Journal Jade's Random Ramblings

[JadeGreen17]

So yeah. This is going to be a journal thread. I find myself coming to this site a lot even though I don't really role play here much anymore. Reason being there are way too many flaky people here. The problem of chronic ghosting is so bad that I could make a thread complaining about the chronic threads complaining about chronic ghosting, but that seems counterproductive. And off site, I presently have two very reliable and passionate RP partners to keep me busy. Anyways I'm probably just going to drop in every couple of days and blab with very little filter. Ignore it. Read it. respond to it. Whatever.

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Now I will rant about some cliches I dislike.

-"Credits" as a currency in a scifi setting. Why does it seem like every scifi setting has their currency system just be credits or [name-of-interstellar-civilization] credits ?

-Future Earth Scifi Faction is just American navy in space. Okay. i know a lot of people complain about how in a lot of scifi, particularly that involving contact with aliens, people bitch about earth always being unified and how they remove a lot of story possibilities by just having a unified government that works. But I understand what the trope is there to accomplish. Earth is now just one nation; and the other alien civilizations are the factions with which the interactions and conflicts take place with. A petty political squabble between two nations on earth isn't exactly going to get people excited in the same way a dispute between two alien civilizations is.

To put this into context, if you're writing a political drama about the united states and soviet union during the cold war; and then just shift to a political squabble between two state-level governors within the united states fighting about tax reform or public education funding; you're going to lose a lot of your audience. But the issue comes when this united earth space faction seems to be made of strictly American influence and culture; with the other cultures seldom represented, when an amalgam of these cultures would be far more exciting and 'futuristic'. To show one possible outcome of how these cultures and ideals could potentially converge as we move into the future.

-Generic 1-trait-apice aliens in a scifi setting. This is just lazy world building. When an alien culture is just a "warrior culture" or "merchant culture" or "religious culture" etc. Every culture has to have aspects of all of these to function within a setting in essence; though some may be exemplified more than others, and when contrasted to a wider galactic community each culture may find certain aspects flanderized. It would be interesting to see a work that explores (ideally in a somewhat comedic light) this as analogous to cultural appropriation, in where theres a galactic community where each alien species is viewed as a one dimensional charaicture of themselves by the wider galaxy.

-Aliens are humans but with blue/green/purple skin. I understand wanting vaugely humanoid aliens; two arms, two legs, about human size for interaction and character relatability reasons and such. Bare minimum, throw in some head tentacles or something...

-Characters have drawn out will-they won't-they thing and hookup/kiss in the last episode/chapter/end of the movie. Do I even need to say anything? It makes me want to put an ax through the TV or computer every time I'm spoon fed this crap. The main character and the main girl of the group are always going to hook up its so darn easy to predict so stop drawing it out with mellodrama and contrived misunderstandings. Bonus points for every time the characters have blushed or acted awkward. Double bonus points for every time they couldn't just spit it out and admit how they really feel.

-Love Triangles. No I do not need to say anything more.

 

[JadeGreen17]

You know what's a scam? Greeting cards.

Do you ever think about how much you spend on greeting cards each year? Let's say you know 10 people between friends and family which you get cards on each holiday.

Christmas/Hannukah/Winter Gift-Giving Holiday
Valentine's Day
Halloween
Everyone's Birthday

That's four cards per year that you will be sending each person. I've seen greeting cards that cost five bucks. But let's be generous and say that they cost $3.

So for having 10 close friends/family x 4 holidays per year x 3 dollars per card.

That's 120 dollars each year you spend on pieces of paper that you mail to people; paper that they probably look at once, then display on the fridge and probably throw away after a week.

It's all a cultural formality. We send greeting cards because its nice and we want to show people we care. But its a manipulation of our culture by the companies which produce these that we have to send a factory-made card. If you really want to show somebody that you actually care, instead of taking 30 seconds to sign a card and then forget about it; take 10 minutes to write them a nice hand written letter with some substance and personal meaning to it. I feel like in buying a card you're just doing a cheap-half assing thing and not really showing someone that you care.

...

DONT EVEN GET ME FUCKING STARTED ON PRINTER INK!!!

 

[JadeGreen17]

Do you ever think about how many fantasy and scifi series utilize the concept of mechanical or artificial limbs? Where there are prosthetic limbs that are able to work as well, if not better than normal limbs; and sometimes even have bonus features that make them useful such as not feeling pain or having super strength or built in weapons. The only ever downside seems to be that the characters don't have any feeling in them; or just generally being angsty about not being "whole" or whatever. Theres a few series that I think handle this well or at least do something interesting with it but for the most part it just seems to be copy-paste. I know why this trope exists and is so common; it's cool especially in scifi and fantasy. Though even in fairly realistic settings I've seen it done to where prosthetics are more or less as useful and versatile as regular limbs.

Though I sometimes wonder if this counts as misrepresentation? As in people who are actually missing limbs and physically handicapped don't usually have prosthetics. Or if they do; they're not as good as the ones constructed by far more primitive societies in most of fiction. We all know how touchy people can get about people that are mentally handicapped being misrepresented. (To the point that its pretty much become a meme on this site.) I also do know that in our modern day there are some prosthetics that are basically as good as the ones portrayed in a lot of fiction; with direct connections to nerves; etc, but from what I can gather they're still a pretty experimental concept. Though from what I can gather this might be a pretty moot argument in 10-20 years anyways. Which is a good thing for all of us in the real world.

Scifi gets more of a pass for this; since depending upon the tech in your scifi setting it might actually be a fairly mundane thing and you could just re grow the original arm via a drug or a cloning chamber. But theres a lot of settings with a median technology level at or below modern day.

There is always the question of how the loss of a limb should affect a character from a narrative standpoint. Since in most fiction the mechanical limb is stronger; it seems as though they come back stronger than before when it comes to fighting etc. There should be some downside to the limb, some narrative or inherent weakness to it that offsets its advantages. One of my favorite limitations was always that in setting with magic; magic users cannot channel magic through their artificial limbs which can lead to disjointed magic fights; and depending upon how your magic system is set up this can play well into world building as well.

 

[JadeGreen17]

Sigh... Do you ever just sit down and have a good old fashioned existential crisis?

