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Why I'm awkward about ZZT forums

Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2013 2:59 pm
by H1~~
I know what you're thinking, that I'm some random newcomer, who's gushing about ZZT to try to cheese my way into the ZZT community.
Actually I've been working hard to avoid that being how I make my entrance to forums...


See, I've been playing ZZT since 1996, keeping up with a lot of its in-jokes to some extent in its games as I kept playing ZZT on and off through 2006 or so, and had more than my fair share of 'unfinished ZZT games', but due to... other life circumstances... I had set myself up to never talk on the Internet with anyone else... outside of one PC game online... and one of their 'game forums' I later joined in late 2011.
From 1996 to somewhere around early Winter 2011 I was on 'permanent Lurker status' as you might call it.


I broke into Internet forums for a 'game clan' in a PC game on the Quake 3 Arena engine to test myself to see if I was 'yet ready' to be talkin' with others over the web...
I did not reveal this to them until I was about ready to leave due to a combination of aguing a lot on their forums, them hating on me for it, and real-life threats of being sent away to a mental institution over false reports of me being Clinically Depressed.
Of course I mentioned WHY their forums was the first forums I ever joined on the net (and effectily where I first ended this 'lurker vow of silence') in my long and angry thread I named ''So long and thank you for all the troll practice'' (Ironically inspired by the ZZT game title ''so long and thanks for all the Yiff'') about me leaving Quake 3, Jedi Outcast, and Jedi Academy's communities forever and not 'coming back' but just being a part of them if I happened upon them on my own accord.
Because I had only had gotten into them in the first place by reasons no longer valid... and thus... would have to tirelessly revalidate my already-made 'game mods', repute, and online freinds from them into this 'what it would have been'.
They wouldn't have picked up on that.
It was well mixed in with other details at that point.
Suffice it to say that I grapple with the specific issue of being too specific with those who can't understand what I am talking about to begin with.
I try to brush it off as 'not compromising how I talk', and that's true, but I don't resepct others' having different areas of interest in general than what I am talking about enough to AT LEAST not give as much info in a post at once (see where I'm getting at by doing this same thing right here? )...


Which I am demonstrating by doing the same thing knowingly in this post.
Y'all won't understand what I am talking about despite me being outright and clear in the explaination... and quite frankly I don't blame you... 'cause I wouldn't believe me that I'm not just SAYING I'm not just gushing to cheese my way into the community to ward attention from that I'm actually doing so in your position either.


I was actually openly a Furry on their forums... and did have my fun crackin' jokes about their awkwardness around Furry... and still do, apparently, considering how I made my sudden reintroduction returning almost over a month after my 'so long and thanks' debaccle.
I would even dick around on their 'clan server' with names like ''a dragon'' (which I used a lot) or ''H1 is a furfag'' (which I still have to try again sometime for longer to really see who picks up) or ''Wolffucker'' (my most recent failed attempt at usng /rename for 'dumb joke Furry exhibitionism').
These folks are by no means not Furry-haters... as is the norm about those who aren't either Furry themself, have a lot of Furries where they hang out, or don't know what it is... and yet they still hated on me 10 to 100 times more for arguing all the time on their forums than for anything remotely Furry.
Let's just say I have a way of getting myself banned from forums without ever actually breaking a rule.


That's part of why I've come here now, as much as I hate to admit it, but if I can be honest with myself than I should be honest with others dammit.
So I'm just putting it out in the open.
I'm trying to finaly confront myself about my probems always arguing all the time on forums... and, yes, ''always arguing all the time on forums'' is not even redundant, becuse believe it or not, I took ''arguing all the time'' and did it ALWAYS in most of the other forums I've been using... and considering this is about freakin' ZZT I was hoping at least the 'TL;DR effect' would be in far less effect than normally so I could at least better focus on the problems I have OTHER than how I keep writing posts far longer than others want to read.
If I can't get past ''arguing all the time on forums'' here then I can't get past ''arguing all the time on forums'' anywhere.


I can't step over two more interesting threads here without feeling realll inferior about the 'smartness' of my own sense of humor in the wake of the forum avatar set-ups of the ZZT administrators on the left-hand sidebar.
Even that other recent newcomer with ''Voila'' as his current set-up for his 'forum AV' I thought was one of 'em at first because that was hilarious. Can't remember his name right now. If you see him tell him I enjoyed reading his not one, but two, threads on 'ZZT coding' and 'other ZZT questions' for me.
I learned a lot that way. Of course I knew what he was asking about already. Yet then I learned things even I didn't know from his thread.
I immediately knew then that I could never have such an... unawkard... introduction to ZZT forums to ever get to have that good a 'forum thread experience' here myself.
I was reading the thread about ''21th Century Nomenclature''... and how the next guy pointed out he typoed ''21st'' in a 'lisp'... and then he responded back with his defenese that he was drunk when he posted that.
I knew from then on that I had to try to be a part of this place despite the awkwardness up front.


