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This is the OoC thread for the A Voice from the Storm RP. The purpose of an OoC thread is to let you talk about the RP outside of the actual RP thread so that things don't get too muddled. If you want to make a post, but aren't sure what direction it should take, talking about things beforehand here might ease your mind a bit or let you get used to what's going on before jumping in.

You can also post any reactions you have to the recent posts in the RP here, including confusion, apocrypha, etc. Best practices for writing for other people's characters is to check with them first to make sure their characters would actually say the things you're writing before you speak on their behalf.

Have fun and make stuff up!

Yorky definitely has the most work done on it to make it have more of our cultural stuff in it. I like that the news shows up easily on that theme, whereas Aquarelle doesn't display it at all. I like that I can easily swap out the board banner and tagline with some weird daily joke with relative ease.

That said, I think that posts are easiest for me to read in Aquarelle because of the light theme and pleasant font style. Maybe that's something to change on Yorky in the future. Further, Scratch was what I was used to for years, selected because it had a similar colour scheme to Endar from long ago. That doesn't mean it should be what we have to use now, it just means that it's harder for me to grasp what "us" looks like for today.

[Profile]

There are currently three themes available for the forums. They are all at some level of moderately developed for use, specifically, here and have the work of at least a year of contributions. All three of these are sponsored and maintained officially, but some are more good-er than others. So what should be set as the official look and layout of CalRef, including to guests who find us randomly from internet darkspace? Vote now!

To preview and use each of these themes, click the Profile button at the top of the screen.

Under the Modify Profile tab, click Look and Layout. The top option lets you change your theme.

This poll runs for seven days.

It's harder to edit the sidebar because without possibly messing up other things, because it scales with the resolution of the screen, and I have accessibility settings.

I've made some adjustments to keep the formatting more consistent and deal with the spacing between posts better. See if it helps any.

[the wiki]

I have no idea if it will actually help or not, but in an effort to not be sick anymore, I've basically been going around the apartment autoclaving any fabric I've ever come into contact with so that the purifying light of 30,000-degree water will ascend me to a new plane of existence. As I was going through the laundry bin, I noticed this topic sitting amidst the socks and that one wash cloth I used on the sink two weeks ago. Weird.

There's been some site development since February of this year, but for one reason or another it hasn't made its way into this thread. Because this thread is mostly a mental monologue of where my head is at while we're learning how to grow as people and as a community of friends.
That's had some bumps.

About a year ago today, I was in a kind of social dark age for a bit. CalRef hadn't gone well in the few months that I had attempt to right it, so I nuked it and I was drifting through a series of random communities that would come up on the internet. I don't know if you've ever done this, but I have no idea how civilization functions if this was a good sample size. Basically, it was all a kind of weird mix of "surprise I'm unironically a Nazi" or "allow me to attach these puppet strings to your face, so you may be in compliance with server policy" Okay well, neither of those sound like something I want to sign up for.

Working with the tools and in the environments that exist in the world is definitely a skill that can be learned, but that's not remotely something I care about doing. Because I don't like a lot of the world. I think it's a dark, uncaring place with selfish interests. I like being free to do my own thing without being judged for it, without living up to someone else's expectations. Because when that weight is lifted off my chest, I actually think I do alright and make some pretty cool stuff. And that's about where I am today.

Without worrying too much about the in-the-moment dramas of a chatroom, I want to be able to go back to creating content, like this, that may never be read. But that *can* be read by anyone, including myself five years from now when I do the laundry again, find this topic, and read about all the ideas I had that were wrong. That's a part of my history just as your creations are a part of your history. And all of that adds to who I am, in this space - that we own - and have the freedom to develop our own way to look the way we want. That's the magic of being in this community.

As such:

As indicated before, the wiki is online and is objectively fantastic. It runs on more modern mediawiki software than the before-times version, which lets us develop much more intricate formatting styles, and is less prone to the database becoming sentient and attacking us. I have spent slightly under three billion hours formatting the basic templates to use for making character articles, and I've written a series of help pages on how to use them. This is not all-inclusive forever, but it's probably 70% of the templates we'll ever use. If you need help, feel free to ask, for some reason I know how this works now.