Like think about how ridiculously meaningless everything is? Think about it. We are born, and every second after that Entropy takes its roots on us. Our cells begin to divide and mutate. Our bodies mature and then right as we peak in our prime we begin to decay, gaining wrinkles, getting slower and weaker and developing more of a reliance on medication and machinery to do the hard work for us. Will you ever accomplish anything miraculous? Will you even be remembered long term? Think about it. Most people know their grandparents; maybe a great grandparent or two. They might know all the great-grandparents they've never met; or at least their names. But you don't know their jobs, their hobbies, their lives.

There's a few famous people that have been preserved down the ages; but usually all thats remembered is a face, a few key accomplishments and quotes and a name. You'll never really know who they were as a person, what their dreams and ambitions and thoughs and feelings were like. What you accomplished or achieved is nothing. I could devote my whole life to the arts. I could produce the most beautiful painting in the world; the mona lisa of my time. It would be preserved in the most prestigious museum on earth for a thousnad years at most. But if I drink a plastic water bottle and leave it somewhere. That water bottle will be around for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years. Long after every last person has died and been replaced with new people, killed themselves, mutated into something we wouldn't call human, or turned into a Kardishev-3 civilization that plastic water bottle will still be there. Your memory and consciousness will not.

Like what is a soul? A Human body is just a pile of meat with a squishy computer chip (brain) on top of it. A computer is predictable. You send a particular set of electrical signals through it (files and instructions) and you know exactly what will come out the other side; given that its working properly. But if this is the case then a human brain should operate on the same principle. Your actions should be static; fixed. Based upon the way evolution shaped your brain, everything you do from the moment you are born to the moment you die should be predetermined just based on the electrical signals in your brain, what you learn and how those pathways modify and your current sensory data. What point is there to being a "thing" stuck inside a human body.

Perhaps the human brain exists in a state of quantum improbability. I remember having this idea that the universe constantly arrives at these junctures where there are two things that are equally likely to happen (double slit experiment style) and where its possible for a particle to go into multiple states simultaneously and both states are equally likely to occur. Only when observed does the particle decide on a state. If within the atomic structure of the brain their was some configuration that allowed for a single particle existing in superposition to lead to different neurons firing and therefore a different action. And what if some force in the universe prevents this from happening as it would create a butterfly effect leading to two different universes. This violates entropy; because with two new universes in a closed system (the multiverse) there is now twice as much energy.

So what if a soul connects to the brain and creates consciousness? Since a human brain could create two completely different universes from a single particle leading to a different neuron pattern leading to two different courses of action, leading to two entirely different universes. So this force, this force that prevents the universe from diverging into multiple timelines manifests and congeals around the human brain; becoming entangled with the biological needs of the human. This is why while in theory you are a formless soul you are still subject to the humans' biological needs. This is why you feel things; have novel sensory experiences of taste and touch and sight. A computer-brain shouldn't be able to generate these feelings as it were; they are indescribable as mere atoms; finite pixels with form our universe.

I know a lot of people attempt to try to explain these questions with their preferred religion. And if that explanation works for you, that's fine. But it doesn't work for me, as I cannot take the tales of our various religions on faith alone. Come to think of it, how can one know scientific answers to be true? One cannot confirm that scientists who explain atoms and quantum mechanics and how the universe came to be are not just a nebulous bunch of people with their own motives crafting an elaborate narrative to suit their agendas? But if we begin to question reality in this light how can we know anything to be true. How can we ascertain that others around us are conscious; have souls, have the same novel experience of being the thing inside a human body. We can ask them, they'll probably think we're crazy. For all I know I could be the one truly conscious human on the world talking to a horde of psychological drones.

If society continues to advance as what we call the optimists say it will; then how will we come to an understanding of consciousness? What defines a truly conscious and sentient human being. The soul will need to be scientifically understood if we are ever to ensure that the first time we try to upload a human brain from a biological to a digital substrate; that we will ensure that the same soul experiencing consciousness transfers smoothly. If we copy someone; is it the same someone, the same soul and stream of consciousness or a new one with all the same memories and personality traits; with the old one having died when it's substrate failed. Science doesn't seek to answer these questions. Religion does. Will the next great leap into a transhuman, post-death society come when the disparate factions of science and spirituality finally unify?

Think of how malleable and tenuous your grasp on reality really is. Assuming you sleep semi-regularly you will have regular breaks in your consciousness. Think about how your perception of time warps with age. When you are a kid; everything is so novel, and things seem to move slower and more stress free. Now, comparatively, your life seems faster, more dull, and more repetitive. Slowly descending an ever-steepening slope of time towards death. Your consciousness is meaningless. If you can, you can view this all as a gift. A great choice. Life is pointless, but its your job to imbue it with whatever meaning you have, whatever goals and objectives you want to set out for yourself are yours. There might be people that try and tell you you should do one thing other the other. And this makes me wonder if the people that think about these questions too much decide what they want to do is essentially the YOLO lifestyle. Live fast, party hard, get drunk, get high and screw over anyone who gets in your way. (A Disgusting misinterpretation of optimistic nihilism you might call it)

My point is, I don't care if you're an enlightened religious leader, a politician, a famous inventor, an esteemed scientist, a party animal living in a trailer park, a poor starving homeless diseased child some third world country, a cat, an elephant, a tree or a bug . All of the above are just slime living on the skin of a tiny space rock. Living out petty lives insignificant to an uncaring and mindless universe. People think I'm crazy when I start talking like this, but theres an argument to be made that everyone else is crazy for just ignoring this fact.

Then when you get done with that existential crisis, do you ever decide you want to use its rhetoric as the foundation for a lovecraftian villain within an RP or story setting. A literal existential threat for your characters to face, and a meta-commentary on the meaningless and disposability of your characters. Characters are just that. Mental images of people that we create. Your characters in ideological clash with this concept, trying with futility to convince you for their reason for existing.

 

[JadeGreen17]

Does anyone ever read this thread? It has 520 views but what does that even mean. Does that mean someone has read everything 520 times? Or does that just mean there have been 520 people that have visited this thread.

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You know what I hate? The fact that you can't make characters with hetrochromia in the sims 3. I can't make Khy (my avatar) Come to think of it I don't think you can do that in any sims game. I only own TS3 and a good portion of its expansions. I've checked for mods that allow Hetrochromia and theres only one; apparently it was built into the character mesh. But you can have PETS with hetrochromia, but not humans.