I normally HATE 'board administrators'.
I tend to fight with the 'board administrators' more than others.
They always seem to think I am 'just trolling' them... Well it isn't... Yet quite frankly looking back I don't blame 'em for thinking that.
If anyone else were to be doing what I had been doing I might be compelled to think the same thing in their position.


There are smart people here, who GET the jokes each other make, and share in the ripping on each other.
This is everything I should have been able to have before, and now, I don't get to be a part of it the same way I could only have DREAMED of before
all because of more... awkward... cicumstances...
I LIKE this place.
I like ZZT. I like what it's about. I can't believe I had to break from its games to play so many 'newer' ones that OTHERS call 'old PC games'. Do you know how many times I wanted to point them at ZZT to show them up in this? I avoided this out of respect for ZZT's categorical difference in nature being a larger part of why it's such a relatively 'hidden gem' of an entire community over the Internet.
Now am I doing what I swore to not do before... and now from the other side backwards... by linking ZZT upwards to these 'newer games people' that have never heard of ZZT let alone could appreciate what it's really all about after having worked so hard just to not bring it up OVER THERE before.


ZZT forums is like my 'final trials' about trying to get past my problems arguing with others all the time on forums.
It's not my intention to piss you folks off by arguing a lot, as it's never my intention, and I'll try to avoid it if I can, but I keep winding up doing this on almost any forum boards I spend time on, so forgive me for any hostilities I may have here in the future.


You can whine at me like TL;DR Toddlers with their selfish demands that ''Teacher make the book less long'' because, like toddlers, they value not having to read as much well more than they value understanding what is being explained.
I'll let you post those after the break...


Next off I have some (recent! )... chatlogs... where I was explaining ZZT to a close personal friend of mine over the net.
So you can be sure that any 'gushing about ZZT' I have is merely an unintentional effect of how cool I think it is that I 'get' ZZT and others don't.


