While We Wait: Boredom Strikes Back

[Angst]

My horror NES isn't dead, exams are just up this week, and didn't make my own deadline.

It isn't dead. Please keep up thinking of stories if you can.

If I start it up and see no stories, my sadness will resemble the panda.

 

[Thlayli]

It isn't dead, it's more undead...

 

[Angst]

Ha ha.

 

[Kentharu]

#nes and WWW is more like a soap opera.

 

[GamezRule]

Whatever happened to NES Life?

 

[Lord_Iggy]

It resumes as soon as Daft finishes his exams... so very very soon he will get the updates rolling again.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

~ Ascendancy of Talitha Report- Days Five to Twelve ~

Raku The Thoroughly Slagged-Upon.​

Another holy beverage hit the floor. The templegrounds are filthy with them. Everyday the War-Temples and Slagoplexes pour out more of their goods, but a pervading sense of doom looms over all.

Raku, Sub-Oligarch 12 of the Talithan Ascendancy, went over his handy list of everything. There was no assistant for him anymore, trusty Blago had long since been sent to his death against the forces of the Autarchy, or Yukon, or the Shadowlord... who knows exactly where he met his end?

Upon the screen, the Ascendant piece of technology listed off events since Raku's last log.

Raku: Fought border clashes in the Aludra sector for a week, ultimately lost systems due to the drain of fighting wars on three fronts. Took much of Kentharu's core before being ganged-up upon by Bil, Shadowlord and Yukon. Invaded Windess, ended up splitting the core halfway with Yukon.

Windess: Went inactive, torn apart by Yukon and Raku

Yukon: Gradually expanded, gaining significant portions of Kentharu and Windess' space.

Shadowlord Wolfer: Built up massive economy and industry by securing peace with neighbours, eventually sent colossal fleets into the center to carve out a swath of Kentharu and Raku's domains.

Bil: Built huge industry on limited economy early on, fought with Luckymoose and Raku (to a much lesser extent), before slipping into unconquered inactivity.

Luckymoose: Recovered from anemic economic start to fight a two-front war with Thlayli and Bil, with extremely limited border changes.

Thlayli: Fought Raku and Luckymoose to a standstill singlehandedly due to enemy distraction and advantageous location, coupled with exceptional reactivity to enemy fleet movements.

That, in the most general terms, was the situation. Yukon was a behemoth, and Shadowlord Wolfer was casually sending out fleets of over 200 vessels every few days. The situation was dire.

However, it was still not without hope.

For in the south, the three nations who have waged war since first contact are at last coming to terms with each other. Soon, their forces shall project outwards, and the NESer alliance shall make battle with alien forces.

Oh, and the 200 vessel fleet was directed towards Ruchbah. Fan-ascending-tastic.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

~Map~

 

[Abaddon]

Whatever happened to NES Life?

It resumes as soon as Daft finishes his exams... so very very soon he will get the updates rolling again.

This is truth.

 

[Neverwonagame3]

I hope so- I'm rather eager to try out another NESLife game (though I'd also like to try a decent Fresh Start game, Nessos style game, or God game if one starts up).

 

[Abaddon]

Why not try running a NES yourself?

 

[Neverwonagame3]

Why not try running a NES yourself?

From what happened the last few times I tried to run an NES, they didn't do too well. If there's enough popular support for it I'll give it a go, but I'm not that good at it.

 

[Daftpanzer]

RE: NESLife, should've updated already, but after 2 weeks solid work on my uni projects and severe lack of sleep/food I was not feeling constructive . Then there was an unexpected field trip. And now I decided to focus on studying for my one and final exam which is tomorrow (24th). Then, the update will appear

 

[Dachs]

Wow, so I go to a place with junky internet for a few days and return to find this nonsense. Sorry to interrupt an otherwise fruitful conversation.

This is for a PBEM game with my friends, elitist. Not one of your alt-history 'essays'. A PBEM game that has as much accuracy historically as Space 1889. None of your guff. Shoo, shoo. I know as well as any other educated person that nothing I am proposing is realistic in the slightest.

Yeah, because that "ewwwww" was totally a judgment on the plausibility of the scenario and not how interesting, novel, or aesthetically pleasing it was. Because all of my opinions on all alternate history or historical fiction ever relate to plausibility. Clearly. Take Gladiator and Spartacus: Blood and Sand - neither is historically accurate or plausible in any meaningful way, but Gladiator is a good, interesting, and well done movie, whereas Spartacus: Blood and Sand is cheap gorn/softcore series on a subject that's been beaten to death with a paper-thin veneer of ancient history. Even an alternate history of a subject that's been overdone is worth looking at if the execution is good, like Fatherland.

And yeah, sure, quick-and-dirty crap for PBEM games or pencil-and-paper NES-equivalents is just fine; I've run plenty of the latter. But I wouldn't put the setting up here and ask for ideas or feedback or oooh oooh look at this. If it's supposed to be quick-and-dirty crap, keep it that way. So shut up about this elitism garbage, because I'm sick and tired of it.

 

[Abaddon]

How can you tell him its not suitable for here, and also deny elitism?

If you are sick and tired of it.. change your posting style?

 

[Starlife]

Wow, so I go to a place with junky internet for a few days and return to find this nonsense. Sorry to interrupt an otherwise fruitful conversation.

