What's missing in MUSHdom?

[faraday]

@thenomain said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

But if all people want to play are Social MU*s with RPG elements, then why bother making anything else?

There's plenty of room for all kinds of games on the internet. MUDs have very little socialization. RPIs have some socialization but heavy coded elements to drive that RP. MUSHes have tended to be, as you say, "socially oriented with some RPG elements". (I would argue that Firan fell closer to the RPI scale than the MU scale but others may disagree.)

Is any of that bad? Is it perhaps that all you're looking for is more of a RPI than a MUSH? Does the distinction even matter?

To put it another way... what do you envision for a game that's got dozens of players and runs 24/7/365 for hopefully years that isn't primarily socially driven?

[Apos]

@thenomain said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

That we used to make our own fun and somehow can't anymore has baffled me for a while.

It has? To me it's clear as day. Being proactive rather than reactive takes more time and effort. As people get older and get more responsibilities, they have less time, and naturally default to a reactive rather than proactive stance in their hobbies more often than not. This means the decreasing pool of people that are proactive and can create come under increasing demand from the people that do not have the ability to do so to provide for the people that don't have the time or motivation to do it.

So I personally just think that systems need to foster and encourage proactive behavior that helps provide and nurture the kind of situations that people find more satisfying, otherwise they default to path of least resistance which is familiar social rp. I mean, I thought this was obvious.

[Lotherio]

@faraday said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

what do you envision for a game that's got dozens of players and runs 24/7/365 for hopefully years that isn't primarily socially driven?

Just an observation since Minecraft was brought up as 'grinding' endlessly being enjoyable. Minecraft is more popular on-line than single player home/along play. There is a pretty big element of playing in creative (non-collecting) mode, with servers dedicated to creative, and even further, RP is a big element of that creative play/server culture. So visual games with gamey elements and mini games (lots of great mini-game plugins like capture the flag, fishing contests, etc.), even they turn towards socially driven RP at times. Of course on minecraft part of the fun in RP is developing the 'set' and introducing elements for the players to interact with, but RP none the less. I don't RP on minecraft, but I've seen the kids do it. As an aside, TS has a whole new meaning in their lexicon, glad I found out before commenting on all the kids talking about TS.

[Runescryer]

@arkandel said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@runescryer said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@tinuviel Right. Which is why you need to subdivide a MU into smaller groups or 'spheres' like WoD games do.

On the flipside, that's destroyed some WoD games because when they were subdivided, staff neglected to give them a thematic impetus to interact with each other (in fact often enough they were explicitly told not to due to reasons), essentially dividing the playerbase into islands.

That's never a good choice.

Right. I'm not saying a game should start out with 1 staff per sphere/team/subculture/whatever, but there should be plans made for staff growth to scale as the game grows. And ideally, when it comes to theme & plot, Game Staff should function like the Editorial Board of a comics publisher; they gather together to talk about the big, all inclusive events and keep each other informed of smaller events that they are overseeing so that continuity remains constant and other staff can possibly build off of those smaller ideas as well.

[Nightshade]

@thenomain said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

But if all people want to play are Social MU*s with RPG elements, then why bother making anything else?

Why would a WoD mush have to be a social one? RfK was political, with tons of risk-like minigames to play. That was a success - the main thing it lacked was a hard population limit. At 30 characters it would've thrived beautifully, and it was exactly what was missing in mushdom. The answer is/was right under your nose.

Since Arx has about 400 players or something, I would say it is also what mushdom was missing. Look at what players love and flock to, then do it well.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@nightshade said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

Since Arx has about 400 players or something, I would say it is also what mushdom was missing. Look at what players love and flock to, then do it well.

I feel like part of what Arx has done is tap into a Venn Diagram of RPers on the internet that most other games don't bother with. It's attracting MUSHers, but also people with primarily RPI MUD backgrounds, and it's satisfying them both because it supplies enough things both audience are comfortable with. It's both the extremely positive answer to, and the cautionary tale of because of how its population has ballooned, the question of: what happens when you tap into a non-MUSH online RP audience?

Other games who've tapped into the Tumblr or forum RP crowd are probably a less drastic example of this.

[ixokai]

Man, did this thread go somewhere I didn't really intend it to, heh

[Tinuviel]

@ixokai We don't like no innovations here, you know.

[faraday]

@ganymede said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

Why overlook the struggle to survive by making food and water an after thought? You may not need to force people into a harvest mini-game, but threatening the PCs' collective existence should be part-and-parcel to how the game works.

One further thought about this and the whole "survival mini-game" thing... I think a lot of post-apoc TV dramas show what I'm getting at. Occasionally they'll have a "we're running out of water" episode or a food crisis where something dramatic happens getting water, but day to day survival is not the focus of the show because it would be boring to watch. These shows focus on the more compelling aspects of human drama and/or adventure in those environments, not the nuts and bolts of finding enough food and water to subsist.