[02:02] H1~~ (0xffffffff): I'd rather not use /amghost to get past bounding box issues
[02:02] H1~~ (0xffffffff): it's more fun to try to mess with the limtis than to not have them
[02:02] Kangee (handmadehell): ok
[02:02] H1~~ (0xffffffff): It's why I like ZZT
[02:03] H1~~ (0xffffffff): In its later years it seemed a major focus in ZZT games was to make the most of 'engine exploits' in ZZT that had become a standard part of games by that point and it was considerd if your ZZT game didn't make regular use of them in it's design then it wasn't up to par
[02:04] Kangee (handmadehell): XD
[02:04] H1~~ (0xffffffff): People spend hours a day for days and days finely crafting the storytelling, visual design, general playflow and so on in games that
[02:04] H1~~ (0xffffffff): ultimately fell between 128 KB to 1 MB in filesize when they were done
[02:04] Kangee (handmadehell): wow
[02:04] Kangee (handmadehell): XD
[02:05] H1~~ (0xffffffff): Yeah well now ZZT's dead soooo
[02:06] H1~~ (0xffffffff): It lived as it died
[02:06] Kangee (handmadehell): aye
[02:06] H1~~ (0xffffffff): A very very very 'lesser known community-driven' type of game
[02:06] H1~~ (0xffffffff): I never did get to browse ZZT communites' forums
[02:07] Kangee (handmadehell): ouch
[02:07] H1~~ (0xffffffff): ASCII to ASCII, MUD to MUD, and long live the love of what ZZT stood for
[02:08] H1~~ (0xffffffff): and in all its over 20 years of life we never did get a solid explaination what 'ZZT' stands for
[02:08] Kangee (handmadehell): XD
[02:08] Kangee (handmadehell): im sure there were theories
[02:09] H1~~ (0xffffffff): One was that it litreally meant ''Zoo of Zero Tolerance''
[02:09] Kangee (handmadehell): XD
[02:09] H1~~ (0xffffffff): Considering its earler-made ''official games'' before its community got underway had heavy themes of fighting off wild animals of the sort you see caged in at the zoo
[02:09] H1~~ (0xffffffff): You also break out of prison in a LOT of ZZT games
[02:10] H1~~ (0xffffffff): It's one their list of 'ZZT cliches'
[02:10] H1~~ (0xffffffff): I'd show it to you but it doesn't mean much to someone who hasn't actualy played it
[02:10] H1~~ (0xffffffff): also it's down and I don't have an .htm copy on disk
[02:10] Kangee (handmadehell): ouch
[02:10] Kangee (handmadehell): thats kind of sad
[02:11] H1~~ (0xffffffff): You know what's sad?
[02:12] H1~~ (0xffffffff): I've got like five unfinishd ZZT games to do at some point in the relatively distant future of my 'game modding life'
[02:12] H1~~ (0xffffffff): and ZZT's dead but
[02:12] H1~~ (0xffffffff): so help me I gotta finish them and NOT skimp out on what they were originally envisioned to be
[02:12] Kangee (handmadehell): aye
[02:12] Kangee (handmadehell): maybe you could find a way to resorect it
[02:13] H1~~ (0xffffffff): I do have almost all ZZT files on my disk drive(s) including every single one from zzt.org and/or z2.theunderdogs.org all the way up to the 'most recently added' at the time Preposterous Machines came out
[02:15] Kangee (handmadehell): as time gose by nostalgia sets in and things that were once out of date become highly sought after
[02:15] H1~~ (0xffffffff): I might host a full archive on my webspace and evne do some of my own reviews (i fantasze about not only fully playing but critically reviewing every single full-length ZZT game on the web I've come across ever but of course that would take between 1 and 2 years in combined hours thus take 5 to 6 years to do even then giving up on almost all of your free time to do so) but I'd feel weird using my own Website to do ZZT as opposed to my own fucking website
[02:16] Kangee (handmadehell): aye
[02:17] H1~~ (0xffffffff): If I pull a freakin' Merlin the Wizard meets Houdini crossed over the landscape of Flying Castles in the Sky I MAY be able to 'bring back' ZZT not only for community enthusiasm but to a full-fledged ZZT community again making more and more for the game
[02:17] Kangee (handmadehell): aye
[02:17] Kangee (handmadehell): all it takes is publicity
[02:18] Kangee (handmadehell): so people will know about it
[02:18] Kangee (handmadehell): me i never knew zzt existed till you told me about it
[02:18] H1~~ (0xffffffff): but I'd like your help on it if I do try to do so and I'm not sure if you could get into the game itself (It's got a heavy sense of witty sense of humor BUT has incredible variability in the 'emotional genres' of its games AND it's all doen in 16-color ASCII blocks made as visually appealing, audio appealing with only PC speaker sound, and gameplay appealing on a tile-based movement system) and even you may not be able to get into it as I had
[02:19] Kangee (handmadehell): i wouldnt know till i tried
[02:19] Kangee (handmadehell): i like chess, and it dosent get much simpeler then that
[02:20] H1~~ (0xffffffff): Chess is complex because you are working with its simplicity
[02:20] Kangee (handmadehell): true
[02:20] H1~~ (0xffffffff): all these 'new' games like Skyrim are grappling to be so complex and detailed and only further doing themselves in by compromising game depth for a blend of both long-term play campaigns and immediate appeal
[02:20] Kangee (handmadehell): chess is simply constructed but the rules make it complex
[02:21] H1~~ (0xffffffff): They fail to realize that the best thing about games is the addictive nature
[02:21] Kangee (handmadehell): aye
[02:21] H1~~ (0xffffffff): what makes you keep coming back and playing because you can never lose your own conquest to do even further in the game
[02:21] H1~~ (0xffffffff): It's why Icy Tower is FLD's most successful franchise
[02:22] Kangee (handmadehell): aye
[02:22] Kangee (handmadehell): and why mmo's are so popular
[02:22] H1~~ (0xffffffff): and why Star Wars-based First-Pesron Shooters haven't seen new titles since 2004
[02:22] Kangee (handmadehell): constant work on improving your char
[02:22] Kangee (handmadehell): true but they have the comunity
[02:22] Kangee (handmadehell): wich keeps it interesting
[02:23] H1~~ (0xffffffff): If your game is so great then the community behind it will be an important part of it UNINTIONALLY where you don't SELL on that point but it becomes part of the player experience when not in the game itself
[02:24] Kangee (handmadehell): aye
[02:24] H1~~ (0xffffffff): Nowadays people sell games practically integrated with social networks rather than let otehrs who share a love of the game have to go to the trouble themself and for that they lack the importance of making it as good a game to keep playing over time to begin with


OMGWTFZZTBBQ!!!!! Z2! I thought you died!
ZZT.org and ZZT community forums... Hrhmrrrrmmmm... I called this one WAY too early.


