What's missing in MUSHdom?

Tinuviel · Mar 25, 2018, 4:03 AM

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

Wouldn't it make more sense to create several such games, so that players are more evenly distributed across them

That's not how that works. We're people, not datapoints you can shift around.

Nightshade · Mar 25, 2018, 4:07 AM

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

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

Wouldn't it make more sense to create several such games, so that players are more evenly distributed across them

That's not how that works. We're people, not datapoints you can shift around.

It works by offering different themes so that people don't have to shoehorn themselves into Arx if they don't enjoy lords and ladies (or they enjoy something else more). Obviously, the redistribution of players would happen organically through people's different interests.

Tinuviel · Mar 25, 2018, 4:14 AM

@nightshade There are plenty of games that aren't Arx. It might be nice to have multiple games, but with skilled and interested coders and weavers of story dropping out of the hobby like flies owing to reality stepping in, it's not something we can really demand.

This is Mildly Constructive, and you're acting like a petulant child. "I demand this, I want that." You've offered your ideas, and others have disagreed with you, or asked for further explanation. Present your ideas without getting defensive and abrasive and you may be taken more seriously.

surreality · Mar 25, 2018, 4:21 AM

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

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.

And some people wouldn't touch Arx, or RfK or Firan (while they existed) with a bargepole for the same reasons.

Your experience re: sandbox setups is, bluntly, not the experience I've had on them as a player or staffer in any way. Further, there is absolutely no such 'general agreement' that games should (or should not) have metaplots.

So, uh, maybe try to avoid spouting out 'fuck your absolute authority' while acting like you have it to speak from yourself when so much of what's coming out of your mouth is so easily demonstrated to be false.

Protip: it is entirely possible to like what you like without demonizing other things, especially when you're doing so with with demonstrable falsehoods. People tend to take you a bit more seriously then, too.

Tinuviel · Mar 25, 2018, 4:25 AM

@surreality Also RfK collapsed under the weight of it's owners ego and self-delusion in a cult of personality.

Nightshade · Mar 25, 2018, 4:26 AM

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

@nightshade There are plenty of games that aren't Arx.

Do they also have ~400 players (aside from sex mushes)? Why not? Are they imploding because of too many players being interested?

It might be nice to have multiple games, but with skilled and interested coders and weavers of story dropping out of the hobby like flies owing to reality stepping in, it's not something we can really demand.

I'm one of those who left and I'm saying why, instead of just disappearing and not bothering. Might be good to listen, if you don't want to keep playing with the same dwindling, incestuous circle of people.

This is Mildly Constructive, and you're acting like a petulant child. "I demand this, I want that." You've offered your ideas, and others have disagreed with you, or asked for further explanation. Present your ideas without getting defensive and abrasive and you may be taken more seriously.

Frankly, I've mostly given up on mushes and mushers, because this same problem has persisted through the hobby over almost a decade. So I simply don't care anymore - listen or don't. I vented my frustration, with some fairly constructive advice and a different perspective. If truly nobody shares my frustration, then that's pretty sad.

At some point in time before Haunted Memories, I staffed and helped create a lords and ladies game, as a complete newbie. This was my second mush ever. As most of the staff was new, we tried hard to be inclusive and not jaded, but we had absolutely no idea how to make our game functionally fun. In essence, we had created a sandbox for the theme, and it always bothered me and I kept feeling like I failed the game.

If I managed to figure this out almost a decade ago, as a total newbie, then what the hell is wrong here? How many new players try out mushes and just leave, for the same reasons?

Nightshade · Mar 25, 2018, 4:27 AM

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

@surreality Also RfK collapsed under the weight of it's owners ego and self-delusion in a cult of personality.

Them grapes are mightily sour, m'lord. No, it collapsed when the owner got overwhelmed by the workload and disappeared.

surreality · Mar 25, 2018, 4:30 AM

@nightshade ...because maybe you're looking for something more like an RPI or a MOO, which is not the MUSH/MUX hobby's fault.

Plenty of people like the things you don't. They are no more wrong to like them than you are to not like them. So stop acting like they are; it's arrogant nonsense.

Tinuviel · Mar 25, 2018, 4:30 AM

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

Do they also have ~400 players (aside from sex mushes)? Why not? Are they imploding because of too many players being interested?

