Shienvien

The Prophecy

Heh, merry second holiday of Christmas from me (the fancy Christmas dinner was two days ago, and the greater extended family meeting and exchanging presents was yesterday, today we're all just being lazy and watching a Die Hard marathon - for some reason, these have been the traditional Christmas movies for as long as Die hard has existed, brought to you on Christmas by at least three separate Estonian channels).

The Prophecy

Merry Christmas indeed! (Even though we use a word derived from "Yule" for the holiday, something I actually had not paid all that much attention to now other than at some point noting that our word for "Christmas" didn't actually refer to "Christ"... "Christmas Eve" ... Yule Saturday? is also 23rd for us, and the actual Christmas/Yule spans over two days on the 24th and 25th.)

I didn't actually even get to inform Rhae that Merc had posted - he managed to notice it entirely on his own. (I guess it's Yoshua and then Jack on that side, now?) No posts I can make myself, though... On the flipside, I absolutely still have work I should manage somewhere between family dinners and trying to arrange a meeting with an old friend sometime within this year still. And then there is New Years', which is arguably a notably more significant holiday for me than Yule/Christmas...

Mahz's Dev Journal

<Snipped quote by Shienvien>

That's the issue. As of now, our RP has 3325 pages.

@LegendBegins

Whoa. I am going to assume most of those are OoC posts (unless we're speaking free RP, which could feasibly reach tens of thousands of posts within a couple of years)...

I believe Mahz intended to make posts-per-page customizable at some point. I don't think displaying them all on one page is viable, though - simply because some part of the system or another might simply keel over trying to spit out that number of posts at once. Especially if a number of users are trying to do something like that concurrently.

I could technically see an export function which puts out mostly just the text info and usernames, though, about two hundred posts at a time or so (track would be kept). I made something vaguely similar for a database, once (as rolling the entire backup up in one go was physically impossible). If people won't abuse it, we should be fine.

Mahz's Dev Journal

Could there be a method implemented to allow every page/post in a thread to be saved? Even if it's a hacked in solution to allow all posts to be displayed on an (extremely long) page, wouldn't something to archive a thread be possible?

@LegendBegins

Right-click -> save web page as makes a HTML pull. Works well enough for backups. Has to be repeated for every page, though.

Mahz's Dev Journal

In principle, someone could take the time and send a notification to everyone in the whole guild in a single post. Not sure why they'd bother to do so, but there's probably nothing that prevents them from doing so, other than the character limit per post. To cover everyone, they'd probably need to use a few posts.

In practice, you'd run into the character limit long before.

And the text turns green because it parses it as greentext, which is some kind of IM thingy, as far as I'm aware.

Mahz's Dev Journal

One approach would be using chatmods (so people who can subjectively judge who is spamming and can apply limited cooldowns - since they can't actually ban people from the forums/etc, the filtering for them doesn't need to be as strict as with "real" mods). If someone just does not seem to get it after a long while and chatmods start to remember the person, "real" mods can get involved and further decisions can be made.

Mahz's Dev Journal

Eg: if 3 messages appear within 10 seconds, a 15 second cool down period is issued

That seems unnecessarily strict. I often do this in IMs without any spam involved... Much annoyance has been had at things arbitrarily locking me out for just trying to converse with people elsewhere.

The Prophecy

There, it's a bit overdue, but I've posted. I've had quite a bit of driving between home and various family houses recently, and somehow dealing with certain members of my family and commuting combined seem to drain me quite a bit (much more so than work ever did - I can work from 8 to midnight six to seven days a week, only taking breaks to eat and quickly patrol some of the sites I frequent, maybe going out with friends one day a week, and I'm perfectly fine - I can keep this up for at least three years in a row with no discernible adverse effects, stated so because I've actually pretty much done just that...). In any case, I think I'm just going to stay home until Christmas now...

It's Mercinus on the Zerul City side, I believe (going by his own words; his character is yet to react to Rhae's, for one). He's been a bit busy with university, but should be posting as soon as possible.
Jack by the roadside, I believe (Legion will still post when actually capable of doing so)?