My website at unprofiled.net is 'unfinished'... I've just been using it as webspace for my 'game mods' (of those yet finished enough to share with others) and other things... and I even had its 'opening page' titled as ''Title Screen'' via its 'html title tags' as an homage to ZZT...
Now that page is the only part of the site that is actually 'done for now' and I had no idea at the time the ironies this would have to the nature of ''unfinished ZZT game attempts''.


However I WILL get my webpage done.
I WILL get something done about those mass menagerie of ''unfinished ZZT game attempts'' I have...
I don't care how long it takes to get these ZZT games to match my original envisioning of what they were supposed to be but God save me from only further getting caught up 'starting more than I finish at once' because that's kinda how I wound up with 'em all to begin with.
This goes for my webpage as well...


TL;DR Toddlers: I'm just gonna be up front with you folks about why I'm so awkward on ZZT forums.
I know you probably don't care about all this, and if I were you, I probably wouldn't care either.
I just dont wanna be using these boards without this out in the open for anyone who should need me to ''explain myself'' to them in the future to have available to them to read already.
Because a large part of why I'm here is to push myself to finally resolve my problems I have about how I ALWAYS keep up with ''arguing all the time on forums'' on almost all other Internet forums I've ever used (because I keep winding up doing it even though I don't mean to piss people off)
I'm going to have to be awkward about my being here either way anyway
so it's just as well.

Re: Why I'm awkward about ZZT forums

Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 12:50 pm
by Quantum P.
Well, um... welcome to z2. We're pretty accepting, I guess. If you want to discuss ZZT, you're definitely welcome to do so here.

I do recommend that you reduce your post length, though. If you distill your posts to something more concise and to-the-point, it will make it easier for others to participate.

(If you do need to get your feelings out via writing, I recommend journaling, blogging, ZZT-editing, etc...)

Re: Why I'm awkward about ZZT forums

Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 6:27 pm
by Commodore
If you've been following the community you're familiar with this one: "shut up and zzt"

A bit rough, but deeply appropriate in these ZZT starved times.

Also you'd have been witness to the number of such flameouts (scorch, zaphod, ando) so you've got some idea as to the temperament of the boards. That said, things have mellowed with inactivity and age. (We're not teens anymore, fewer fights to pick). As far as deep personal philosophical posts, as Quantum P said, I'd rather play a zzt game about it, even if it is a wall of text. That's what we're here for.

Welcome, and as far as your fear of admin/mods, that's pretty much everyone left! MWHAHAHAHA

When it's literally walls of text on boards outside the Fora

Posted: Sat Apr 13, 2013 1:20 am
by H1~~
Commodore wrote:as Quantum P said, I'd rather play a zzt game about it, even if it is a wall of text. That's what we're here for.
..
In retrospect it's better to save the bulk of explaining things for the ZZT games themselves...
I guess I thought, since it's forums for ZZT, they LIKE text-heavy stuff, they would be better able to tolerate the 'wall of text effect', right?
Yet then it should more logically follow that they would take it LESS than others because they get enough of it out of the actual games themselves.
This should have been clearly evidenced (for me) that ZZT forums is kind of like the opposite of other 'game forums' (which, in ZZT's case, I don't know if one could really call it that) that they are actually deeper, more in-depth, more insightful in the Games themselves than on the Forum Boards about 'em and not the other way around.


Maybe it was just all the emoticons on the left-hand side that threw me for a loop... 'cause after reading the relatively recent ''ZZT 3.2'' thread about how they replaced Town of ZZT in the official version 3.2 download on-site with Flimsy's Town of ZZT as an April Fools' day prank... then I suspected this was one of 'em as well.
Then l I saw how the ways others were already using them actually makes sense to how they were explained in the rules.


It wasn't anyone's fault, not even mine, I just fucked up.
What else am I supposed to do but wait around a little longer in between making posts and work on actual ZZT Game creations in between posts?
I NEVER fail to read the rules first when joining a forums... and here... apparently I got in such a rush to join in (after having 'missed out' for like, what, since I started in 1996 or whatever it was? ) that I didn't get around to doing that FIRST like I normally do...
I'll have to go and actually do some ZZT Game work for the first time again in a long time 'cause if I'm not actually making ZZT Games NOW why should I expect to hold warrant from what I did with them in my not-so-recent past?

Re: Why I'm awkward about ZZT forums

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 2:31 am
by Commodore
Hey now.... You can post all you like what you like in these forums so long as it isn't hateful (against race... creed... sexual preference... &c...) I would assume you've already experienced that most other places would delete a post that talks about their dog knot.

And history tells us anything, producing ZZT worlds is not a requirement for community membership.

