So, this is about the title of a skimmer crew member.
I think we can all agree that the leader of a skimmer is called a Captain.
Would the crew members be called sailors?
Yes.
Ehhh... I don't know.... Do the skimmers even have sails on them?
Yes.
Maybe.
I never had a problem with skimmer crewmembers calling themselves "skimmers," unless they have a sdesc that's going to cause me to mistake them for an actual silt-skimmer or something.
Yes, skimmers have sails.
I knew it.
I say we give them something slightly Zalanthified.
Whira-jammers
Sea-Silters
Silt-mates
Silt-toks
If we want an original term, I am hereby coining the term skimmates.
Whira-stalkers
Silt-sailor
Void-walkers.
Quote from: Patuk on June 10, 2014, 05:30:22 PM
If we want an original term, I am hereby coining the term skimmates.
Eh. What's an individual? A Skimmate? Don't like the sound of it. Skimmerers? hehehe.
Silter?
"Now I been a silter nigh half of my life. I reckon you could say I'll die in the Sea."
Then are there pirates in the Known?
Yes, there are.
Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on June 10, 2014, 05:38:57 PM
Silter?
"Now I been a silter nigh half of my life. I reckon you could say I'll die in the Sea."
I've heard silter before. Valid.
Three little points:
1. I sort of like how Arm has a lot of pockets of linguistic flavor, where terms and idioms developed organically among the playerbase, and might even die out with them. I think the Sea of Eternal Dust and all that happens down there with 'em skimmers, and the lifestyle, is one of these areas where we could have a rich, improvised, language.
2. That said, it is a bit tiresome not to use an already rich English vocabulary of nautical terms (batten down the hatches! Port! Poopdeck! Captain, mate, etc.) just because it is silt and not water and a skimmer and not a sailboat. My characters treat the silt sea as a sea and the skimmers on them as boats captained by captains and crews that get lost at sea, etc. etc. After all, it isn't as if there is an actual sea (with water) to confuse us.
3. And yes, there damn better be pirates. I wish the sea weren't so dangerous so more players would play down there. Perhaps pockets of it can be made safe(ish)? Part of (1) requires at atleast a few long-lived PCs to pass on the lore word-of-mouth and in game, which is what happens, in my experience, in other areas of the game, e.g., the Rinth, GMHs, the Byn, etc. (If this is ALREADY the case, then ignore this point!)
Skimmerettes
Skailors.
Dust-Riders
Siltors
Cannon Fodder
They'll call themselves whatever the Captain calls them, if they know what's good for them.
There are sails on the skimmers. So sailor is fine. Better than fine. You're sailing the sea of eternal dust.
Why does that need some weird handle?
To make life harder on the newbies.
Because when I think sailors I think water, and white and blue sailor outfits.
Silter is not "some weird handler" I find it rather fitting.
Silt Chow.
Quote from: RogueGunslinger on June 10, 2014, 07:56:21 PM
Because when I think sailors I think water, and white and blue sailor outfits.
Silter is not "some weird handler" I find it rather fitting.
When I think of dwarves I think of beards, booze, and !!FUN!!. Armageddon dwarves can only have up to two of those things applying to them but I found myself able to adjust to this strange new world with its different connotations for words.
Quote from: BadSkeelz on June 10, 2014, 08:13:19 PM
Quote from: RogueGunslinger on June 10, 2014, 07:56:21 PM
Because when I think sailors I think water, and white and blue sailor outfits.
Silter is not "some weird handler" I find it rather fitting.
When I think of dwarves I think of beards, booze, and !!FUN!!. Armageddon dwarves can only have up to two of those things applying to them but I found myself able to adjust to this strange new world with its different connotations for words.
Except dwarves are a very big portion of the game. An entire race. And it's the details of the dwarves that are different, not a whole word used to describe them. If there was a race of short, hair beer-lovers in game and everyone wanted to call them Porties I'd have an issue with that. "Just call them dwarves." I'd say.
This is rather different.
Sailors are not. You would be lucky to find a single instance of the word sailor in the game not said by a PC. I really dislike the word sailor when referring to skimmer crews. The word itself feels anachronistic.
Crew. Crewmate. Captain and crew.
This doesn't need to be complicated...