Also I found out today that sims can climb into bunk beds through walls in TS3. I remember seeing this video talking about funny patch notes in TS3 but I can't find it any more. I can't stop thinking about what a great addition. "Sims can no longer climb through walls to get into bunk beds." would be to a list of funny sims patch notes. It's by no means a banger on the level of "It is no longer possible to 'Try For Baby' with the grim reaper."

Come to think of it; theres a meme going around about how dungeons and dragons is always portrayed as a group of stoic heroes on a quest to slay evil but how in reality; 75% of the time its just a bunch of people screwing around, stealing stuff, killing plot critical characters for inane reasons and flirting with anything vaguely human. Sounds like my kind of RP.

BTW my personal tier list for the sims games.

Sims 3 > Sims 2 > Sims 4 > Sims 1 > (All of the spin offs)

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You know what this just reminds me of. Another Maxis/EA game I used to play a lot of? Spore. Man that game sucked compared to TS3. But man I wish I spent my childhood playing TS3 instead of Spore. About the ONLY good things about Spore that I remember was the Galactic Adventures EP and the creature creation. Everything else was on a sliding scale of mediocrity.

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Come to think of it, do you ever make an extremely detailed and elaborate plan of ALL the things you would do differently if you could somehow do your own childhood over? This is at least the SparkNotes version of mine. Or at least the low hanging fruit; like all of the things that would make a big difference with not a big change on my part, and without destroying the timeline... or whatever.

-So one thing I remember doing as a kid that I simply do not understand now was the way I played video games. It's not the fact THAT I played video games as a kid and assumedly wasted a lot of time. But it was that I was extremely... shy in the way I would play them. I would play the game for awhile and when I got to a level that was too hard I would stop playing. I wouldn't get frustrated and cry. i wouldn't ask my parents or friends how to beat it. I just wouldn't play anymore. I'd start another game, until I got to a point in that game that was too hard. Sometimes I would just get stuck in the story. There would be some puzzle or problem and I'd never figure out how to progress past it. To give an example of what I'm talking about; a few years ago, after my first year of college I found my GameCube and some old games and decided to fire it up. The game that I played were Pikmin. I remember playing Pikmin a LOT as a kid. Wouldn't you believe my surprise when I found out there are a total of FIVE areas in that game. I'd only ever played three of them. To give an Idea of how badly I carried this mentality into my life; I remember when I first got KSP. I spent about a month in the game before I ever zoomed out far enough to see that there were other planets orbiting the star.

-Probably one of my biggest regrets as a child was not joining Taekwondo sooner. I remember I took this really lame Karate class in an after school program in the first grade. It was not Karate, it was more like a day care where the supervisor just so happened to be wearing a martial arts uniform, and just so happened to be telling you to run in circles. But the Taekwondo studio I started at later in high school. That was the legit shit. My entire childhood was a laughable cycle of my parents trying to get me into sports of some kind, and me always finding out that I hated it. I remember joining Taekwondo on my own volition as I was sick and tired of my parents telling me I had to be in a sport. Although to be fair at least until sometime in late elementary school I remember having some kind of breathing condition. It wasn't asthma but it was similar and every once in awhile after I pushed myself too hard I would have to breathe out of this machine that made steam out of water and this special fluid. (My memories of childhood are quite hazy...)

-That segways very nicely into my next point. I was bullied all through middle and high school right up until I started Taekwondo. I don't know if its the self- confidence or just that word gets around or what. But I was bullied INCESSANTLY through middle school. I'll admit there were a lot of really awkward social behaviors I did (I'm too embarrassed to go into details TBH) that made me really susceptible to bullying, and looking back I realize what an absolute dumbass both I was and a lot of other kids were. And lets be real here, there's a couple kids who's teeth I would like to loosen. Looking back I realize my school had really strict rules regarding bullying, but didn't actually enforce them all that often. Even if I did get in trouble, in junior high, it doesn't go on your permanent record. I missed about 45 days of the 7th grade just pretending to be sick because I didn't want to be around bullies. I'd probably miss a week tops being suspended after beating the first kid up; then get left alone.

-Speaking of bullies, there are two kids I made friends with in Junior High, both of which turned out to be giant jackasses and I don't know why I put up with them. I won't name names but yeah. One of them; it was readily apparent he was a jackass. The other, it became apparent in hind sight.

-There is one thing that I remember doing that I wish I hadn't. I remember I was a part of a Lego Robotics group. MAN, that was lame. (I mean the lego robotics set themselves was the most fun thing to play with like ever.) But the competitions were the lamest things ever. Our team was lame and full almost completely of kids who's parents made them go. And at these competitions; only 25% of the points your team scored to actually go to regionals/state/nationals was actually about the robotics portion. You would get stuck doing this science-based research project thing. (The thing that I wound up doing 100% of the work on.) If I had the chance to do my child hood over, I would abandon that in a heart beat.

-Another thing I look back on and wish I did differently was very minor. I remember going to this dentist who was pulling my baby teeth out because they weren't coming out on their own. He pulled two or three of them out, and then asked about this one other one. Though the pain meds were working great, I was sick of being in the chair at that point. (I've never been a big fan of the dentist to begin with, and this was one of the real-life equivalents to those bad dreams everyone has and forgets where all your teeth are slowly falling out.) But that one tooth I asked to leave in ended up causing another tooth to be crooked and that led to me needing braces. Like if I couldn't redo my whole child hood, but only could take back an hour or something; that is probably the hour I would go for.

-I'm going to try and limit the number of things that fall under "Man I wish I would have taken the opportunity to learn that as a kid." Since I could probably dream up some hyper-elaborate game plan to learn a whole bunch of useful life skills and do all of the clubs and sports and things that I wish I would have. But this one was practically dangled right in front of me. Piano. My father had a piano and could play it really well, he tried to teach me a couple times but I never really had the patience to actually buckle down and learn. This is doubly so because when I was in high school; my friend group was comprised mainly of kids who were in a band, and through all of high school, could never find a decent keyboardist.

-Additionally, I wish I had been more adamant on actually improving my own artistic and writing abilities and keeping sketchbooks. I'm a half decent artist now but I wish that I would have taken the time and undiluted creativity I had as a kid and actually channeled it usefully, and gotten a jump start on learning proper drawing techniques. I remember I spent most of my child hood writing stupid comics and very poorly written stories. I didn't want to improve the art beyond a level or two above stick figures because I was always convinced that "good enough to convey the story" is a good enough drawing, and it wasn't worth the time and energy to invest in more detailed and intricate art. I remember I felt really awkward doing dramatic or heartfelt scenes. Everything had to be either an action scene or a joke. I'm still not really comfortable writing romance without the voice in the back of my head "gosh this is so cheesy and cliche" or "gosh this is so wranchy" but I now, at the very least enjoy sad or heartfelt story and can properly write flawed characters that grow and overcome those flaws. The time and effort that I put into it is already there. It was just my mindset that was way way off.