Files and L.calref will probably come back. It's taken me a bit to think about, but I'm reasonably confident that I have a pathway to develop these systems so we have a couple more in-house features that we can safely use without worrying about what other people are doing with our data. Development on them will be slower, but I do actually confirm that it will happen now.

We've also created a Minecraft server? Amazing. This server runs our custom modpack called Refugia through the Technic Launcher. It's available on Oxygen, a server which is far larger and more powerful than anything we've ever run before, and accessible at minecraft.calref.ca. More information in the appropriate topic which I will make in the Games board, which I will also make.

Refugia in NationStates is an officially sanctioned entity of Calamity Refuge. If you're interested in politics, dumb things, and using browser based simulations of dumb things to model politics, join our moderately problematic army of the dead in Refugia and together we will develop a domain that is better than the rest of their site. Collect cards if you're literally neurotic and refer to the NationStates board for content that relates to this universe, which does not exist but probably will in the future.

If you see anything weird, or you think some area of the site should be improved, please use this thread (gasp my old member number) to tell me what that thing is and I will apply all of my minimal skills to appease your whims.

I'm so happy that everyone is coming here. We'll need to work together to make everything work, but hey, we've got all this space to play around with and everything on the forum is ours ^-^

[CalRef Development Journal]

If we're going to be working in the forum more, I'm aware that there are some places where we're lacking and some areas that are broken but I haven't noticed or I have and I've forgotten about. Post here the things that you want to see some work on, or if you have ideas on how I can improve the functionality of the forum. New boards, utilities, tie-ins, etc.

It doesn't mean I'll be able to do anything ever suggested, but who knows~

Additionally, if you notice items features or images that are broken, post them here.

Updates to this message have since been moved to the CalRef Development Journal.

So I'm thinking about redoubling my efforts into this forum. I know we don't get a lot of traffic and most of our community is entirely uninterested, but I still like that we have the forum and I think it could be a cool place to react.

I love forums because they require you to think a little longer and harder about what you want to say. If you want to make a message, you can't just hit enter between lines. I find that method makes me a little looser and my message overall a bit less cohesive. But doing it here? Like this? Jeez, if my messaging starts to shift, I can edit that earlier line so easily! Not to mention you can format things and have a lot more freedom. And, you know, we don't steal our own information through this product, so

Anyway, consider this me being motivated once again to do something here!  :zyqxuwy:

I'm fine with developing the forum and other web-related aspects of CalRef again if the seasons say it's the thing to do. There's always something to work on. For example, I just noticed that Natalie is yellow despite that not being the correct role 

Talamaeus Laraxius sat atop a boulder this fine afternoon, in the great fields in the northwest quadrant of his incalculable estate. The great emperor was observing a bird which was, in the traditional and patriotic measurement system, 0.0009 stellar units forward. Talameaus had been correcting the bird on its speaking style and grammar choice as a part of the monthly Benevolence Hour where he gave these citizens more attention than they deserved. However, now that the lesson had taken a poor turn, the emperor paused in contemplation. Staring, inquisitively, menacingly, distrustful. What was this bird's intentions? Why did it come here? Of all of the birds in the Great Empire of Fyrom, what is this one hiding from his liege lord? Surely it must be hiding something for being so indignant.

Out of view, beyond the woods to the northwest, Talamaeus heard the faint hints of the wildlife known as human people. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, this would not do. Sounds of human activity had been banned for the last three years! The laws had been passed legally and justly, when he had whispered the idea to a standing stone on the south slope of Mount Abandon which, itself, seemed pleased by the idea.

"Come along, Rufus," he said, invoking the bird's True Name. "We must enforce my dominion."



Kaegan picked his head out of one of the crates in the caravan, parked at the edge of town. Weird, there's no more chocolate, he thought. Of course, none of the items in the caravan were his unless they were already attached to his body, but then again nothing's really attached to your body until you pick it up. He continued to rummage through the few remaining pockets of items that he hadn't yet already at the rear of the wagon.