Quote from: RogueGunslinger on June 10, 2014, 08:30:52 PM
Sailors are not. You would be lucky to find a single instance of the word sailor in the game not said by a PC. I really dislike the word sailor when referring to skimmer crews. The word itself feels anachronistic.
How about: seamen?
All that said up there, I don't want to come off as discouraging... if you say and use sailor in game, I probably won't really care. There doesn't have to be a name, or there can be any name you want to use.
"I work on a skimmer!" "I sail the silt sea!" Honestly, use whatever you think is awesome. Call yourself decksluts for all that it matters. And then whatever catches on in game... that's what it will be.
I really hope it's decksluts.
*Some post about hopping on board of decksluts.
Rear Admiral Amos and his decksluts reporting for duty.
I just wish the code for skimmers would be looked at to allow more free movement around said skimmers.
This may have actually been changed since the last time I was on a skimmer, but in the past it amounted to kind of sitting at a table and having one person direct that table around the sea.
I think it would be much more appealing to everyone, and safer, and more realistic, if larger skimmers were actually basically just wagons with "top side" rooms and "below deck" rooms that you could actually walk around on, flee to, battle on/in etc...
Again, it's been years since I've been on one IC, this may actually have been changed already.
I would also prefer if the rooms "around" the docks were treated as "wagon yards" and you actually had to dock your skimmer and lock it up and leave it there. The main reason I want this is because:
A) If you managed to steal someone's skimmer, that would be pretty fun, if unlikely.
B) People could actually live on their skimmers.
C) People could actually keep cargo on their skimmers so pirating would be a thing, and not just an idea.
D) Because I want, I want, I want.
I never did like the idea of using the whole stable-ticket-structure for gigantic skimmers. It's like they vanish into thin air and reappear when you show up to "un-stable" them. Meh.
I suppose one problem would be people getting dead and then there being a big ole' skimmer sitting at the docks for eternity with no owner. But, with the number of skimmers and people who actually buy them/run them being fairly low, I don't think it would be hard for staff to drop down and delete those ghost skimmers once every six months or something. I can't imagine there would be more than one or two.
Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on June 10, 2014, 05:05:30 PM
So, this is about the title of a skimmer crew member.
I think we can all agree that the leader of a skimmer is called a Captain.
Would the crew members be called sailors?
Skimmer Captain: Attention whore.
Skimmer Crew: Snowflake groupies.
Quote from: Is Friday on June 11, 2014, 10:51:43 AM
Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on June 10, 2014, 05:05:30 PM
So, this is about the title of a skimmer crew member.
I think we can all agree that the leader of a skimmer is called a Captain.
Would the crew members be called sailors?
Skimmer Captain: Attention whore.
Skimmer Crew: Snowflake groupies.
(http://media.salon.com/2007/05/pirates_of_the_caribbean_at_worlds_end.jpg)
Spot on what people imagine of their super cool PCs. :)
I always liked skimmersmates.
As for large skimmers, I think the problem is that even the large ones that you see commonly IG are not that large. They aren't yachts. I think they're more like galleys or 17th century longboats, where there isn't really a below-decks. Your just kind of sitting in a hull.
Quote from: Is Friday on June 11, 2014, 12:26:12 PM
Spot on what people imagine of their super cool PCs. :)
Some men like to play teenage girls, some men like to play cool pirates in flashy costumes. That's the beauty of an RP game, you can be whatever you've always wanted to be!
Quote from: Malken on June 11, 2014, 01:48:39 PM
Quote from: Is Friday on June 11, 2014, 12:26:12 PM
Spot on what people imagine of their super cool PCs. :)
Some men like to play teenage girls, some men like to play cool pirates in flashy costumes. That's the beauty of an RP game, you can be whatever you've always wanted to be!
Now I kind of want someone to play a flashy teenage girl pirate in game.
It would actually be pretty cool to see done well. I can see serious entertainment in that.
Quote from: Desertman on June 11, 2014, 01:54:01 PM
Now I kind of want someone to play a flashy teenage girl pirate in game.
It would actually be pretty cool to see done well. I can see serious entertainment in that.
I idea'd this in game.
