Hrm, it died with the thread sadly. Seems we couldn't all agree on a game to play, although Alpha Centauri (greeeat game) came close, and maybe the enthusiasm died down along the way. I still think it could be cool though

I'm playing boardgames in physical reality, so I know both of the games you mention, though I've never tried them via email. How would you play TI3 over email for example?

Didn't try it, heard it was a grind

And I quit Lord of the Rings Online again, eheh.

Too much of the same for me, and too little.. hrm, reason to play. Way too much standard MMO stuff. I'll still hang out in EVE though

Welcome Soina!

I didn't know about Haze, I played ALFA myself (http://www.alandfaraway.org/), but I've bookmarked Haze, just to see.

After Seed, a lot of us went on to RP in SoR, which was a great setting imo, and we met quite a lot of RP'ers early on. Then all the RP'ers, us included left the game in a trickle sadly. Wonder how it is doing now.

I think the IP is just gathering dust with the Seed investors, but it hasn't been bought and I don't know if they want to sell. Maybe in time, they will, but I expect they on principle want a somewhat significant sum for it (not just 5 dollars ).

Who did you play in Seed Soina, if I may ask? I remember the name Soina vaguely, but not as a Seed char?

Obviously because I got home drunk and saw some new posts

I think Mir WAS pretty serious Ahnion..

I have some thoughts..

day/night cycle = 24 hours. As Kryigerof says, it's strange being able have a conversation lasting DAYS. Destroys immersion that the time shifts constantly, and there are some more benefits to this too, namely in regards to travelling. If you worry about players never playing when it is day (or night for that matter), due to the 24 hour schedule, keep in mind that it might only be night for 8 hours, and you can always make time zones and let players from differring time zones start out in similar timezones ingame.

And in regards to travelling.. I very much also prefer a world where travel takes time and effort. LOTS of time and effort. If players started out in the same place, or in 2-3 different places and spread from there, then it's ok that going on foot from settlement a to settlement b might take 10 hours in game = 10 hours in real time. You would never travel to a settlement that far away on foot unless you had a reason in any case. You=the typical fantasy peasant.

This is how it was in the middle-ages. Royal couriers and possibly others could get from a to b somewhat faster by utilizing a series of stables, riding a horse hard for some hours (top speed 50-60 km/h, but a horse can only maintain that for a short while), then changing to a fresh one and continuing. With that tactic and good roads, you could cover the distance from a to b in perhaps half an hour instead of 10 hours, i.e.

So you could have a lot of exploration taking place in a small area, slowly spreading outwards. And you could have PC's and NPC's establishing ways of faster transport gradually with this, centering a lot of story on that aspect, and watching how humanity spreads slowly. Or if you have a fully fledged fantasy world with towns and countries, you can still use this real time way of checking distance. But keep in mind that there is no reason to flesh out the entire world, or make the entire world inhabited. That's a very huge tasks too in any case, but especially so if you use real world time and distances.

But if you want travel to feel like travel, and distances to feel like distances, I think this would be a neat and realistic way to do it. You just need to keep the story and plot focus on the fact that most action will take place surrounding a settlement at first, and then spread from there. I also am a big fan of not being able to go anywhere instantly.

Permadeath is fine, with some ways out:

1. You can get raised for free during your first week of playing by asking a GM (unless you've been a fool on purpose)

2. Gods can decide to send you back if they think you are useful to them or if your friends perform certain hefty rituals, promises, killings, etc. in return for letting you live again.

So basically, you will die permanently after that first week if you die, unless you've done a lot of RP directly and indirectly. And any death of an important person would then spark stories and efforts to resurrect him, which the GM's can use for great tales and plots

As for skills, I'm greatly in favor of a skill system like EVE and Seed, where you are constantly learning. However, this should be RP'ed. I.e. if you run around all day drinking in the tavern, and then suddenly gain 10 in 'Hunting', it just doesn't make any sense. There are easy ways around that, but then it's not time-based anymore but based on how much you practice/use those skills. So maybe it is a matter of trusting the RP'er to RP the things he is training. Like we do in StSC.