-When I think about it, I never really tended to watch a lot of movies or cartoons as a kid. I don't think I ever got to watch many of the Disney classics until I got older. I never kept up with cartoons that I liked or paid attention to new episodes, specials or air times. (My mom actually didn't like most cartoons and wouldn't let me watch them.) I might have watched Pokemon a little bit and played the games but I was never that into it either. I like to blame that for the reason my understanding of story telling was so stunted. I remember we had some video cassetes of science documentaries about the planets which I think I watched about a hundred times over. Like with video games there were certain movies or parts of movies that I wouldn't watch. Like the scene from Empire Strikes Back with the giant space worm. For some reason that scene in particular scared me half-to-death, and I just could not watch TESB after that. Another scene I couldn't do was... any scene from Independence Day where it actually showed the aliens. I remember re-watching that movie in high school and laughing like a seal at how fake the effect looked. (They had to try really hard to make that design scary in the second movie.) At some point in; I think it was the 8th grade it was like a switch flipped and suddenly I could watch anything. I remember that was the time I saw my frist R-rated movie. My parents let me and my friends watch the first 2 terminator movies back to back at a sleepover. Some of my friends squirmed (like at the scene where arnie pulls off his fleshy arm to reveal the robot hand underneath.) but I was suddenly made of titanium. (I still won't watch monster house or anything with a lot of jump scares.)

-Oh yeah. I remember having a bowl cut as a kid. Like full on; completely shaved on the sides and back. I would probably beg the barber to just shave that off. I think I would have rather been bald or had extremely short hair. (Come to think of it the time I had the bowl cut was right around the time ATLA premiered; so I might have gotten some cool points provided access to a blue high lighter and a mirror to arrow myself.)

-I also remember being required to attend this thing called 'Summer Enrichment'. It was the lamest summer camp ever. Literally. Imagine being locked in a cold, air-conditioned classroom playing games like 'Heads up 7 up', 'Dead Dog' and 'Telephone' 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for the entire 12 weeks of summer. I really wish I had a sport or boy scouts or like... an actual summer camp of any kind other than that. I know a lot of colleges host summer camps for younger kids; if I could have found one related to writing, art, animation, video and all that stuff that I'm interested in; that would have been a far more productive use of my time.

Well as fun as it would be to continue this list; feeling like I've barely scratched the surface, it's 1:20am.

 

[JadeGreen17]

So remember in my last post I was talking about Spore? That bad good game that EA released over a decade ago. I sunk a lot of hours into that game and looking back I realize there were probably better games I could have been playing. For some reason I have come up with this extremely elaborate method of how one could fix pretty much every problem with Spore and make it into the ground breaking, revolutionary game that it could have been, and because this is the thread where I document these kinds of weird things I think about and get them off my chest.

So let me get the basics out of the way. The rules that I imposed for myself is that I have to adhere to the base vision of the game, and I have to only suggest features that, while they might be ambitious, would still be physically possible. (No fully sentient AI within the game or ludicrous or unreasonable requirements. Things that could in theory be done within the game had it had a better development/release cycle.) However I am assuming that this game releases in 2019 for computers with specs to play it.

Also I am not explaining what all of these problems are. You probably would have to have played this game for yourself to understand even a quarter of what I'm talking about.

Broad
-Not changing the game into a more realistic style. A lot of people complain about Spore looking cartoony. But with the drag-and-drop style of creation rendering things too realistically would paradoxically make them look worse. If anything, going for a very simplistic style might actually be better as if each individual part in the drag and drop editor is less complex (lower poly models) it could allow more complexity and therefore more creative freedom to the players.
-Fixing all of the bugs. Like all of them. This game was full of bugs and crashes and I had save games get corrupted multiple times.
-No aggressive DRM.
The Cell Stage
-The cell stage is glorious, because of its simplicity.
-Unlock the cosmetic variations of all the cell parts in the base game.
The Creature Stage (and creature creator.)
-Add more parts to the creature creator; ideally more parts not based off of real animals to allow truly alien creatures to be created.
-Introduce mechanics for creatures that are actually able to fly. (Not jump and glide; but actually fly.) Obviously full on flight will be expensive if you're evolving it while playing. Gliding (flying squirrel style) could also be attainable for less genetic resources.
-Introduce amphibious creatures. Amphibious creatures can travel under water, catch fish and eat sea weed. This would somewhat bring back the 'fish' stage that was cut from the game.
-Introduce tunneling creatures. Tunneling creatures can dig underground burrows instead of regular nests to stash food, hide from predators etc.
-Introduce climbing creatures. Climbing creatures can climb trees to access fruits in the large trees.
-A creature can choose the Flying, Amphibious, Climbing, or Tunneling trait for replay value in the creature stage. They are mutually exclusive so you can only pick one. (Since having multiple might be over powered.)
-Introduce dimorphism (female and male creatures that look different.) This kind of feature probably wasn't in the game because people were afraid of the controversy and someone being sexist but dimorphism occurs in nature all the time. And the people that are going to make inappropriate creations and post them online are going to do it anyway. It would also be nice to be able to select pallete swaps for our creatures like for different fur/scale colors that could be chosen from randomly such that every member species doesn't look exactly the same.
-Introduce social structures. Like lone wolf creatures with territories they must adhere to vs pack hunter creatures (like with a wolf social structure) vs eusocial creatures (like bees with queens and workers). A creature could also vary between these three social structures for a different play style.
The Tribe Stage
-Creature's enviorment trait impacts where a tribal village is built. Flying creatures get a village in a mountain or cliff side which is very defensible but doesn't leave room for farming.
-Outfitting a creature actually does worth while things. Out fitting expanded with more pieces.
-Tunneling creatures have under ground village which has choke points if it is raided but has the possibility of cave ins.
-Tree climbing creatures have tree top village which they can fire down on other tribes with ranged weapons but is vulnerable to fire. If a forest fire starts their village can be destroyed.
-Amphibious creatures build raft villages that can and get bonuses when fishing etc. They can also un-anchor the village, but they can sink.
-Basic land dwelling creatures get the original village, they have a low chance to get any of the rares when doing certain activities.
-Tunneling creatures have a chance to find gem stones or rare metals when building their village; as to avian creatures when living in mountains or cliffs. These can be traded with other tribes to make good relations or be kept for a bonus when starting the civilization stage of the game. Like wise tree climbing creatures can discover rare wood types and amphibious creatures can discover aquatic valuables like sea shells and stuff.
-Chance for tribes to surrender, so you don't have to spend 10+ minutes clubbing their unrealistically tanky canvas tent to death while they birth reinforcements.
-Ability to claim multiple villages. You can get villages that do not fit your creatures' environment trait by conquering or befriending them. Conquering them by force increases your population cap, but there are diminishing returns. You can also choose when the civilization stage starts which village you capture that you want to become your capital city.
-Ability to create agriculture once your tribe is progressed. In doing so preform 'selective breeding' on plants and you unlock the flora editor (locked content in the base game.) and can create plants, and then designate farms where farmers will grow them around your village. If you are a carnivorous species then the plants can be used to feed live stock.
-Ability to build fortifications.
Civ Stage
-Environment trait carries over from tribe stage. Aquatic creatures have partially or fully aquatic cities. Tunneling creatures can have underground cities. Avian creatures can have mountain side cities. Tree dwelling creatures... well I don't know... you can put a small hut in a tree; but not an apartment tower. Aquatic creatures always start with a sea port and can build better sea vehicles. Avian creatures can build air vehicles right away.
-Introduce small and large variations of each building and vehicle. (Small town hall=local government for small cities, Large town hall=capital. Small house=single family home, large house=apartment tower.) You can only unlock/place the larger versions of the buildings in your city once you've progressed enough but they cost more to build provide proportionatley more economic power to a city. When you go into an editor your specific if this is a small or large version of your civilization's house; with the large version allowing you to do a more complex build. (What I mean by this ) : There will also be small and large versions of vehicles allowing you to have more variety in how you construct your vehicle fleets.

