Need Coder for Political Vampire Game
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Hi all, noob here trying to get a game set up. I have been writing theme files for this game for roughly a year. I finally feel ready to set up a server, but unfortunately I don't know anyone and I don't know anything about setting up mushes. I got as far as setting up a server on Digital Ocean and trying to install Mediawiki, which is giving me a lot of trouble. I can't even copy and paste on the terminal, which is how noob I am. Would anyone be available to walk me through how this all works and potentially stay on as coder for the game...? Any help (even just telling me how to copy and paste) would be greatly appreciated.
Fyi, this game is a political Vampire 2.0 game set in West Berlin during the Cold War. I have really temporary WIP files uploaded on Wikia. For your perusal:
http://berlin-1974.wikia.com/wiki/Berlin_1974_Wikia
The year is gonna be 1978 instead of 1974 like it says on the wikia. It is just pure Vampire with territory, influence, blood scarcity, and other such things. There is a home-brewed Praxis system, which is my attempt at defining what it means to become Prince of a city.
The city is ruled by an NPC roster of Carthians, who escaped from East Germany before the Wall went up. They're stranded here and cut off from their own brethren in the East, from whom no one has heard of since. They fought a short, bloody war with the Invictus regime and won – and in the aftermath passed horrible, draconian laws to mitigate what they saw as injustice that was done to them since.
The Carthian government, once brutal and efficient, is now mired in rules, bureaucracy, and ideological disputes. The stage is ripe for a regime change. The goal of the story is to replace the NPCs with a PC-formed government. There is some metaplot, which will be quite flexible in general and take a backseat to PC politicking.
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If you're on Windows and connecting to your droplet via SSH, toss whatever you're currently using and switch to puTTY.
Then whatever you copy in Windows you paste to puTTY just by right-clicking in that terminal window. To copy out of puTTY back to Windows you just click and drag to highlight in the terminal (don't do anything else) and then go paste into Notepad or whatever text editor you're using.
If you're not on Windows, just ignore me.
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*NIX uses a lot of control key combos and so some ssh/telnet apps require you to use control-shift-c/control-shift-v for cut and paste instead.
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@rnmissionrun In fact putty lets you use middle click (which is obviously the one true way to paste text) if you tell it to.
But to get back to the OP's issue... there are some guides posted on this forum to set up a MU* which are basically step-by-step, and at least one where you can use docker and set the whole thing up in one step... theoretically.
However OP, you're on the right track - if you're not technically versed you'll spend way more time doing things you probably don't enjoy (i.e. figuring out Linux) and less time doing what you intend (i.e. running a Vampire game), so you do need someone to help.
To do that what I'd do is try and attract a coder with your ideas if you don't already have someone in mind, which if you did you probably wouldn't have made an open thread about it.
So... what's cool for a coder to do for you? You can probably grab enough general command line help from us as a whole to run a generic MU* instance, but if you want any customization at all you will need someone to get their hands a bit dirty... so what would those be? Why would such a person want to roll up their sleeves?
Theme is your thing, but cool coding project ideas could go a long way into getting you the help you want.
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Yeah, it was a total nightmare. I learned how to set up a server, install LAMP, tried to download mediawiki but downloaded the wrong version, realised my mistake and downloaded the right version, the new version tells me to install composer to download some extensions... after so many error messages i finally found the solution on google. So mediawiki installed, i go to the browser to set it up. Unfortunately the thing now won't access my database, and I will have to figure out what i did wrong. This is the point where i just decided to go to sleep and call it a day.
@Arkandel that was pretty good advice there i hadnt thought of that. I'm not too sure what will attract a coder. Basically, i would like to have an expansive grid and also Necropolis that consists of ghost stations, wwii bunkers, secret nazi projects, and spy tunnels that lead to east berlin. I was also thinking of a travel system through the U-bahn, so that travelling around feels more immersive. There will have to be a blood system, like Rfk where you go to territories to hunt. I'm also thinking of some kind of blood harvesting or blood bank where ghouls can get blood for their regnant, and where vampires can pay their landlords in blood. We also want to have Prestation. Some kind of boon system would be nice. Maybe even a system that displays your "stock" and whether you're going up or down, and general trends. I dont know if the last thing will be possible or not!