.. Can't I be neutral?

If I was forced to play such a game, I'd be a Decepticon, because I hate those goody simpleton Autobots.

And I would transform into.. Uh.. geeez.. A TV Remote with the power to.. switch TV Channels! MWAAHAHAAAHAHAHAAHAHA!! (evil, robotic laughter)

OVEN FRIED POTATOES WITH GROUND BEEF

1 red Pepper
Leftover Mushrooms
1 or 2 onions
Cherry tomatoes
Feta
Sundried tomatoes
750 gr new potatoes
2-3 packages of salad seasoning (special, see later)
Olive Oil
Garlic
Salt, Pepper

500 gr chopped ox
Leftover bacon

This is enough for.. Let's say 3-4 persons, and preparation time is around 1 hour.

So, after making my previous recipe I had some mushrooms and bacon leftover, and I decided to use those in my next dish, which turned out to be somewhat freeform, so it is not supertuned/optimized like the others are, I'm afraid. Still, it tasted good, so here goes.

Start up the oven at around 200 degrees before moving to the actual dish-making.

Then pick a large bowl where you make the spice/oil mix needed. I used 2 packages of 'Knorr Tomato Salad Dressing'. That's partly me being lazy, but also partly me acknowledging that you can't make this much better yourself. You can however use any oilbased salad dressing solution instead if you wish. Anyway, it tells you to add water and oil into that mix, but don't use much water, there will be plenty of water from the vegetables. Don't skimp on oil though. Mix it all together, then wash and scrub the potatoes (don't peel them), cutting them into fitting, small pieces.

These pieces you put into the bowl, mix it well with the dressing, then put it all into a pan which you put into the oven. It will need some time in there, how much is a bit relative, depending on water and size of the potatoes, but from 40 to 60 minutes. You'll need the vegetables in there too of course, but they need a little less time, so you can begin chopping them up while the potatoes are in the oven.

Mix the last package of salad dressing mix in the bowl, cut onion, pepper, mushroom and cherry tomatoes in pieces, then mix them in the bowl. Take out the potatoes after 10 minutes and add the vegetables, feta, chopped garlic, and a little dried tomato pieces. Mix it, put it into the oven again and watch it for the rest of the time. Drain excess water if it is more than just a little (and it will be).

So, while that is going on, I prepared the meat. You can of course eat many other things with this dish (fish for instance), but what I wanted and had was minced ox and bacon, so I made beef with wrapped bacon around. I used salt, pepper, some of those dried tomatoes (for fun mostly), garlic and even some of the drained water from the potato dish. That's just me being weird though. It can be done in a variety of ways. Simmer it and time it to the dish in the oven as best as you can.

Then, there's not much left but to serve the food.. Enjoy!

Pasta Salad with Meatballs

The ideal, uhm.. lightweight summer dish.. If you substitute some of the ingredients here with more healthy stuff.

400 gr. chopped pork meat (3-7% fat)
2 Onions
1 Egg
Breadcrumps (Pangrattato or 'rasp' in danish)
Soya

500 gr. Pasta
Mushrooms
Sliced Bacon
Parsley
Dill
Chives
1 spoonful sugar
1 Creme Fraiche (9%)
2 Cream Cheese (with herbs/garlic)

Garlic
Salt
Pepper

1 Kozel Dark Beer

The meatballs I'm making here are the classic Danish meatballs or 'frikadeller', not the same as in my last recpie at all, but there aren't that many english words for the varieties of meatballs.

I apologize for the lack of quantities in most things here. Usually I just go on 'feel' for how much of a given thing is needed, but I'll try to elaborate here and there. What I made in this batch was enough for me for 3 days, or enough for one meal for 4-5 people probably

I also apologize for the crappy image quality. I might do this dish again when I get my new nifty digital camera next month.