Spoiler: What I mean by this, incomplete example.

Thing	Small Version	Large Version
House
Town Hall
Factory
Land Vehicle
Sea Vehicle
Air Vehicle
Spaceship (Yes this little version, big version will extend to one of my space stage ideas involving capital ships and fighters)

-Add infantry/soliders to military units.
-Add expandable cities. I'm not asking for SimCity levels of customization with road layouts and stuff but all cities are is a pre-determined set of locations where you can place buildings.
-Re-add the city wall editor (cut content)
-Change the term 'Religion' to 'culture'. for the peaceful victory option, It's really weird that you convert civilizations to your 'religion' by playing by blasting your misc into their cities; and I could never stop imagining this happening in real life. Like two countries are fighting this sort of war with one another where they drive up to each others cities and play Cristian Rock music really loud until the other people find jesus. Also the culture victory is tactically very similar to the military victory, since you just swarm a city with religious vehicles. (For some reason these vehicles can even do damage to military vehicles. Weaponized sound or something IDK it makes no sense.) It could be like 90% of other civilization games where culture flip is done through having a happy populace so much so that other civilizations want to be you.
-Change the way economic vehicles work. Because they make no sense either. Presumably they do trading, but to increase the effectiveness of an economic vehicle you... bling it out??? Wouldn't an economically minded hyper-capitalist society try to make their trade vehicles as economically and cheaply as possible, and wouldn't sticking huge golden dollar signs on the sides be very counterintuitive to making an effective trade carvan? Please game, LOGIC.
-Not to mention the whole idea of just buying cities makes no sense.
-Oh yes. Remember the idea for eusocial species. If you are a eusocial species your queen is the mayor or the person you see on the screen. The workers are the ones you will see in the city streets though.
-Outfit objects that make sense and aren't based completely soley real-world apparel. Gendered outfits.

Ugh this is taking too long. And the space stage; being the most in-depth stage in the game has the most things that I would change. I'll probably continue this at a later date.

 

[JadeGreen17]

How to fix Spore Cotd

Space Stage
-The big ships and small ships concepts returns. In addition to your special player controlled ship, there would be small and large ships for War, Commerce and Culture. You could build ships on planets with cities; each city or population point increases your cap for your fleet. This lets the game keep some of the RTS elements that have been introduced in the prior stages in addition to the RPG style gameplay of the cell and creature stages. Once you've built these ships you can give them orders.
-Of course with large and small ships the large ships would act as large capital ships where the smaller ships would be more maneuverable.
-These NPC ships could also be used to fulfill all the side quest missions such as military ships handling extermination or raid defense missions, economic ships handling retrieval or diplomatic missions.
-Doing this would actually make it possible to fight the Grox without having to individually travel to and bomb 2000 planets. Since given you amassed a large enough fleet you could just order 10 flotillas of ships to attack 10 planets at a time. The Grox should still be a challenge because they are a final boss enemy.
-Culture flipping would also be present in space stage. It would work by having an extremely happy, healthy empire. You could place a cultural embassy on a planet you wanted to claim from another empire and then run diplomatic ships between it. (Presumably transporting VIPs, tourists, or entrepreneurs between your planets.) This would pave the way for buying a planet.
-Building orbital cities (starbases) is possible. These work like normal cities but can be customized and are built in space above a planet. Like normal cities they are free form and can be expanded and laid out at will. These would also be related to how you get your fleet ships; because orbital cities would have docks/hangars for these ships. All of the modules for orbital cities are customizable.
-Orbital cities above gas giants.
-Planetary Shields.
-Terrain sculpting/terraforming tools that don't require a scavenger hunt to get.

Well thats about it for that. Don't know why it took me so long to finish out my thoughts here.

 

[JadeGreen17]

Some random mind-bending RP ideas.

-I really want a meta-RP where each player RPs someone who is RPing in a group, but like do it in a highly satirical over-the-top-way. Like we could have the edgy teenager who makes an edge lord character who always wears black and talks about self harm and suicide. We have the meta gamer who is always finding ways around the GM's rules and their character is always swatting the villain of the week and by passing quests and exploiting the system such that combat is easy. Then we have the... uhm... the cupid. The RPer who plays a character that flirts with anything vaguely human and always describes things in a highly explicit manner, and its very clear that their mind is always in the gutter.