10 to 100 times more hate for arguing than from a Furry aspe

Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:11 am
by H1~~
I've tried dicking around on other forums, all for 'game clans' for 'newer' PC games (even though they range from Quake 3 Arena 1999 to BioShock 2007, and generally leaning towards the 1999 end, in what date the game itself they are a 'game clan' for is from), about my love of Furry specifically.
For all of the longest time until only very recently I was On the Fence about whether or not I am a Furry. I still don't see myself as an actual part of the Furry community (because I'm not). Though I know I do fit well within what a Furry is categorically...
I don't talk about stuff like ''an Evolutionary Biology analysis on how the way that Canines use Knotting in Sex has changed in the process of the change-over from Wolves into Dogs'' on forums... not 'cause I'm afraid to... but just 'cause it's not relevant.
I do dick around with joke playernames where I switch from using ''H1~~'' to ''Wolffucker~~'' or ''H1 is a Furry faggot'' or ''a horny black dragon'' ingame for hours at a time from time to time, or post Furry art relevant to the discussion (Like how on Easter I showed them Karabiner's take on Michelangelo's Creation of Adam with Renamon from Digimon Tamers in place of Adam and followed it up nicely with a literal case of a Flaming Flamingo, an outright visual pun, yet subtly metaphoring a 'fall from grace' being made aware of all of a sudden by they who had the 'fall from grace' themself), or even to do stupid stunts like tell a Furry sexual fantasy in microcosm by making a .cfg script to just say 10 or so colored lines of chat ingame at once... which I didn't feel like shoving in others' face... but PM'd some of the server admins over their own forums daring them ''don't read the server logs for what I did last night unless you REALLLLLLY like Furry! ''...
Nobody ever seems to notice.
They actually hate on me 10 to 100 times more for my ''arguing all the time on forums'' problems than for me being Furry.


However, then, try to complain about others giving you Grief about how you talk on the forums and then getting away with it because how they talk is easier for them and thus they get away with doing it, even in gangs, to me... just one time... and then suddenly then they have a problem.
They aren't not Furry-haters either.
One dude heckled me for being a hopeless Furry along with heckling another unpopular player for being a worthless parent to her 2 or 3 real-life kids and Love of Weeeeeed (though only at the time, as when I got further hated on, her 'image' improved) in the wake of a third player having been banned... and then... he got banned for bein' an asshole to the both of us and by extension others on the boards.
Then I get heckled, harassed, berated, manipulated, openly told they hate me for who I am a person, told that Society is better off without the type of person I am, given countless remarks to tell me to kill myself (though thank God no actual death threats... oh wait that's right... a head server administrator on one of these game's servers hates my guts... bans me on sight now, every 2 weeks, after the 'admin ragebans' from their server are cleared as 'tempbans'... and has told me on multiple ocassions how he wants me to die... and in some cases... claimed to want to do it himself), get ceaseless cracks about how I'm disproportionately quick to anger (Because I argue in my posts? That's not 'easily angered'... That's 'openly angry'! ) with such references as when one 'cool kid' on the boards talks about frustrations breaking their Christmas lights and how they told themself not to tantrum saying ''Don't become H1, don't become H1, don't become H1... '' in telling this story to others in the fucking chatbox/Shoutbox area of their forums, and
worst of all try sincerely, and dearly, and dedicatedly to get me to change my ways...
under this whole notion that... even if I shouldn't have to change... I still do have to 'cause how I am just doesn't work in Society...
one of whom was actually almost successful in this... and I still owe that rat bastard Bastard Son of a rat bastard boyfriend of a rat bastardette Bastard Daughter of a family of inbred lab rat bastards a biiiiig favor for what he did to/for/about me... despite that he is now almost never (if ever) seen on those boards, or in instant messaging clients where I had talked with him some before, or even in his e-Mail with claims that he is ''busy with his new job in Chicago''... and
whenever anyone ever gets banned over all of this it's me that gets banned.
None of which has anything to do with me being a Furry or anything else 'Furry' about me.
What I've seen is that, generally, in fact almost entirely, but not entirely mutually exclusively, those who are the type to tolerate my way of talking on forums (and subesequent conflicts, leading to subsequent arguments, leading to subsequent 'mob mentality' to ''Hate on H1'' as I call it more and more nowadays for a little alliteration fun if nothing else) then also happen to be the type to be more tolerant of my 'Furry' aspects.


This whole 'Tale of Woe' here is all true, yet you probably don't give a damn, and I respect that.
Though please try to understand, that 'writing flow' is important to me, and I can't really make shorter posts if I want to Quad Damn it.