Now if somebody wanted to make a whole resource/survival aspect for their game because they think it's cool - that's their prerogative. I'm not knocking that, even though it's not my personal style. I just reject the idea that if you're not OOCly forced to fuss with resource gathering that you're destroying and/or polluting the genre.

[Thenomain]

@apos

I can start a scene in five minutes. It doesn’t take time, it takes willingness, acceptance, and effort to overcome inertia. It takes a critical mass of people willing to try, and a game willing to let them.

Some of this does have to do with timing, which is out of control of the individual, and the aforementioned game willing to let them take an idea and run with it (or have solid ground rules about what running with it means), but it shouldn’t have to eat up our day.

[Nightshade]

What are you going to scene about if the setting is boring (without inherent conflict), and the game gives you no tools for affecting the setting and other players in a meaningful, productive way?

[MagicGirl57]

@nightshade Find another game that enables you to do all these things with the right tools.

[Nightshade]

@calindra said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@nightshade Find another game that enables you to do all these things with the right tools.

That's the point, games should be made with that in mind.

[MagicGirl57]

@faraday Survival niche roleplay isn't for everyone. The last time I played a survival game for any length of time in our hobby was AtonementRPI in its various stages. It's the only game that came to mind that I'd drop everything to go play in a similar setting.

[surreality]

@ominous said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

The popularity of Minecraft, Subnautica, Day Z, Ark, and Don't Starve contradicts your supposition that players avoid menial tasks.

And none of those games are MU*s. Which is relevant.

@lotherio said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@kanye-qwest said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

doing a secret santa in a fantasy garbage world where everyone is starving.

Ask troops deployed overseas about this; I've been there. Doing this and exchanging MRE bits might give them a sense of normalcy in a world were their buddy could die in a couple of hours. Sure, it might just be an 'hey, its Christmas back home merry christmas, I owe you a present ...' Sure, some of the troops might think its stupid and think the person doing it is stupid, but that one moment of offering a gift when really, you don't have squat to give, is sort of that 'remember how it was before we were in this shit' moments.

This. Since the example provided is zombie apocalypse, look at The Walking Dead. There are examples of this. All of them are pretty potent. There are plenty of very good examples of people desperately trying to cling to normalcy. There are definitely hookups -- and the potentially horrifying consequences of 'what happens if someone gets pregnant in a world like that'.

@ominous said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

I want survival mechanics in my MUs. It was one of the main selling points of Firan for me and why I dabbled in Carrier RPI. Most normal MUs just devolve into BarP time otherwise, and I can do that in real life. Maybe it's a sign I should be RPI-ing it up instead of playing MUSHes.

Possibly. Which is no slight -- if that's what you like, that's where you're going to find it more often. People like me find this burdensome, choresome, and a complete barrier to entry due to limited play time.

@thenomain said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

Why shouldn't I keep making WoD games until the end of time?

Obligatory: because a lot of WoD doesn't work well without heavy mods from tabletop and allows a lot of things that the anonymity of the internet invites serious abuse of many of its systems in a way that face to face play does not.

Broadly: A lot of MU* players are story-focused. The biggest part of story readily available to people that focuses exclusively on their story is typically going to be social RP, whether it's forming social bonds with people through getting a job, getting drunk and spilling a secret they didn't intend to, or getting laid, etc. All of those things directly focus on and involve that character's story directly and require zero input from anybody but other interested players.

Instead of focusing on giving people things to do other than that, or creating grinds people have to go through to get anywhere, focus on giving them social/downtime options that incentivize focusing those activities -- from the secrets to the screwing -- that are relevant to the setting and themes of the game.

[Thenomain]

@surreality

That is a very good answer, thank you.

I have, after thinking about it longer, decided that there is nothing wrong with a social game with RPG elements. The main reason I haven’t tried for a Fallout game (offered to code, mainly) is that I’m well aware that it will probably end up as Bland In the Nuclear Glow, but it’s my number one reason to be excited for the downtime systems being developed so that a game like that can be made and not be toothless. (New Vegas would make for a good stable setting, tho, or anywhere in NCR.)

I’m not giving up my thesis that we don’t need a time investment to have good story telling RP.

[Thenomain]

Double post, sorry.

@nightshade said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

What are you going to scene about if the setting is boring (without inherent conflict), and the game gives you no tools for affecting the setting and other players in a meaningful, productive way?

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. If the setting doesn’t engage, then why even log in?

As far as affecting the setting, I’ve never needed tools for that, just permission from staff.

The tools make this easier, and thus more time effective, and thus more likely to be followed though, but it starts with someone saying “yes”. After that, I’m free.

[Nightshade]

@thenomain said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. If the setting doesn’t engage, then why even log in?

I don't. I haven't in a long time.