-You know what else would be cool. An RP where people make characters. Then before the actual RP starts people shuffle around control of each others characters to different people such that people aren't playing their own characters. It would be a fun way to get people out of their comfort zone and into playing a type of character that they might not normally. Or an RP where people regularly switch around the characters, or both.

-What about an RP where each character is just a character but is also an entire world/setting/universe in and of themselves? Like an RP where there are 3/4/5 characters but in order for reality to exist one character has to be asleep and dreaming and the other characters then exist inside their head. In this instance the GM of the RP would rotate, and the world that the characters existed in would reflect the emotional and mental state of the character they were playing.

 

[JadeGreen17]

Do you ever think of how inefficient our lives are and how little time we really have to ourselves. Like when you say you live for 60 years. But out of each day you probably spend:
8 hours asleep
5 minutes brushing your teeth
5 minutes getting dressed
10 minutes pooping
15 minutes showering
25 minutes commuting

So you actually only get something like 37.5 years.

Also if you have to go to school.

(12 years x 180 days x 8 hours per day=720 hours or about 2 years)

So its really something like 35.5 years.

Also you'll never really remember anything from before you were like 5 years old. So its more like 30 years.

Also your subjective experience of life speeds up as you get older. So while you might be only 20 something (most people on this site seem to be 20 somethings.) your subjective experience of life is probably already about halfway over.

 

[JadeGreen17]

You know time is the thing we value most but use least wisely...

Anyways I remember having this online friend who had pet birds. I don't know why anyone would want pet birds. He was constantly struggling to take care of them, they always seemed to be getting sick or injured and dying, and whenever they died he'd be depressed about it for a long time, when they're such fickle and delicate creatures. Plus he would constantly complain about the noise. I'm just sitting here like "why do you have these things?" Why not a hamster or a mouse or something, at least those are friendly. Maybe someone in the audience can explain the appeal to me.

 

[JadeGreen17]

[TW for anyone with conservative views on gender and sexuality.]

So my dad got married yesterday. Well Re-married. My parents actually split about a year ago, but that's not really what I'm here to vent about. The wedding was boring as shit. It was supposed to be outdoors but due to wether we were stuck inside for the entire time. Just a bunch of old relatives, most of whom are now step-relatives making the usual small talk about college and life. I mean I guess I should be happy that there was no drama or anything. But while I was sitting there, I slowly started mentally composting this journal entry.

I also feel the need to address the fact that I identify as asexual and aromatic. Though really that's just what I tell people to simplify things. (In truth I'm more like a bisexual with a really muted sex drive, and demiromantic.) I tend not to be out of the closet about it, particularly around my mom's side of the family and her new boyfriend who is likely to be my new father in a year or two, since both of them are devout catholics. Although in truth even the non-religious side of my family takes issue with this, because I'm an only child and the dead-end of my family name. But I've always said that I'm asexual, aromantic but with an open mind. If at some point in the future I was to meet someone who I actually fell for, then great. If not. Also great! [crippling existential dread.]

In all honesty one of the biggest things that turns me off from a relationship is all the double standards surrounding how men and women are supposed to be have and the expected roles they have in a relationship. I know in modern society, there is a lot of pushback against the traditional view of a relationship. I don't know how much of it is just talk and how much of it is actually change we are undergoing as a society. (I mean this is just talk, but there's not much I can do about.) Because it feels like the same issues are as pertinent as ever. So let me just start at the bottom, because if I don't somebody is going to grill me for it. (Somebody is probably going to grill me anyway.)

There are innate differences between men and women that can impact society. Women have to carry children and this can affect their ability to function in the workforce. Does this justify lower pay for the same work? HELL. NO. This also means that a society that loses a lot of its women has a hard time growing, or even maintaining its population numbers, while a society that loses a lot of its men can continue to grow or maintain its population because men have to proportionatley put in much less time and effort to produce off spring. This, coupled with the fact that your average man is physically stronger than your average woman, is why they are typically reserved for dangerous physical jobs (War, etc.) And as much as I, and many others do not like this, these are facts and there's not really a way around it.

Spoiler: But, I digress

Or is there?

I mean don't get me wrong, wars still happen but they aren't nearly as common and nearly as large as they were in the past, and typically don't involve mass troop deployments that can actually strain or impact an entire nation's population. Since modern weapons make this type of combat impractical. Automation is also increasingly taking over manual labor and physically demanding jobs, and combat. Not trying to discredit anyone serving in the armed forces, or any type of manual labor job. You do good work, but there's no denying this technology is going to impact your job. All jobs are going to be impacted by this, but the dangerous manual labor jobs will be impacted the most; and arguably this change has been happening since the invention of the steam engine and is still ongoing.

But what about the issue of carrying children? As an adamant post-humanist I suspect this will be going away sometime soon as well. I don't think its approach is quite as obvious which direction we are heading. Just as a factory robot replaces the need to do physical labor, a computer replaces the need to do mental labor, and augments the capabilities. We carry computers in our pockets connected to a global network of information. Medicine is getting good enough that we can replace limbs with cybernetics directly connected to our nervous system, and though we haven't cracked the issue of consciousness, Artificial intelligence is getting more and more capable every year. You might not see it coming but in 50 years, cybernetic or genetic augmentations might be as common has having cell phones and laptops. There is the very real possibility that most of the people on this site (in their late teens or twenties) might live long enough to see this happen, or perhaps be a part of it. I don't have foresight. It might be 2,000 years away, it might be 20. But with that, the burden of carrying children could be mitigated through literal test-tube babies.

So while in the future, at least by my predictions. (Unless world war 3 happens or a neutron star barbecues earth or something like that) Any boundaries or issues of gender are likely to go away. Depending upon how deep we get into customizing are cybernetic posthuman bodies the concept of gender may even begin to get hazy after awhile. I really hope that that's the future I get to live in.

Now I know there's a lot of politically charged discussion online and in the media about feminism. And I recognize that there is legitimate feminism; women advocating for equal representation with men, equal pay, equal rights and responsibilities. The kind of feminism that I would hope everyone on both sides is completely accepting of, and which has made great strides in the past 100 years or so.

Then, theres the "Feminism" that's women advocating that they are actually superior to men, and what tends to lead to a lot of people online getting a bad impression of the movement, and all of the memes and what have you. Usually their motivations stem from either using outdated events or information to state that "this was a disgrace to women, so men deserve to suffer the same disgrace" when most of these events are the responsibility of a past generation. Or cherry picking a few bigoted individuals and then generalizing them into a strawman that lets them say "a few men are like this, so all of them deserve to be talked down to because they all must like this." Then, MEN get a bad impression of feminism, because these "feminists" look just as bigoted as the bad apples on their side, leading to an Orborous cycle where no progressive discussion can actually happen anymore.

