Haflinger
-
Posts
9,300 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Gallery
Blog Comments posted by Haflinger
-
-
For all those posting before me, YHBT. GLHF.
-
While larger alliances have a tendency to be more closed than smaller alliances they are not the only alliances that have closed societies, small alliances are not exempt from becoming closed societies.
They did stuff that large alliances just wouldn't be able to. Like, I had to get permission in advance from the government members of other alliances before joining their IRC channels.
Eventually I decided to just skip the insanity, and well left. There were other reasons too but the paranoia was intense, and frankly the paranoia was probably the main reason I left - as it was the cause of the other reasons.
As you are aware, I went to Invicta, and as you probably remember, Invicta was not massively open back then. Nevertheless it felt like a huge breath of fresh air, not needing to beg permission to go be a diplomat etc.
-
lol
I like you.
-
I AM TOO A HATER
-
Actually, my first microalliance was almost a perfect example of a closed society. They were nuts though.
I'm not sure alliances are being more closed. At least, the ones I know well have been going the opposite direction. Invicta used to be extremely closed, and now we're pretty much as open as you can be with our members.
-
Of course people in the victorious group are trying to push the world back into the old mould. They won the war in the old mould.
It's the losers in wars that want to see things change. Not the winners.
Not all of the 200 were replaced with recruits. Some NPO members rerolled during the war as well.
-
The population events are rare Ghux, but they can have a pretty huge economic impact. I had a +1% pop event for a while there, and it was awesome.
-
When I retired, people still thought I ran Invicta. (Which I never have.)
Of course I ran my mouth off anyway, because it's fun.
-
I still prefer nethack.
-
Oh yes. Also about Niven. The Flying Sorcerors, which he wrote with Gerrold, is one of the funniest books ever written. However it is swarming with in-jokes. Probably you do not know enough about SF to get most of the jokes. But reading it after having wasted half your life reading + watching other things is a way to produce much joy.
-
You want something Dune-like but aren't a big fan of space opera? O_o
He means Doc Smith by space opera, I think.
Is niven the guy that wrote about the floating trees in the gas torus thing? I've been looking for those books. Another thing that is sad about sci fi is that the selection at the library is pretty hit or miss.
That is The Integral Trees and the Smoke Ring. Yes.
He also wrote the Ringworld series.
Integral Trees is actually my favourite Niven, but Ringworld is more popular. The first book in the series is Ringworld. Most of Niven's books are set in the same universe as Ringworld, if you see "Known Space" around the title somewhere it's the same future history.
Dream Park is also an extremely good book, especially if you are a roleplayer, in the SCA, or know someone who is at least one of those two things.
Of course there are no gamers here.
I would also suggest Bill Gibson, especially the Sprawl series (four books; Burning Chrome and Other Stories - Neuromancer - Count Zero - Mona Lisa Overdrive. In that order. Read Burning Chrome first, it's amazing stuff. Also, if you ever meet him, call him Bill. It drives him bananas.)
Some of my other favourite SF books.
Asimov - The Gods Themselves. I still feel it was his best book. If you like Foundation, at least try it. I adore Asimov though, he is one of the authors whose bookshelf space is measured in feet and it goes into double digits.
Brunner - The Shockwave Rider, Stand on Zanzibar. British new wave. You sound like a New Wave kind of reader. However Brunner is also a double-digit author for me.
Gordon Dickson - Dorsai! and its sequels in the Childe Cycle.
John Varley - Titan/Wizard/Demon. Great books.
Pat Cadigan - Most of her stuff. Mindbending cyberpunk. Expect to go wtf this is really weird at least once per page or so. Especially her earlier books, she gets a bit better at writing transparently as she gets older.
H. Beam Piper - The Fuzzy series. Little Fuzzy is first. A lot of interesting social commentary and discussion of what intelligence is.
Fred Pohl - Lots of things. I suppose Gateway, first book in the Heechee series, is probably the easiest to find. Fred can be a bit hit or miss, but I generally like him anyway. Also possibly The Space Merchants, a collaboration with Kornbluth from way back.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some others. I've mostly been reading fantasy lately though, as Cadigan seems to have retired and Asimov and Brunner passed on.
-
I have one right now. I usually have one, sometimes I have two. I do pay bills every day tho.
-
There are only a few alliances with large numbers of protectorates; many alliances eschew them entirely. You have to have spare government members to help oversee them, and those are gov members who could be helping your own members.
Speaking from experience, it's best to stick to protectorates that remind you of yourself when you were smaller. The only really successful protectorate Invicta had was NAC, and they really did remind us of a tiny Invicta when they first appeared, except without any strong nations to keep them safe. Now they're one of our best allies. The others have mostly fallen by the wayside.
-
I've only played CE, Urban Dead and Galava - for a very limited time that last one.
The only other game I've played alot online was Quake. Yes, the first one. Yes I'm old
-
Bob, we waived as soon as we found out what they were. Due to the travails of war, we weren't at the negotiating table when our reps were decided on, and we went "lol, no, thanks" when we saw them.
Valhalla did several paid-for tech deals actually. The reps they negotiated for us from SOLID were in that form, and we kept it that way, we just shrunk the number from 14 to 2.
-
I didn't know you lived in "the town that fun forgot." You have my sympathy. (I live in Ajax, the town that fun never even visited.)
Actually I really love Ottawa. It's big enough so there's enough to do and small enough so that I can walk everywhere.
And I do mean everywhere. I've been known to walk to Britannia from downtown.
But I could do without the frozen winters and the drivers from hell.
I have come to the conclusion that Canadians cannot drive.
It's a regional thing.
If you're close to Québec, not only can they not drive, but they fail to do so in the most unlikely way imaginable.
The further away you get... well it gets better gradually as you go west, but then drops down horrendously again when you enter the Mary Jane province. Er, BC.
BC drivers are better than Québec drivers tho, mostly because it's impossible to drive that fast when you're that stoned.
-
We initially tried to refuse reps. Our allies were furious. We wound up taking the reps but sending cash in return. Our allies were still furious. We were accused of trying to make them look bad.
This is sorta wacky.
Was Invicta the only alliance to turn down reps in WotC without getting yelled at for it?
We actually got UPN, NATO and Andromeda to drop theirs as well - no, we didn't pressure them, but when they found out what we were doing they followed suit.
-
You weren't entirely irrelevant, actually. The drama you started had repercussions down the road.
Hopefully you're no longer interested in those types of shenanigans though, which weren't anything to do with why you got banned anyway. Good luck, and welcome back.
-
Given that Ramirus appears to be both completely insane and in total control, we're probably looking at a war that lasts until he gets bored with CN and becomes a famous World War II film producer.
-
You can describe a situation that you do not treat seriously as a game.
Yeah I think that's pretty much where I fit in anyway.
-
Actually, it's xr1. He's the secret mastermind behind everything that's wrong in CN.
-
Talk about getting one's hopes up and then dashing them. Seriously, take your own advice. Do us all a favor and end it. While you're at it take the Rectum Invicta or whatever with you.
Nobody likes a tease.
Sorry, guys. I actually was thinking of quitting, but then that whole war of total idiocy was just too much fun. So now I'm not.
You can probably blame AlmightyGrub and LiquidMercury for me sticking around
-
I've been described as John Lennon at a Phish concert.
-
Somehow I've got a feeling that once they're out of terms they will have some internal deals to arrange.
Be Real: Question 1
in Ejayrazz's Blog
A blog by Ejayrazz in General
Posted
I would probably kill him myself.