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@munsell https://github.com/tekmunkey/ubuntuMUSH
If you're using Ubuntu 16. It may also work on debian but I've never tried it or worked with optimizations for it there.
Start with ubuConfig.sh which will re/install your lamp, probably add some CGI options, mail handlers, and most importantly all the prerequisites for PennMUSH or TinyMUX which aren't in either platform's documentation (or if they are then the package names are completely wrong). Read the comments in the script, especially the instructions at the top about usage and troubleshooting and toward the bottom for which answers are good ones when the script begins mysql_secure_installation.
Then there's installPennMUSH.sh and installTinyMUX.sh. Obviously use the one you need. Read the comments in the script. Use the right version of Penn or TinyMUX. If you change the name of the package you download from them, change the filename target in the script. These scripts fully automate the process of building Penn or TMUX with MySQL support.
The only thing that will be left for you to do is create a schema and a user for that schema in mysql, then plug the appropriate information into your netmux.conf or netmush.conf depending on which platform you're trying to set up.
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@munsell said in Need Coder for Political Vampire Game:
@Arkandel that was pretty good advice there i hadnt thought of that. I'm not too sure what will attract a coder. Basically, i would like to have an expansive grid and also Necropolis that consists of ghost stations, wwii bunkers, secret nazi projects, and spy tunnels that lead to east berlin.
That can help, even only to show your creativity. Attracting coders is only different than getting players to give you a chance in one way - you need to do it upfront, before there's really that much of a project in progress in place for them to appreciate. You're basically asking a person who's probably qualified and has professional-grade skills to put them to work for your game - tens of hours' worth - to make it possible, so the main question you have to answer for them is ... why your MU*? How serious are you? How do they know you'll even still be around in a few months when they finish?
I was also thinking of a travel system through the U-bahn, so that travelling around feels more immersive. There will have to be a blood system, like Rfk where you go to territories to hunt. I'm also thinking of some kind of blood harvesting or blood bank where ghouls can get blood for their regnant, and where vampires can pay their landlords in blood. We also want to have Prestation. Some kind of boon system would be nice. Maybe even a system that displays your "stock" and whether you're going up or down, and general trends. I dont know if the last thing will be possible or not!
And this is one of the exact things you can do right now... write down your system. Not "there will have to be a blood system" - write it down, specifically, the ins and outs of it in simple English. Coders like specificity - design the system you want them to implement for you, and be ready to answer a lot of questions that haven't occurred to you... because they will need those answers to do it.
In other words, don't go to a programmer with hopes and dreams. Go to them with a design.
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Your game looks really really really cool and I dig the premise.
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@Arkandel I'm pretty much in it from the long haul. I have been making edits in my wiki since April 24, 2016.... consistently up until today. I have 155 pages in my wiki currently. I guess I just felt a void after RfK closed and needed something to do. At this point I pretty much /have/ to get the game made, or I'll just feel like I wasted a portion of my life.
http://berlin-1974.wikia.com/wiki/Territory_System
For instance, that is the link to my territory system. I have the blood system in some document on my harddrive somewhere, but it is not so polished so I haven't uploaded it on the wiki. I probably will in a few days.
I'll pay, even, if that doesn't offend people (rate to be negotiated over pms). I'm in favour of people charging for professional services, but I understand if it's not the 'done' thing. I'm just gonna continue to plug away at the technical stuff.
@arkandel said in Need Coder for Political Vampire Game:
In other words, don't go to a programmer with hopes and dreams. Go to them with a design.
My hope and dream is to find a coder!
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@munsell Quick -- maybe dumb -- question: was the wiki you were attempting to install 'Semantic Mediawiki'? That isn't a full wiki installation; it's an extension to install over top of an existing normal wiki installation. (It's confusing because initially it sounds like a drop-in replacement if it's the first time you're doing it... and I know it tells you to install it through composer, so that's why I'm asking.)
I'm not entirely sure how to fix it, but if that's what happened, one of the more server-savvy folks around may be able to help you resolve it.
