the rare odd person getting out and having their land snapped up by rental agents. Sure a person could buy the rental land at L$500,000 but it's priced specifically NOT to sell. So Nautilus City has no turn-over to speak of.

Here's the thing though about this kind of build, LL and the rules. Let's say for arguments sake that LL banned low skyboxes on Mainland such as the one in the picture. What do you suppose would happen? That the person would remove it? It would be incredibly naive to think that. Here's what would happen, if they did anything at all, the owner of such a build would move it lower, say to 64m, then attach a thick column underneath to connect it to the ground. Voila! Good bye skybox and hello ground anchored dwelling that is well within the rules. What would that achieve? The ex-skybox moves lower and gains a massive prim column. Did that help at all? I'd expect not. So what would have to happen next to truly make a rule to remove all dwellings like that? LL would really only have the option that they exercised to control Bellisseria. Mainland would become just an extension of Bellisseria and people would be forbidden from any meaningful deviation from the themes that LL created. This bit is important: It's only because LL provides the dwelling and people are forbidden from plopping down any old house/dwelling of their choosing that they are able to avoid these "problems" in Bellisseria at ground level. Don't believe me? Go look at the altitude that people are allow to put skyboxes at and marvel at the range of eyesores. @Coffee Pancake was absolutely right about it being the same skybox problem albeit less dense and contained higher. I remember LL having to return a lot of people's heliopads and other crazy "eyesore" stuff attached to roofs. Initially there was no build height rule, then there was because the rules had to be ratcheted up to keep pace with all the things crazy things that people built and which detracted from the serene picturesque perfect streets that LL envisaged. If putting custom dwellings at ground level was unrestricted, some of those skyboxes would most likely also feature as ground anchored dwellings. That's the bottom line. To deal with just the above example, that is what it would take. Mainland becoming Bellisseria. There's a reason that not every Mainlander has migrated to Bellisseria by preference. If I were a betting person, I would bet on it being very common for people to have at least one Mainland parcel as well as a Bellisseria Home. Even people who love Bellisseria don't always want that as their only option. They often want a place with much more freedoms as well even though those freedoms come at the cost of having to have to put up with things they don't like and consider ugly. That option wouldn't exist if LL attempted to control builds on Mainland. Now I expect one of a couple responses to this: Disagreeing that going this far this would be necessary. Perhaps even calling it a slippery-slope fallacy. This isn't one of those because the only places that have dealt to these things to any degree are fully managed estates like Bellisseria or private islands where they all have in common the love of a lot of rules and themes that must be followed. There are no examples of places with policies that have minimal-to-no rules and no theming with a magic rule to disallow low low low skyboxes where it has actually worked. Agreeing with me and saying that this is indeed necessary to "save" Mainland and that it should all be like Bellisseria. Good luck with that! LL have already stated that Bellisseria is a training wheels introductory land product with private estate and the lawless wild-west Mainland being the advanced options. It would be some about face to change the product that much and would be highly risky financially for them. This is the reality and whilst folks can surely come here to vent their like/dislikes and frustrations with it, it does seem a little pointless but hey if that's what folks want to do, all the power to them.

I do hope you have this ready to copy/paste and don't write it out each time. I can imagine your poor fingers getting worn away otherwise.

Well this topic turned out well.

The only adulteration I add to tea is hot water.

The only adulteration I put into coffee is hot water.

I think that's the thing, it takes too much energy and looking back it all seems like it was for nothing anyway. Nobody ever changed anyone's opinion on the internet. Consolation: Perhaps we are growing wiser, not just older.

Can't bring yourself to say on "X" yet?

I know what you mean. I've started to have a great aversion to being dragged into the weeds. I'm looking to disentangle myself from that much quicker than I used to.

The culinary side: Oh you meant...

I'm trying these days to keep in mind that a person expressing an opinion no matter how stupid doesn't necessarily need responding to which might actually end up legitimising it to some degree. It's a difficult struggle and one I don't always win.

Some will and some wont, depends on how much those people want to share with each other. I know couples that share everything and those who keep a lot of stuff private from each other.

Ignore buttons are for weaklings If I'm going to ignore someone, I just do it - no button necessary.

I have a high regard for @Rowan Amore's opinions on a lot of things. That's why you'll often find me liking at least some aspect of what she posts. She is usually on point and manages to efficiently cut through much of the BS that many people post . She doesn't "gild the lily" and I see much value in saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Like a lot of high value posters she get a lot of undeserved flak from others. There are a small number of others I feel that way about too. If the forum had more posters like them it would be a better place to have a discussion.

Inworld Profile.

It's good that you have your previous name on your profile. Thank you, I now know who you were.

Party in abandoned topic. Quick, someone bring the drinks, pizza, nibbles and some spicy music to get it going!

Dress a new person and you make them happy for a day, teach new person how to dress and you've possibly created a shopping monster.