So I'm sitting in this boring ass wedding thinking about how women always complain about how uncomfortable their formal wear is. High heels get stuck in things and are a tripping hazard. Dresses are tight, your hair has to be perfect, you have to look all pretty and ladylike, and I'm thinking "I don't want to discredit your pain but this is not any easier for men." You're complaining your cold? I am wearing an undershirt, button up shirt, vest and sport coat. I am taking a hot shower in my own sweat, and I can't swallow because I'm being strangled by a necktie. "You might have to wear heels, but at least you can raise your arms above your shoulders!"

I feel like if a group of men and a group of women were able to sit down and complain about all the shit they have to deal with they wish they didn't have to, that we could have a much more civilized discussion. I know that because I've seen these exact types of online discussions occur before (somewhat informing this post) where men and women can both agree that a particular issue or double standard is unfair to one side or the other. So not all the discussions happening online are devolving into arguments.

We're all humans. We're all in this together.

But yeah. Being a guy, when it comes to both relationships and gender norms, really fucking sucks. There is the aforementioned issue of clothing. I think this is most exacerbated when it comes to formal wear. Women have a practically endless array of colors and styles of dresses and earrings to choose from, but for all men, its the suit and tie and that's it, theres not any choice to be made there. But this made me realize something. No man is ever going to get to feel as sexy or desirable as a woman, no matter how hard they try.

Come to think of it, I don't think men are really seen as desirable in a relationship, period. I'm trying not to go on and on with examples of double standards and issues that seem lopsided to one sex but have a spear counterpart on the other. In a relationship is normal for the man to ask the woman out, for the man to pay for everything and do everything in service to his woman. But in doing so, he doesn't feel desired or wanted. He feels like he's just being used. (At least if I was to go into a relationship with that sort of structure; that's how I would feel.) This person doesn't genuinely care about me. I show the affection, I make the moves, and I determine what happens. I have to play the supportive role, I have to be strong physically, mentally emotionally and financially to take care of a woman. I don't really feel like I'm desired or wanted, I'm just a vehicle for them to get the support they need. But if there's a problem in that relationship, then Its the man's fault because "the woman is always right" and I'm not good enough for her. If I'm sad, or unstable, or physically unable to do something, then I should just "Man Up" and take it.

But you know whats funny. Women have their own version of this. There is so much pressure on women to play a role too. I can't say quite as much about it, because I don't have to play it, but I know full it exists, and I know it puts a lot of stress on some women. Emphasis on your appearance, your weight, it probably causes a lot of anxiety. But I know it exists. And I know that these standards exist for men, too. I am 23 and I am short, people mistake me for still being in high school. I don't have the most attractive face shape. While I exercise I'm not noticeably muscular. I am not financially stable and I am overly emotional. I cried in fucking Kung Fu Panda, I get angry and scared very easily, I struggle with depression and existential dread, and I try to be very open and intelligent with my emotions and the people I care about, and look out for them too. But to the standard of what a woman should see in a man, I am the most unlovable and worthless trash imaginable, and I not deserving of any woman's love lest I change things that cannot really be changed.

I feel like the whole "Man Up" thing really needs to die, because its extremely dismissive of an issue that people are afraid to address. The traditionalists who appeal to these gender stereotypes just use it whenever brings up the legitimate damage that this can do to someone. I liken it to being told to ignore a grade school bully. How many times has ignoring a bully actually gotten them to stop picking on you as a child? (I seem to recall getting in trouble for ignoring a kid that the teacher had seen bully me on numerous occasions but never intervened; I refused to engage with him at all because he was consistently harassing me. Then he told on me for being rude and I was given detention. When I challenged the teacher for how unfair this was, I was given double detention for speaking out against the teacher. Our fantastically funded and highly effective American education system, everyone!) But seriously, ANYONE, has ignoring a bully ever gotten them to leave you alone? You can ignore them for awhile sure, but their words and actions will still eat away at you. In fact if you ignore them they usually use it as an opportunity to walk all over you, until it explodes into a confrontation.

Now I could bypass the whole issue by looking for a boyfriend instead. Since in these relationships exist inside the LGBT community (at least from my humble experience.) there isn't usually the same expectation that one has to conform to any specific gender's ideals. But thanks to the religious status, I'd be disowned by half my family for that.

Now this is the last paragraph. This is where I usually tie everything up and come to some sort of conclusion, but I still haven't. This issue is such a complicated combination of factors that somebody is going to find some way to point out that something that I said that probably has factors I didn't discuss or that is straight up wrong outside my point of view. And now that I'm done ranting about gender, I'm primed for another rant about public education here in America!

 

[JadeGreen17]

So I was going to rant about how public school (at least here in America) is basically depression concentrate, but I found something more aggravating to rant about.

(I was going to check kibou's tutorial to inform this post but the page link is broken)

So second to ghosting, it seems one of the most memed/talked about ways to kill an RP that is brought up on this site is the idea of bringing mental illness into an RP. Somebody is going to get triggered, as somebody did not do enough research, did not do the proper type of research, whatever. Now don't get me wrong, I understand that misrepresenting or flanderizing any group or demographic of people is a bad thing, and spreading misinformation is a bad thing. But I have had RP partners and friends seriously attempt to write mentally ill characters in the past, people with good intentions, who did their homework, who looked to provide representation only to be turned off by how volatile particular people can be when mentally handicapped characters are represented in fiction. Then having those same people who were just ripping that writer a new one turn around and complain about how underrepresented these characters are and wondering why everyone's so shy about bringing them in.

Anyways I had a giant rant all written on the subject but then re-read it and realized that even though I couldn't spot anything blatantly hypocritical or offensive, the whole "think before you post thing" got the better of me and I decided to just toss it, not wanting to start trouble.

 

[JadeGreen17]

Has anyone ever noticed that the word "Shucks" is a combination of Shit and Fucks but perfectly acceptable to show on Y7-TV for your stereotypical hillbilly/southerner type character?

Actually "Heck" is a combination of Hell and Fuck, and also pretty much acceptable to say in elementary school.

I wonder how much dirty stuff I've said as a kid without knowing it.