Also, it occurred to me that it might specifically be the "lord"-part which makes demon lords sound so puny compared to gods. Since "god" can be pretty much whatever, "demon" can be pretty much whatever (there are demons who match the most powerful of gods, at least in some eastern mythology), and "devil" (in the contexts I usually draw from when I think of the word) is quite strictly either a(n evil) deity or the primordial evil and the biggest and baddest that side has to offer ... but "lord" - aside of being quite strictly male, which isn't the case with Prophecy-demons, and "lady" being a term which brings to mind daintiness and frailty rather than than power to the point where my brain wants to interpret it as a derogatory term (fault certain members of my mother's side of family for that impression ... that is probably strictly my and select others' problem and can be discounted as such, though) -, but Lord is ... somehow a middle-tier rank at best? Just a notch more than your typical stock demon, ready to be usurped by any other demon who manages to get close enough to stab them in the back? Doesn't help that the only stories that I've read in which there were specifically demon lords and devils together, the latter could literally (and somewhat amusingly, if you're from the modern west) make the first explode just by sending an angry look at the first. But that's that. I've probably rambled too long on the topic...

Speaking of old things, a random tidbit I discovered during one of our duiscussions, but somehow neglected to mention: namely, English and Estonian rainbows are different. For me, I've always known the rainbow to be red-orange-yellow-green-cyan-blue-violet, so when you mentioned a person denying there are any colors between blue and green I was in half mind to just link the Wiki page for rainbows ... and for the first time realized that the English rainbow is red-orange-yellow-gree-blue-indigo-violet. Oh.
Which is perhaps especially odd, since I've always considered indigo to be one of those pseudo-colors no one know what or where is. The indigo bird (from who the name comes from) is a kind of iridescent cyan/blue/blueish-violet, and only the last is kind of what the color is defined as. Depending on lighting conditions and the individuals, actual indigos may not have any of the indigo color whatsoever. Nominally, the indigo color is somewhere between violent and blue. As used, it tends to translate to "greenish-cyan to violet," which ... is kind of pretty much useless classification.
Oh well. Could always bring out your typical color printer cartridge (CMYK), which is cyan-magenta-yellow-key(black). Magenta is the color you get when blue light mixes with red, for the record. Pink is red combined with violet - which, by the way, means that your RGB monitor screen, being incapable of displaying violet (things called "violet" are always purple as far as RGB systems are concerned), also cannot display proper pink.

On a random note, my brain should finally learn that "decimate" means to kill every tenth person, not everyone. I've seen the term "completely decimated" far too often in writing, though... Does this mean making extra certain each unfortunate tenth person is dead, or just confirms that the firing squad did not get bored and wander off three fourths through decimating a particularly large congregation of people?

And then there was this thing:

Any comments about my thoughts on mind-affecting spells and self-knowledge and awareness? Since, yeah, as long as it's not specifically thought-control or the spell isn't sophisticated enough to separately null your knowledge of self ... I'd say any kind of generic-effect spell or abrupt illusion would actually be consciously rather jarring and immediately identifiable, especially when you're aware that someone was casting a mind-affecting spell.

(Just so everything is in one place and you don't have to go perusing several pages' worth of old OoC posts.)

The Prophecy

Domhnall McRaith

The young lad appeared to have no more words to spare him, and the white-haired and white-eyed woman just offered him a curt nod before quietly inquiring something of the older black-eyes next to her. Olan, was it? He had never been too good with foreign names...
The old guy himself was looking around with an almost childlike wonder, from him to Iridiel to their new slumbering friend, and, perhaps more notably, showing signs of positive recognition when Iridiel's goddess was mentioned. Unusual. From what he had seen and heard, the people of this land did not appear to recognize neither her nor the nine other Éireannach deities - Epona of hunting, Sulis of healing and nature, Aedh of honorable warfare, Lugus of learning and knowledge, Rosmerta of fertility and agriculture, Belisama of rivers, lakes, seas, and storms (or perhaps water in general), Belenus, the secondary god of healing, Andraste of victory, Belatucardos of bloodthirstiness and anger, and Arvernus of government and society.
Instead of them, the people of those lands appeared to worship a plethora of entities foreign to the Éireannach, who generally had little contact with the outside world and its various religions. The most they were generally aware of was the monotheistic religion of Thessaleia - their old rival and arch-nemesis. From what Domhnall understood, the "eastern" deities often stood for the same aspects Éireannach deities did ... which was probably also why in each respective region, only one or the other was recognized. Water alone had something like at least two ... maybe three or four or more "eastern" deities assigned to it; who knew how they all managed it without constantly squabbling amongst themselves. (Or perhaps they did bicker all the time, unable to agree on where a river or another was supposed to go or what place to flood or which area to subject to drought?)
He would probably never learn all the names of those "eastern" deities. There were far too many, these were not their deities, and he was not a particularly religious man. There was an obvious benefit to traveling with someone capable of healing or dealing massive damage at the mere utterance of a deity's name (not that it was the main, or even a particularly prevalent reason why he had stuck with Iridiel for those last years of his life; thankfully, those services of hers had not turned out to be necessary all that often thus far), but other than that ... he simply did not think he would have had the faith or devotion to become favored himself. More often than not, his relation with deities could be summed up with "try not to piss them off too badly, and you will most likely do just fine".