Population isn't the be-all-and-end-all of a MU's success.

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

because this same problem has persisted through the hobby over almost a decade

Not everybody sees it as a problem.

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

Them grapes are mightily sour, m'lord. No, it collapsed when the owner got overwhelmed by the workload and disappeared.

After refusing to hand over the game to any other stuff, after refusing to give any other stuff enough authority to get anything done, after feeling 'betrayed' by people when they didn't instantly agree with her on everything...

Nightshade · Mar 25, 2018, 4:34 AM

I've made my points, you can choose to ignore them but player interest will show what's true.

surreality · Mar 25, 2018, 4:38 AM

@nightshade You just keep telling yourself that. By your metric, Shangrila, PenDes, FurryMUCK, Fallcoast, Arx, and formerly Firan are the best games out there.

Good luck selling that one around here.

Tinuviel · Mar 25, 2018, 4:42 AM

@surreality Fallcoast is the best. It's the only place you can find me!

Three-Eyed Crow · Mar 25, 2018, 4:45 AM

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

@nightshade ...because maybe you're looking for something more like an RPI or a MOO, which is not the MUSH/MUX hobby's fault.

I mean, this person's being ultra abrasive and anti-sensible and I'm not really bothering to read his posts, so it's not what I'm responding to per se.

That said, I think viewing codebases as proxies for game experience/culture actually is one of the problems in this hobby. There are MOOs that are entirely MUSH-like, beyond the code base. There's also no reason an MUSH or MUX can't be made to be heavily object/code-oriented (the TGG combat code is my go-to example of this, just due to my own experience).

My hope is that Ares and Evennia as less obscure coding platforms will enable people to make more of all kinds of games, but I fear the attitude of 'oh, it's an X Codebase game, not for me' will persist there as well.

Tinuviel · Mar 25, 2018, 4:47 AM

@three-eyed-crow Codebases were decent proxies, as their atmospheres and cultures were very different. At least in general terms, because specifics are weird. So, though it's somewhat inaccurate now, it still makes sense.

surreality · Mar 25, 2018, 4:51 AM

@three-eyed-crow I actually agree with this completely -- it's just more that this person seems to want something that is more in line with the style of game that... dang, what was that other forum Jeshin kept promoting here while dogging MUSHes in exactly the same way, re: 'they are WRONG for not having these things all the time'? They seem to be looking for something more in line with those criteria, rather than the shared story world approach that is more common to the games discussed here. That not all games have the things they want does not make those games wrong, bad, or failures, they just make them not what that person wants, and they seem incapable of comprehending this.

Three-Eyed Crow · Mar 25, 2018, 5:05 AM

@surreality
Oh, yeah, this person is making the exact kind of GAMES ARE WRONG BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT THIS argument that I think is a major problem with a lot of approaches to this hobby. That said, I do think the major reasons certain styles of gameplay are persistent across certain codebases are culture ones, and we should own that and acknowledge that it's kind of dumb, and that it's probably harmful for it to persist as stuff like Evennia and Ares develop other ways of doing stuff. Like, my big fear is that people see Arx and say 'Oh, I don't like this, I never want to play an Evennia game' or see BSU and say, 'Oh, I don't like FS3, I'm not interested in developing anything for Ares.'

Like, I think it's been said a few times on this very board that MOO and MUCK are WAY saner to code in than the MUSH/MUX variants, but they never caught on with this audience because fear of objects/fear of furries, respectively.

faraday · Mar 25, 2018, 5:10 AM

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

That not all games have the things they want does not make those games wrong, bad, or failures, they just make them not what that person wants, and they seem incapable of comprehending this.

Yeah, and the "logic" there is pretty mind-boggling.

It's like... "ZOMG look at the box office results, people! Comic book movies made eleventy bazillion dollars in 2017. Why haven't you nitwits figured that out yet and stopped making these lame art house films? Just make everything a comic book movie and all your problems will be solved!"

Tinuviel · Mar 25, 2018, 5:11 AM

@faraday Isn't that basically what Hollywood is doing?

faraday · Mar 25, 2018, 5:11 AM

@tinuviel Shush, you're not helping

Tinuviel · Mar 25, 2018, 5:13 AM

@faraday I'm not here to help.