Yeah, because that "ewwwww" was totally a judgment on the plausibility of the scenario and not how interesting, novel, or aesthetically pleasing it was. Because all of my opinions on all alternate history or historical fiction ever relate to plausibility. Clearly. Take Gladiator and Spartacus: Blood and Sand - neither is historically accurate or plausible in any meaningful way, but Gladiator is a good, interesting, and well done movie, whereas Spartacus: Blood and Sand is cheap gorn/softcore series on a subject that's been beaten to death with a paper-thin veneer of ancient history. Even an alternate history of a subject that's been overdone is worth looking at if the execution is good, like Fatherland.

And yeah, sure, quick-and-dirty crap for PBEM games or pencil-and-paper NES-equivalents is just fine; I've run plenty of the latter. But I wouldn't put the setting up here and ask for ideas or feedback or oooh oooh look at this. If it's supposed to be quick-and-dirty crap, keep it that way. So shut up about this elitism garbage, because I'm sick and tired of it.

You prove my point quite nicely. Thanks, pal, for your hospitality. I think I am a much different PBEM GM than you. I don't consider my games quick-and-dirty. They tend to last for years, actually, and my friends and myself will not get involved in one unless we are entirely interested in doing so.

And for the record, people here were extremely helpful in giving me feedback, new ideas, and even entirely new settings for my PBEM. OK, so you mentioned a best-selling series of (overrated in my opinion) novels, and a good movie. But I am making a PBEM game. So any helpful suggestions from the community here came from people acknowledging that simple fact, and thus putting forward new ideas. Also, my aim was not to include the Romans in the way that such a scenario has been 'beaten to death' - my aim was to make Native Americans more advanced by the time Europeans arrived. My final decision to use the Chinese came about through conversation with people on this board. I am not looking for anything unique or to write some amazing (overrated) novel. So helpful comments engaged the subject at hand, and they were extremely useful.

Yours were not. So, even if you do have 20,000 posts+ (I'm sure every single one is such wonderful quality and represents your time very well spent), it is not reason to call your entire fellow NES community unhelpful, or dictate who can post what in this thread. I am not seeking ooohs and ahhhs, but rather concrete tips, suggestions, or new ideas. Which I received plenty of.

I'm not afraid to ask for suggestions, you see, rather than post a little essay in here and then get hostile when someone refutes it. I guess I have a little bit more respect for people here.

 

[Anonymoose]

I'm gonna pop some popcorn while waiting on the upcoming rapport, which is sure to be entertaining. Gotta love WWW.

 

[spryllino]

In my opinion, Starlife, the interest of your premise is hindered by its implausibility, and choosing one that wasn't so implausible would be more likely to yield good results in any game that it was used for. How can the players accurately judge how they should act when their position is almost inconceivable? You stand to end up with a game where it is unlikely that there will be fair and consistent play, because the players have differing perceptions of what the world is like, precisely because the inconsistency of the idea undermines the capability of the players to imagine the scenario.

Some people, I know, don't mind when they do something and then the other players go, "But wait, such and such in the timeline indicates that that's impossible," and then you argue it out between you, and find that it's impossible to come to a conclusion because it comes down to a flaw in the premise, but I for one find it intensely annoying to see a game collapse into an argument like that. Clearly there are other ways of preserving consistency, such as strict boardgamelike rules - and no-one denies that games like Risk are implausible, but they are internally consistent and fun - but I myself think that the best and most imaginative way of preserving consistency for the sake of the game, and the most enjoyable way of being creative as well as having a coherent narrative, is to make the althist plausible in the first place.

Anyway, that's my opinion on implausible althists: they run the sizable risk of being continually misunderstood throughout the entire game by all the players if the players have no way of determining precisely how they stand in relation to each other. Your althist, then, would be better if it were more plausible.


I also think your plot, aside from its implausibility, suffers from lack of motivation. Why on earth would the Romans want to colonise America even if they could? This is a crucial feature of any setting. Not having this is like, for instance, not knowing about colonists to America in the 18th century often being of religious minorities, or not knowing that Australia was a penal colony, or not realising that certain movements of people were caused by overpopulation or unemployment (features that were not particularly prevalent in most of the Roman Empire as far as I can remember). I feel you lack depth in your story, and you could do with more depth even if the motivations were just as absurd as the rest of your althist.

Anyway, I hope as diatribes go that isn't completely unhelpful. Really, though, Starlife, the thing is that if you put things up for people to advise you on, you can expect their honest opinions and their best advice. Given that, in many cases, our honest opinions and best advice is that implausible althists should be made plausible, you shouldn't object when that's what you hear in reply. No-one wants to sabotage or rubbish your efforts, but rather to help you make the best of them, and so, clearly, if we think that the way to do that is through plausibility, then of course we're going to say so, and it wouldn't really be our soundest and most honest advice if we gave you recommendations, but nevertheless ignored the main problem with your althist.

 

[Dreadnought]

Gentlemen, let's remain civil, shall we? I honestly believe that, historic abnormalities aside, I think it's a very interesting and fun storyline to play. It can be tuned for historic accuracy at start date, though the snowball effect of the changes may prevent that, and could, in the end, turn out to be a entertaining game to play.

 

[Kozmos]

Oh this like we're in an English gentleman's club. So fun.