Before you start on the meatballs, get the pasta cooking, and when it's done, put it in the fridge to cooldown, the point is not to have hot pasta for this.

Now let's start with making the meatballs. Find a bowl, put in the meat, some soya, salt, pepper and the egg. Grate or crush a little (or not so little, if you like) garlic into the mix, together with the 2 onions. Before you mix all of it, it should look like this:

So, now mix it and add the breadcrumps (or flour or oats) to bind the fat and liquid. Be careful not to add too much or too little, that will make your meatballs either too wet/have bad consistency, or be too dry/hard. When you've mixed it together, put it somewhere safe and slightly below room temperature to rest while you turn your attention to the other things.

Get another bowl, put in the cream cheese and the creme-fraiche, either using a spoon or (better, since it tends to lump otherwise) an electric mixer/whisk until the general consistency is slightly less light than what the creme-fraiche was. Season with pepper, salt and sugar, then grate or crush some garlic (more than you used for the meatballs) into the mix. Next wash and clean the herbs (dill, parsley, chives), and put it in a glass together, using a scissor to turn the herbs into a kind of fine paste. Pour the paste into the bowl. Mix it all together and taste, adding additional seasoning as you wish. The sugar should take a little of the sour taste of the creme-fraiche.

Now we come to something really boring. Slice and cut the mushrooms and bacon into fine, small pieces, keeping them seperate. You should now have this:

So far so good. Now we need to fry the mushrooms and the bacon until both are crisp. Don't do both of these at once, or disaster will happen, as the mushrooms let out quite a bit of water. So, preheat a pan on 2/3 or slightly more of the max. setting, pour a little olive oil (just a little) into it, wait until it is hot, then put in the mushrooms, turn them around often and wait. At some point, the mushrooms will be more like boiling than frying. When that happens, take out the water with a spoon and pour it into the bowl. It should add flavour. The mushrooms will now begin to sizzle. Stir often to avoid them becoming ash on one side, and put it all into the bowl when they're done, before adding the bacon to the pot instead.

The bacon will turn crispy quickly, but will also let out a lot of sizzling fat. As the bacon turns crispy, take it and put it into the bowl, but leave the sizzling fat on the pan and turn down the heat to around 1/3 of max. or slightly above that. Mix the contents of the bowl again and put it into the fridge to cool it. Now it is time to make the famous danish 'frikadeller'!

Take the bowl with the meat and proceed to form small balls of meat, flattening them slightly on both sides. Then put them on the pan (There's probably not enough space to put them all on the pan in one go. Don't force it, or you might damage them when you have to turn them around). Let them sizzle slightly, but mostly simmer in the fat for several minutes, until their bottom is light to medium brown, then turn them around to do the same to the other side. This is somewhat tricky and can take years getting right (or so they say ). Make sure they don't adhere to the pan, loosen them now and then, and be careful not to fry them too quickly with too much heat. It should all look like this if things go well:

Soooo.. Now you're getting there. It's time to begin serving the food. Mix the pasta with the concoction in the bowl. If you don't plan on eating everything in one go, don't mix all of it, or the pasta will seem more dry the second time around. Keep the stuff in the bowl until you need it, then mix it. Open the beer which should preferably be very well-chilled (the Kozel beer from the Czech Republic goes very well with this dish), pour it into a glass, put pasta salad and meatballs on a plate, and voila'! Something for the hot summer You can use a little ketchup to spice this up. But only a little! It would be a shame for the fine food otherwise.

Bon Appetit

- you can also drop the 1-1.5 hours it takes to prepare this dish and just go straight for the beer
- Thanks to Emaelle for helping me find the elusive english cooking words.
- I'm sorry about not posting my pizza dish, but NUALA!! somehow lost the pics.. Yes, she did.. Not I. No. So that will first happen when I do that dish again.

I got two more buddy codes from Sekra, so come one, come all (two).. Lots of 7-days trials to give out.