As far as affecting the setting, I’ve never needed tools for that, just permission from staff.

This is a sandbox. Make your own fun and leave staff alone.

The tools make this easier, and thus more time effective, and thus more likely to be followed though, but it starts with someone saying “yes”. After that, I’m free.

Staff needs to be actively engaged in making their game fun, and needs to have tools that allow both players and staff to achieve that.

If you're complaining that WoD games end up being social MU*s with RPG elements, give them other elements. Let me guess, you've only ever made them as social games, without any tools that would help them be otherwise? So why are you full of yourself, complaining about it? Make a different goddamn game.

Mind you, I appreciate the hard work anyone puts into making games (I certainly have nothing against you personally), but it's time this attitude was kicked to the curb. Or not, keep making sandboxes that fail to engage.

[Thenomain]

@nightshade said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

As far as affecting the setting, I’ve never needed tools for that, just permission from staff.

This is a sandbox. Make your own fun and leave staff alone.

...What?

If you're complaining that WoD games end up being social MU*s with RPG elements, give them other elements

I don't think you know what I was complaining about, no. I can with absolute authority say that "do something different" is easy to say but hard to assure, especially if players are going to default to the same ol' same ol'. I've seen many games use that default as the basis for their systems, which makes sense to me, but saying, doing, and succeeding are three widely different things.

Or not, keep making sandboxes that fail to engage.

... What? Darkwater: Engaging. Fate's Harvest: Engaging. Some people find Reno engaging. So I'm wondering what conversation you think I'm having, but I don't think it's the same conversation that you're having.

I could simply not understand the conversation you're having, but as of now I don't find it engaging and so I'm disengaging.

[Nightshade]

@thenomain said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@nightshade said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

As far as affecting the setting, I’ve never needed tools for that, just permission from staff.

This is a sandbox. Make your own fun and leave staff alone.

...What?

Do I have to spell it out? It's tedious and I didn't think people are that dumb, but okay.

If a game is advertised as a sandbox (directly or indirectly), there is no sense in asking staff for any sort of help in "making your own fun." Which is the case with most games, ever since people concluded metaplots/staff-run plots shouldn't be a thing anymore.

If the game is advertised as "make your own fun" then the staff is just janitors. They won't support story or help you affect the world. In fact, they will do their best to get rid of you, unless you're their close friend. Maybe they'll approve your PrP once they make sure you won't do anything too creative or fun.

So the game becomes fractured into sandboxes of separate groups of people, instead of a shared world. What one group does to affect the world doesn't propagate to the other groups. Therefore, trying to affect the world feels pointless, which makes it feel pointless to play.

This is particularly acute when we talk about vampire spheres. In a sandbox, there's absolutely nothing to support their theme - political, occult, whatever you choose. Not in a way that propagates their actions to the rest of the game. The really dumb thing is that there are functional systems for more than just social play, in those LARP-oriented books. You wouldn't even have to reinvent the wheel, just apply it. There's a reason why they wrote those for settings with lots of people, unlike a small tabletop group. Because vampire doesn't work otherwise.

If you're complaining that WoD games end up being social MU*s with RPG elements, give them other elements

I don't think you know what I was complaining about, no. I can with absolute authority say that "do something different" is easy to say but hard to assure, especially if players are going to default to the same ol' same ol'. I've seen many games use that default as the basis for their systems, which makes sense to me, but saying, doing, and succeeding are three widely different things.

RfK. Arx. How come players haven't defaulted to bar RP there? Cause they have shit to do!

You were complaining that players always ask for the same old thing, which rubbed me wrong because I've spoken out time and again that I want something different. Not only I, but other players have obviously spoken with their feet, flocking to the games that aren't the same old thing. (If you're wondering about my adversarial and aggressive tone, this sums up why.)

So fuck your absolute authority. Arx. RfK. Two examples that clearly speak differently.

Or not, keep making sandboxes that fail to engage.

... What? Darkwater: Engaging. Fate's Harvest: Engaging. Some people find
Reno engaging.

Yes, some people. Meanwhile RfK died under the avalanche of interested players. Meanwhile, there's ~400 people on Arx. Let's not wonder why and what the difference might be.

Wouldn't it make more sense to create several such games, so that players are more evenly distributed across them, and there's more variety of settings and themes to choose from? Instead of having RfK implode from too many players, or Arx losing staffers because they just don't enjoy a game with such a huge population.

Wouldn't that be a better thing for MUSHdom?

So I'm wondering what conversation you think I'm having, but I don't think it's the same conversation that you're having.

That just means you didn't even consider what I've written. It doesn't fit what you already know, so you dismiss it.

I could simply not understand the conversation you're having, but as of now I don't find it engaging and so I'm disengaging.

Keep doing what you're doing (again, general you), I'm sure players avoid those games for totally silly, stupid reasons.

By no means bother to listen to a different perspective.