Picking through the debris, in this particular crate, Kaegan couldn't recognise any item that was supposed to be an actual item. There was a mess of papers and straw and shards of ceramic that must have been something at some point, but its purpose was lost by now. At the bottom of the pool of debris, an unidentified device that was long, smooth, and undeniably phallic. Cautiously, Kaegan raised it out of the crate with an uncertain and moderately repulsed expression. Must be a trade good, said his wishful thinking.

Just then, there was some rustling in the bushes behind the wagon. Kaegan picked his head up to see the most wild sight: A hunched man, with a wiry, unkempt beard and a patchwork robe, made of what must have been a thousand years of rummaged refuse. He seemed to be drunk or drugged or out of his mind or maybe this was just how he always was, but certainly the man was animated. Kaegan stared blankly ahead, absent mindedly directing the rounded ceramic trade good towards his new guest.

The mighty emperor, whose presence was announced on swift winds prior to his arrival, stared at the child in shock. This sacred gravel rectangle was a holy sight he may have only encountered once before, but that he had thought obvious that interlopers were not permitted to trespass. This land's unprecedented flatness was a geological marvel that deserved to be studied, but lo, before Talamaeus, was this casual human cart? Practically a declaration of war! And what was this? He's sitting there, pointing a wand at his rightful lord? A threat on the emperor's own life in broad daylight?

"Listen here, knave, and listen well. I am as good as your god and if you know what is good for you, you will throw down your weapon and accept the death that you deserve!" said the emperor, squinting menacingly.

"...look, this isn't what it looks like," said Kaegan, uncomfortably examining the rounded hand-held pylon.

"Do not DARE test me, child, I am an emperor! Crowned by the epic forces of nature which roared and bellowed upon my arrival and coronation upon this plane!" he said, referring to a time when a circular branch fell on his head during a windstorm. The emperor took a breath. This was an impudence that the world had surely never encountered before. It would take all of the blessings of his divine mandate to deal with this threat. He stood back and drew the legendary broadsword, Ironsides Michalinus, gleaning and honed by a thousand hours of his own expert craftsmanship.

"This is your last warning, pest, before I disarm you permanently!"

"...I don't think...that this is what you think it..." a befuddled Kaegan stammered.

"Guide my blade, Divine One!" he cried out, his battle regalia flowing gracefully behind his lightning-fast charge towards glory.

Still confused about anything that was happening, Kaegan observed the man with all the grace of a landing walrus, waddle towards him with what appeared to be a rusted dagger with a number of chips in the blade. Kaegan dropped the shapely ceramic accessory back into the crate and took a step back in the wagon.

Only a handspan away from the cart, there was a distant snap, and much closer squishy impact. After a moment, Kaegan slowly peered over the rim of the wagon to observe that the man who had been known as Herbert Wallace appeared to have been felled by a crossbow bolt. He looked toward the origin of the wound to see a town guard.

"You have to be mindful of the dangers of the woods," said the guard placing the crossbow over his shoulder. "Never know when some crazy might come after you."

"Yeah," said Kaegan. "guess not." He leapt off the wagon to the ground next to the fallen man. "I should be heading into the inn."

"Best that you do. It'll be getting dark soon, and there's going to be a full moon. That stuff always gives me the heebeegeebees," said the guard as he casually turned around and headed back towards the town centre.

Kaegan, of course, couldn't care less about the moon or the heebeegeebees it did or didn't cause. He picked up the rusty dagger. It looked like it had been scraped a hundred or more times against a rough stone surface, but it was still relatively dagger-shaped. Another casual acquisition. At least it was better than no dagger at all.

Hello friends. After recent events, being on Discord gives me some intense anxiety.

Up to you, of course, for what you feel is most comfortable for you. But just remember that CalRef is a safe place with many neat-o people who all like you. Outside of that, you're an independent person and you can decide who you talk to. If someone or some group is giving you stress and having a negative impact, it doesn't have to be there, toss it out. You're only feeding the people who feed off of others. 

