[LMB] TSK: Beguilement re-read OT: Malfoy hazy, try again later

[Azalais Aranxta]

On Fri, 9 May 2008, quietann wrote:

> It's all personal stuff with me, too.  Work has been
> crazy-busy, I've been weepy and depressed a lot for various
> reasons (which makes Bujold books a good escape, but *thinking*
> about them impossible), and dealing with various other
> problems, most importantly the new horse... who is way less
> trained and way more of a project than I ever thought she would
> be.

Ditto ditto ditto.  Well, not the weepiness and the horse, but
the personal stuff.  It's especially frustrating for me because I
JUST READ Beguilement for the very first time (late to the party,
I know...) and I have stuff to say :)

But:  Work was crazy-busy last week.  This week's catchup time.

And Lightning War has had its issues with the move from
LiveJournal to InsaneJournal.  (I don't like the name or the
layout of IJ any better than anyone else does and have taken some
flack because of the insensitivity of the theme of the
journalling site.

But all I can say is:  we lost two journals in the first
strikethrough (two journals with no actual sexually explicit
writing in them, but they were villains who had listed sex crimes
as an interest, even though actual sex crimes aren't permitted
onscreen in the game) and we got them back only because I was
able to reach Barak Berkowitz.

Anton Nossik's interviews are such that I am aware he is just not
going to be accessible to me or pay attention to the fact that
our game/interactive shared-world was making their service about
$400 a year, due to players buying accounts so that they could
have more graphics, plus drawing in readers who actually got LJ
accounts so that they could read it.

There are sexually explicit plotlines.  Some of them involve
teenagers.  It's set in a different type of cultural milieu than
modern America.  I don't want to take the risk of losing every
account that's registered to a specific email address ever, and I
am irritated beyond belief by the loss of Basic accounts; six
icons was enough for most non-player characters, and we had
promised the game's readers that it would never carry ads.  Since
we could no longer keep that promise to them, we decided to go to
a journalling site where we could at least promise them large
parts of it wouldn't disappear overnight.

Moving 200+ journals even with scripting (one of our players used
to be deeply involved with LinuxChix, another one is an
internationally known software developer, and they've donated
more time to the project than I and everyone in the game could
ever pay them for) is a lot of work.  Most of the entries are
moved.  The comments are not yet moved.  The graphics have not
yet been replaced.  The archive is not yet complete.  A lot of
stuff can't be automated.

We're also preparing to move to our own server and debating the
merits of small-scale LJ code vs Word Press Multi-User, and I'm
trying to learn CSS.  We're also doing a partial universe reboot
when we change from Lightning War 2.5 to Lightning War 3.0,
incorporating a change that many readers and players have asked
for.  (I can't say what in a public forum at this time, but it
will make us very happy.  Trust me.  If you really wanna know,
private email :) )

I'm having fun with a lot of this in spite of the annoyances and
I think that my players and tech people are too--I'm sure they
wouldn't do it if they weren't.

But if I'm quiet?  This is why.

~malfoy :)