The older black-eyes replied something to the white-eyed woman, and they both carefully made their way over to where the little group's leader lay, seemingly still asleep. The male forestfolk lingered for a bit, uncertain on whether he was still needed there or he could go and check up on his companion.
Aemoten was normally a very light sleeper, and generally tended to regain full alertness within moments of waking (though in instances where his sleep had been cut particularly short, he also tended to be significantly more irritable than otherwise), but not there and then. The events that had transpired since he woke this early morning had taken a too heavy toll on his soul, and in an effort to replenish itself, it now clung to the Spirit Realm with all ten nails, figuratively speaking. While it remained at least possible to wake the foreign warrior, it would have taken considerable effort to do so.
The blind woman's fingers tentatively running across his face as she brushed aside errant strands of hair did not suffice to stir him, and as such he remained in his slumber, head tilted to the side, breathing evenly, though still shallowly.

The older black-eyes did not seem to wait long before his attention was back on him, "Okay, okay, I'm dying to know - what two éireannach and a del-korm are doing here? And together, too. That's probably about the most unusual thing I remember seeing, you know!" His exclamation even diverted the white-eyes' attention to him, for a bit.
"Myself and Iridiel - we were hunting, caught a deer before setting up a camp nearby" he began after a moment's pause. "Now we're headed for Zerul City ... large place, should be good fer trading."
He heavily suspected this was not what the old man had meant, but it gave him a bit of time to think over what he could actually say of his and Iridiel's shared past. Or the pasts of them individually. He did not think it was his right to share why Iridiel had originally been forced to leave his home, and he was not entirely certain these newcomers would look at him the same way if he shared the less fortunate bits of his past right away. All in all, he found himself in a bit of a predicament.
It was strange, though ... the man actually knowing what he and Iridiel (who was much more humanlike than he!) were, and furthermore also knowing what manner of creature Claw was. From what the wolf-man had told, he was from some isolated island up north, and probably even father west than the Éireannach lands.
Absentmindedly, he scratched his bearded cheek as he pondered, then clasped his hands together in front of himself.
"Been traveling' with Iridiel fer a few years now... Met her not far from my old home; never been to her lands meself. She's a hunter like me back home, aside of a Favored one of Sulis, from a small place called Loch Garman, I believe. She's sent out to learn and improve herfelf by her people." Which was technically a correct statement, and probably a much nicer way to put it than "exiled"... He himself had not been made to leave as much as he thought it might be for the better himself.
"Traveled east for a good while... Heard there's not much but ashen rocks and some sandy desert further east from here, so decided to take a bit of a break. Leas' gave me some time to learn some of the language. Claw we met not long before you lot. Seems like the honorable sort."
Odd, to think of it for a bit - aside of their profession, he and Iridiel were practically opposites in many things, and not only because he was a man and a forestfolk, and she a woman and a highlander, but she was also a devout woman while he was practically irreligious, she was a fairly reserved individual and did not do well with people whereas he was always the one to do most of the talking stuff... As they somehow had ended up staying together until this day rather than splitting ways, he supposed that they complemented one another well enough in the end. That, and there simply were no other Éireannach around.

Mahz's Dev Journal

It wouldn't be too bad if they actually put spaces after the commas... Right now the overflowing part is all one "word".