Tourist		0
Refugi		10
Script Caster		25
Rune Carver		50
Zyqxuwy Sage		100
Local Emperor		150
Forest Sprite		250
Tea Dragon		500
Oracle		750

Hey friendos

This is a pin that just mentions the ranks for the forum in a place where everyone can see them. These ranks effect the title under your name, how many blue squares you have, and literally nothing else. The post rank requirements are intentionally easy to get at first, however, when someone reaches the top of a rank, I'll add another one for them to try to get.

Have a blast!

[here]

If you request a new wiki account and I don't see it, send a message here or message me directly.

Welcome to the Wiki Discussion thread, the officially sanctioned omni topic and verbal dumping grounds for all of your MediaWiki conversational inclinations.

Q: What is the Refuge Wiki?
A: It's Wikipedia, but for stuff you make up in RPs.

Q: Why do we have it?
A: Because wikis are a fantastic way to organise information about topics you already like thinking and talking about without the bizarre anarchy of Google Docs.

Q: What goes here?
A: Basically whatever you want.
Wikis are a tool to put things together in one place. If you're doing an RP and it has some hundred thousand words and you need some obscure reference you made a fifth of the way it, it's so much easier to look at your character's wiki page than dig through your notes or read fifteen posts looking for it. You can build you character pages just like a Wikipedia biography with fancy templates and features. Include information that's difficult or awkward to work into your posts, and work on building your gameworld with other players.

Members need an account to make and edit articles, verified by the admin tower, so that brigands and wild animals don't blast us into the stratosphere with vandalism.

View the getting started link on the main page to view tutorial pages written by MediaWiki on how to use their software. View demo and tutorial pages written by me to learn how to use our templates.

Use this topic for any passing questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, complaints, bug reports, ideas, and flights of fancy you may have that pertain to this service. We can train you to be an expert in this thingymabobbber and effortlessly exceed my abilities overnight.

The link to this wiki is here! And it's also a child board of the Roleplay Board, so you can find it at the top of the page if you're inside the RP board index.

Okidoki. Just remember that you can only have one nation in the World Assembly at a time* or you'll be banned for alleged voter fraud. But, like, either way, we can still come up with stuff to do for the region~

Oh are you planning on nuking the one you have now?

[not trespassing anymore]

The invaders were in front of him now. 0.0041 stellar units ahead. Talameaus Laraxius looked through the underbrush of the forest to spy them through the gaps in the limbs. He had been tracking his prey for a tremendous amount of time now. Ever since about forty-five minutes ago. No chance to go back and call for the guard now, that summon ritual needs at least three days to prepare and, even then, it has a sixty percent chance to fail thanks to budget cuts and disloyalty among the wildlife that made up its ranks. The Emperor would have no choice but to investigate this matter himself.

He crept forward and hunkered near the thick base of a tree on the outermost section of the forest. He could spy the corner of a woman's head sticking out from behind a large boulder. What a tragic turn of events that he was no long able to listen to the goings on in his realm by putting an acorn to his ear. When this was done, there was no doubt that the military and extensive network of spying flora needed to be funded once again. The Emperor leaned in to get a better look, but slid forward, losing his grip on the tree in front of him. Catching himself by falling onto his hands, he looked up to where the boulder.

"Hello? Is anyone hurt over here?" the woman called out from behind the rock. Outrageous! Were his targets tracking *him?* The very nerve of this girl. Trespassing is a serious crime that can only be reconciled with not trespassing anymore. Humans were dangerous creatures that could not be trusted beyond the circumference of their forearms. He picked his head up.

"These are the sovereign lands of Fyrom! You, human, are bid a greeting and a warning," he shouted from his position, slightly lower now. And dropped his head again. The response came after a moment of silence.

"Oh, uh, okay! I'm Síne and this is Leeva and we just wanted to know if anyone was hurt in the explosion!" she called back and peeked around the side of the boulder at him. The explosion? he thought to himself. How was it possible that word of his fantastic deeds in maintaining the superior day and night dictum had preceded him here? Unless they had some kind of inside information...