Quote from: Desertman on June 11, 2014, 01:54:01 PM
Quote from: Malken on June 11, 2014, 01:48:39 PM
Quote from: Is Friday on June 11, 2014, 12:26:12 PM
Spot on what people imagine of their super cool PCs. :)
Some men like to play teenage girls, some men like to play cool pirates in flashy costumes. That's the beauty of an RP game, you can be whatever you've always wanted to be!
Now I kind of want someone to play a flashy teenage girl pirate in game.
It would actually be pretty cool to see done well. I can see serious entertainment in that.
Sailor Lirathu.
I found her....
(http://digital-art-gallery.com/oid/81/r169_457x256_14221_Alexis_2d_fantasy_character_sword_pin_up_pirate_warrior_picture_image_digital_art.jpg)
Go ahead people. Make it a thing. Give her the crazy eye with the scar and everything. It gives her a certain "character".
Alice Siltshanker
The scar-marked, ginka-cropped lass
Objective: Everything, everywhere, all of the time.
The sort of nutso that cackles maniacally while stealing all of your goods just to throw them into the sea right in front of you, just so you know it's not the profit, it's the pleasure.
She would also wear a belt made of the ears of all of the men who try to bed her. Her motto would be, "The sea can't lay me down, and no man ever will! Yarrrr!".
She wouldn't be -another- lesbian PC, she would have no interest in sexual exploits of any kind actually. She would not be opposed to using other's sexual desires against them though.
The name of her silt skimmer, "The Gritty Snatch."
.....I think I just wrote the only female PC I would ever consider playing.
Do you think an "official" skimmer crew of some kind (one that's been there since the town's beginning, historic, a rigorous and well-established chain of command, unusually strict, basically some cultural bits and rules you won't find in pc-only skimmers, and with its own one or two staff) would be a good idea, when the playerbase gets bigger? Or will it do more harm than good by fragmenting the playerbase? I'd really like to see actual competition between skimmer crews on the seas, maybe they fight over a silt horror carcass after teaming up to take it down. Sure, they agreed to split it up, but Almost Older then the Town Much Sway Very Stormers Only crew took way more damage to their skimmer and PC Crew #432 With Three Muls and No Official Captain lost and injured more people, so they end up turning on each other.
Then an experienced ranger sails in, takes the carcass while they're fighting, and spends the next RL year in hiding, forced to be employed by Kurac to avoid being stabbed forty-seven times by the outraged mul who abruptly ends the fight, turns the skimmer around, and chases the ranger off the shoreline, on foot through the village, gets their mounts, and halfway to Luir's before a party of gith finally assist in getting the mul to calm down enough to decide that dying in Luir's today isn't how they want their life to end.
You know what I mean, right?
I prefer to leave it up to the players.
Quote from: Desertman on June 11, 2014, 02:21:21 PM
I found her....
(http://digital-art-gallery.com/oid/81/r169_457x256_14221_Alexis_2d_fantasy_character_sword_pin_up_pirate_warrior_picture_image_digital_art.jpg)
Go ahead people. Make it a thing. Give her the crazy eye with the scar and everything. It gives her a certain "character".
Alice Siltshanker
The scar-marked, ginka-cropped lass
Objective: Everything, everywhere, all of the time.
The sort of nutso that cackles maniacally while stealing all of your goods just to throw them into the sea right in front of you, just so you know it's not the profit, it's the pleasure.
She would also wear a belt made of the ears of all of the men who try to bed her. Her motto would be, "The sea can't lay me down, and no man ever will! Yarrrr!".
She wouldn't be -another- lesbian PC, she would have no interest in sexual exploits of any kind actually. She would not be opposed to using other's sexual desires against them though.
The name of her silt skimmer, "The Gritty Snatch."
Okay.
Silt sea pirate.
The only role with less job-based interaction than a male whore.
Quote from: James de Monet on June 11, 2014, 03:38:26 PM
Silt sea pirate.
The only role with less job-based interaction than a male whore.
Now I can't help but picture the excitement of two "floating tables" coming in contact with one another.
Desertman ruined it for me :(
I wonder if the skimmer code could be repurposed so that things like mekillots and aurochs can carry multiple people.
Maybe if they were fitted with something like this....
A massive, sandcloth and agafari saddle pavilion.