I feel like I could make this thread into the equivalent of "Adam Ruins Everything" Except its "Jade Ruins Everything".

Here I'll start.

You will never have a truly satisfying writing experience in an RP. More than likely its just going to be a colossal waste of time in your life. You will cycle through person after person, trying to find someone who resonates with your interests. Most people will just brush you off despite being talented writers. But a few will be willing to give your plots a try. Most likely they will ghost you within a week or two anyway. They'll lose motivation, or gotten busy with school or work. It will always be right as you've gotten past creating the character sheets and gotten past the introductions and setup just started getting into the meat of the RP that they will ghost on you. It might be legitimate, or it might be some person just doesn't have the heart to tell you that they've lost interest or found someone better (even though its pretty much unanimously agreed upon that telling someone when you intend to ghost is preferable.)

However overcoming ghosting is only the first obstacle, from what I've found. The real hard part comes when you finally find that special person. The one who not only resonates with your interests and your writing style, but the one who actually has the fortitude to stick with it for more than a fleeting instant. Then you discover that writing a cohesive story together is an absolute pain in the ass. You might be able to keep characters and locations consistent from post-to-post but over time both of your writing styles and goals for the RP will drift. Looking back at the two long-form RPs I've run, I find a lot of early-installment weirdness. Think of how difficult it is to keep your ideas and plot threads consistent when you're writing solo. Now you've got two people, constantly drifting around changing your short and long term goals. The entire thing will be a sloppily planned and constantly changing mess. You'll have fun doing it but at the end of the day the RP you leave behind is just a remnant of the good time you had along the way.

Speaking from personal experience anyway. If you actually want to write something cohesive I'd recommend a co-writer.

 

[Ayama]

Don't know how weird it is to reply to someone's journal entry, but I just got that 'breath of fresh air' feeling you get when you think you've found a kindred spirit xD
It's awesome when that happens irl too, of course, but for obvious reasons the internet tends to make that sort of thing far easier and more common.
In any case, apologies for the random reply- just wanted to say that I like and can relate to your thoughts posted here!

 

[JadeGreen17]

Ah well you're welcome to reply and chat me up here any time. If anything it's nice to know I'm not just talking to a wall here...

Right now I've been mentally composting something along the lines of how there's so much media, so many stories that have been told and are being told in our lives and how many of these stories serve as an escape for the mundanity of our actual lives. We are so attached to the ideas of advanced technology, robots, magic powers, demons, spaceships etc and they become so prevalent in our stories that real life where we can't do ninja flips and talk to ghosts with work and school and death and taxes ends up being a huge disappointment. What does this say about the human condition, that we so often trend towards these concepts.

 

[Ayama]

Ah well you're welcome to reply and chat me up here any time. If anything it's nice to know I'm not just talking to a wall here...

Right now I've been mentally composting something along the lines of how there's so much media, so many stories that have been told and are being told in our lives and how many of these stories serve as an escape for the mundanity of our actual lives. We are so attached to the ideas of advanced technology, robots, magic powers, demons, spaceships etc and they become so prevalent in our stories that real life where we can't do ninja flips and talk to ghosts with work and school and death and taxes ends up being a huge disappointment. What does this say about the human condition, that we so often trend towards these concepts.

It's like you're reading thoughts from my own brain xD
I feel like we could have long random rants about life, the universe, and everything ;P

 

[JadeGreen17]

Ayama

But yeah I've been thinking a lot about how we tell stories... we obsess over them. Since the dawn of time superpowers and dramatic, action packed stories full of magic have always existed. It seems like a concept we are innately drawn to. Theres a lot of talk about how the MCU is essentially the modern day greek or roman pantheon. The characters deal with and help to explain issues that are relevant to our real world, while simultaneously giving us figures to look up to or live through. They give us something to believe in that is greater than ourselves. We are intrinsically drawn to the idea that there is something more mystical, more infinite and more interesting just beyond the horizon. As children we are so drawn to the possibilities of the world, but as adults were are trained that wanting to fly through space or meet a dragon or go on an adventure is a childish thing, something that we should repress.

But is that what gives an individual greatest purpose. The thought that they are extraordinary. That they can do things and fill a role that nobody else can. The idea that people can be endowed with, or train to acquire extraordinary power. That they are at the center of the story. Is this a delusion of entitlement and grandure that one should learn to repress or is it a primal desire to be the central character of one's own story. Something to be embraced or starved? Should one just accept their fate as another 9-5 worker with salt and pepper hair with two kids, is that truly what we are expressing a desire for?

I mean there are a lot of stories that trend towards much more realistic depictions of life. And these stories are successful because they are relatable. When something is close to real life, rather than something we can imagine ourselves being a part of. Take for instance "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" (The perfect thing for an existential discussion about why we tell stories in a particular way.) Because the relatability is so obvious. If you've never read DOAWK, you'll know its about a fairly normal underdog kid in middle school. The reason this book (and its many, many cash cow sequels) are so popular is because the situations (though fictitious and somewhat comically exaggerated) are so ridiculously relatable to the target audience.

 

[JadeGreen17]

I've been thinking more and more about why we tell stories. I started to feel like everything I was writing was unoriginal. Like everything that I was writing had just been done somewhere else better and there was no point in progressing my work any further. Every great work of fiction has already been written. Every great painting has already been made. There is such a saturation of stories and art that I seriously wonder if there is any space left in the world for new stories and characters. Stories and characters that do not, in some way, feel directly derivative of those which already exist. I mean think of how many types of media the average person is expected to know and reference to hold a conversation with someone in a role play or fiction driven community. Is it even possible to consume all the necessary media in your lifetime? And with more being added all the time, the job progressively gets harder.

Think of how many memes and phrases and jokes derive from one TV show, comic book, book, or another and how many you actually know or understand.

I remember having a cousin who never watched Star Wars. He was a big media buff, watched a lot of hot TV shows growing up and got big into anime. Watched quite a few movies too. But he had never seen Star Wars. Until one weekend he spent the nights at my house and I decided to get him through the entire OT and PT of movies. (~12 hours of film). The takeaway was that by the time he was finished, he explained to me how so many references and jokes that had been made over the years had been going over his head until that day. I had my own similar experience with Harry Potter. I didn't read the Harry Potter books growing up, but I read them for a literature class in college. I actually got the last book in the series as a present, and still own it. And I had my own experience of "wow, so many jokes and references suddenly make sense to me now."