"And who are you to have learned of such an event?"

"A school teacher from Ceadaichte Mòir! I teach the children history, numbers, and letters, and I was just grading their papers on the history of the Kingfisher Forest when I heard the noise. I thought more people from the village would have woken up, but they don't seem to have done so."

The Emperor's expression grew more serious. Numbers and letters were the last thing that he needed right now. He scanned the sky overhead and noted that it was still above him and the clouds were in their correct place. But he couldn't risk another incident. He rose from his position and stood at attention.

"We thank you for your concern, but issues related to Fyrom domestic disputes are handled internally by The Emperor. We bid you good day, as well as safe and pleasant travel in the opposite direction," he said and then made a motion appearing to physically shut a door that did not exist in visible space. The Emperor turned on his heel and began walking back to his earthen mud palace.

Do we need mooore NS?

I'm semi-considering the possibility of making the NationStates region a slightly more established thing with more organisation, beauracracy, voting for WA issues, small scale recruitment for CalRef, and maybe draft an issue or GA resolution to make some kind of impact.

Is there any interest in doing this / is this a good idea or nah?

It occurs to me that everyone who is on this community is here for their own unique reasons, but a lot of those reasons have a single unifying element more often than not: conflict.

The last two years have been pretty rough.

For whatever reason, the places on the internet that we would turn to in times of discomfort and uncertainty, all crumbled in our hands when we reached for them this time. Because they didn't have the support to give. Because they couldn't support themselves. And why that was the case varies from place to place. Corrupt management, overthrow attempts, greed, or a combination of all of these and more. These issues culminated into a singular, grand catastrophe, which appeared, at the time, like any other. Something that was difficult and tense, but would work itself out in the traditional process. But we lost. Either because it had been put off for too long and building for too long, because the system had become fundamentally broken, or because we had. We lost. And this time it had bigger consequences than just feeling bad and taking a couple snide remarks to the face.

Things collapsed.

As intended.

I've spent the greater part of the last year trying to figure out what happened and how this came to be, looking for how to do better next time and avoid something excruciating and pointless as this in the future. And basically I have arrived at this groundbreaking conclusion: There is nothing to learn. There is no unifying conspiracy of events except that they all had similar events at similar times. The elements, the same: People in positions of power can eventually collapse into a dark world of "if I can't have it, nobody can!" and I'm past the point in my life where all-out wars are somehow a good idea. And this is the story of every administrator we have.

But today is today. That's done and I'm done.

I'm tired of it and bored of living in the past. I've got stuff to do and a finite amount of time on planet earth to do it. So here's a bizarre corporate catchphrase from me: my commitment to you. My commitment to you is that the stuff that has happened in the past is over and done with. And everyone is going to go on with their lives from this point forward and do our best to be ourselves. And if ever someone shows up with yesteryear animosity, they'll be IP banned to the surface of the sun.

The thing about humanity is that it's full of human people. That's it. That's all there is and all there is ever going to be, it's just us. There is no alien civilization that's going to descend from the sky one day and give you someone nicer to talk to. There's just people. If there's problems, we're going to have to be the ones to solve it. If there's nothing that makes life kick and interesting to live, it's on us to change that and learn how to live with each other, regardless of our critics, in spite of our enemies...in spite of our own internal doubts.

We're opening CalRef, getting up off the ground, and not living inside our headnoise anymore.

Brace yourself, there will soon be a wiki launch.

Edit: Accurate numbering

Welcome to the forum, I'm glad to have you here. Don't worry, I'm still trying to figure out how to make the site work  We'll both get there. <3

Mine is basically the same way, I'm guessing at a lot of these because there aren't really records that go back that far for me to consult, but the ones that stick out in my brain and approximately correspond to the most played games of those years are this:


1997 - Freddi Fish Maze Madness
1998 - Frogger (PC adventure game)
1999 - Centipede (PC Adventure Game)
2000 - Bubble Bobble/Super Mario (NES)
2001 - Age of Empires II
2002 - Age of Empires II
2003 - Age of Mythology
2004 - Age of Mythology
2005 - Geneforge 1 & 2 / RuneScape
2006 - Diablo II / Geneforge 4 / StarCraft
2007 - Diablo II / Warcraft / Dungeon Lords
2008 - World of Warcraft / Command and Conquer: Generals
2009 - EVE Online / Dawn of War:DC
2010 - Dawn of War:DC / Dungeon Siege II / Geneforge 1&2 again so my dad could see it this time.
2011 - Fable III / The Halo series, chronologically from Halo Wars to Halo 3. Since my dad wanted to see that, too.
2012 - CoD:MW1/2 / Civilization V
2013 - PlanetSide II / RIFT
2014 - Warframe
2015 - Warframe
2016 - Cities Skylines / Overwatch
2017 - Discord, I basically had zero gaming and spent every second chatting.
2018 - Rim World / Crusader Kings


Maybe RTSs have died out?

I think it's time for another rambling development post about the things that I've been thinking and doing lately, because there's been a lot of thinking and doing. And, at the moment, the most pressing thing on my mind is...I have been getting overwhelmed every now and then with a kind of soul-crushing dread and mournfulness about how things are. And that manifests mostly as a "where are my friends?" thought in my head. And the response to that has two sides. The first would be that I have a lot of new friends now who are wonderful and amazing, and I want to see more of them and talk to them as much as they can stand it. The other side is that if, for example, Nioca were here, he would probably say we weren't friends in the first place but also that I long for a point in time that never existed and I remember it idealistically. That's partially true. CalRef always had conflicts and some level of drama and intrigue. But it was a dynamic that was safe and reliable and populated by people that I liked seeing, that I knew personally, and that I cared about even if I didn't like what they were arguing for sometimes.

That's what home is, that's what it should be, and that's the real thing I miss: a mental/emotional connection between two human people. And any number of communities that exist out there on the internet should be those kinds of homes and full of personal connections. But we've kind of gone into a weird direction with where the internet world is.

There's a lot of commercialisation. A lot of people paying money or being bombarded with questionable ads or agreeing to have their data shipped to the digital equivalent of a medical testing facility for easy cash.

There's a lot of ideological extremism. A lot of people are angry. Mostly with how they feel about their lives, their economic situation, their social situation, what their prospects are for the future, and they channel that anger into scapegoats that take the blame and need for introspection off themselves.

There's a lot of authoritarianism. People do things without asking, infringe on people, back them into corners, discourage dissent, and then no one is interested in building something together, they just wait for instructions and listen to policies they don't like.

And all these things live in symbiosis. Somewhere along the way of losing CalRef, we lost the internet that it was floating in, and even the alternatives and anchors of stability that we looked at for metrics about how things were going have collapsed or sold out. It's incredibly demotivating and disheartening because there's such overwhelming darkness and toxicity in air right now with people pushing things in directions that will only make it worse, and there's hardly anywhere that wants to bring it back.

So I was thinking about bringing it back.

And, up to now, I was mentally going about it by thinking that I wasn't really cut out for it because I never made a community before and it wasn't really my department of administration in the past. But, in truth, no one has ever brought the *internet* back. It's something that we're all going to be new at and all have to do together because people need those kinds of positive spaces from the past where they might not have it in their offline life. I don't know if we're going to be successful in this one tiny island, but I know that we have to try.

So one thing I did this week is make this theme that 88% of you are using. Granted I didn't develop it originally, I've done my level best to make the css themes pop as much as possible and make them more readable and accessible for people like me who can't see too well. There are a couple more features that we have, like recent posts (and also the news fader is back) and other features we can have in the future if we ever need them, like splitting categories. Mostly I'm just enamoured with it because it's a responsive, modern theme for SMF in 2019* when, in all honestly, probably a hundred admins still use SMF. I'd rather not appear outdate, but at the same time, it's what I know and I still agree with SMF's premise of free, open source software, made by people who do so because they want to see it succeed and people make things on a platform they wouldn't otherwise have. So I hope I've done enough to keep it going and relevant for an unknown number of years to come.