This massive pavilion has been ingeniously affixed to an expansive saddle harness comprised of dozens of thick hide straps, large wood and bone buckles, and thick lengths of braided leather rope. Appearing to be little more than a large open air tent atop a platform its intention is to be strapped to the backs of the largest of domesticated beasts of burden, mostly the rare tamed mekillots and bahamets of Zalanthas. The square agafari platform is several cords wide beneath the pavilion and is surrounded on all four sides by thick bone poles with lengths of cord ran between them. Their purpose appears to be to offer the passengers some sense of safety during the slow rocking motions of travel. At the front of the platform outside of the safety ropes sits a large, worn leather-padded chair with a strap for holding the pilot across the waist in the seat.
You could "enter pavilion" to be inside of the room atop the mekillot.
It would be coded exactly like any other wagon item, the sdesc would just be...
A ruddy brown mekillot is here, a massive, sandcloth and agafari saddle pavilion strapped to its back.
Quote from: long live miley cyrus on June 11, 2014, 02:47:58 PM
Do you think an "official" skimmer crew of some kind (one that's been there since the town's beginning, historic, a rigorous and well-established chain of command, unusually strict, basically some cultural bits and rules you won't find in pc-only skimmers, and with its own one or two staff) would be a good idea, when the playerbase gets bigger? Or will it do more harm than good by fragmenting the playerbase? I'd really like to see actual competition between skimmer crews on the seas, maybe they fight over a silt horror carcass after teaming up to take it down. Sure, they agreed to split it up, but Almost Older then the Town Much Sway Very Stormers Only crew took way more damage to their skimmer and PC Crew #432 With Three Muls and No Official Captain lost and injured more people, so they end up turning on each other.
Then an experienced ranger sails in, takes the carcass while they're fighting, and spends the next RL year in hiding, forced to be employed by Kurac to avoid being stabbed forty-seven times by the outraged mul who abruptly ends the fight, turns the skimmer around, and chases the ranger off the shoreline, on foot through the village, gets their mounts, and halfway to Luir's before a party of gith finally assist in getting the mul to calm down enough to decide that dying in Luir's today isn't how they want their life to end.
You know what I mean, right?
It's more of the staff base number not player base number that can get new things in.
The mek pavilion would be awesome, but you couldn't fire arrows from it if you used the wagon code, and that's half the awesome.
Quote from: James de Monet on June 11, 2014, 04:07:09 PM
The mek pavilion would be awesome, but you couldn't fire arrows from it if you used the wagon code, and that's half the awesome.
You can fire arrows out of wagons.....
shoot man outWorks every time.
This thread makes me wanna spend a newbie fortune just on a skimmer.
I love the silt sea, so far my favorite area of the game.
Quote from: rodic on June 11, 2014, 04:34:32 PM
This thread makes me wanna spend a newbie fortune just on a skimmer.
I love the silt sea, so far my favorite area of the game.
There's a thing called mutiny, and it requires no coins whatsoever.
Armageddon MUD
Murder, Corruption, Betrayal..... and now Mutiny!
Quote from: Desertman on June 11, 2014, 04:08:45 PM
Quote from: James de Monet on June 11, 2014, 04:07:09 PM
The mek pavilion would be awesome, but you couldn't fire arrows from it if you used the wagon code, and that's half the awesome.
You can fire arrows out of wagons.....
shoot man out
Works every time.
Fair, but that only works if your platform is the entry room. Also, you can't shoot ranged (which might be more realistic anyway, on a moving platform) and you still can't see people coming from a ways away.
Quote from: James de Monet on June 11, 2014, 04:51:15 PM
Quote from: Desertman on June 11, 2014, 04:08:45 PM
Quote from: James de Monet on June 11, 2014, 04:07:09 PM
The mek pavilion would be awesome, but you couldn't fire arrows from it if you used the wagon code, and that's half the awesome.
You can fire arrows out of wagons.....
shoot man out
Works every time.
Fair, but that only works if your platform is the entry room. Also, you can't shoot ranged (which might be more realistic anyway, on a moving platform) and you still can't see people coming from a ways away.
Good points.
I too wish those wagons with arrow slits let you shoot ranged from the wagon, even if only a short distance.
Quote from: nauta on June 10, 2014, 09:40:10 PM
How about: seamen?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1agaZinJHg