WoD MUSH Comparison?

[surreality]

@Coin said:

and I want someone, anyone, to kick Reno into gear with some consistent plot.

It exists, at least for weresphere. At this point, it exists in rough notes and my brain, though, which is non-helpful. I am however a lone staffer dealing with a sphere of 50 or so characters, so that is also kinda a thing at the moment that isn't helping while time's already hugely limited by RL concerns.

Things have been run in relation to it already when there's time and people actually show up -- it's just subtle. Some more subtle than others, but pretty much anything I run is tied together and tied into that core Thing Going On In The Background Consistently. Not many people seem interested in connecting the dots yet, but I'm optimistic it can and will happen?

Please don't pop my little optimism bubble, it's awfully shiny and junk!

[Miss Demeanor]

@Ganymede Who are you playing over on Eldrtich? I didn't know you'd made a bit there!

@Coin By no means did I mean to suggest that this was something staff should have to take care of. It isn't. Its totally a player thing. It is still a thing, however. And a lot more games are going to die out slowly if SOMETHING isn't done about it.

[ThatOneDude]

@Miss-Demeanor That's a valid point.

@surreality Why not just combine Reno and Eldritch?

[Coin]

@Miss-Demeanor said:

@Coin By no means did I mean to suggest that this was something staff should have to take care of. It isn't. Its totally a player thing. It is still a thing, however. And a lot more games are going to die out slowly if SOMETHING isn't done about it.

Nah. I didn't think you were. I was just commenting on it being more of a cultural issue at the moment than a game-specific one. I mean, I hate it, too.

@surreality

But I bougth all these pessimistic pins...

[Coin]

@ThatOneDude said:

@Miss-Demeanor That's a valid point.

@surreality Why not just combine Reno and Eldritch?

@tragedyjones and @EmmahSue and @Eerie and I all talked about Reno and Eldritch existing in the same shared universe, though the games would never formally cross other than perhaps news posts and rumors in one game regarding what happens in another.

The idea was never formalized, and it's not what you mean anyway. What you mean is never going to happen because of my aforementioned post regarding what we actually want for Eldritch, and the fact that the games are fundamentally different in theme and approach.

[ThatOneDude]

@Coin Right, but, one could fall away and take the staffers that want to staff to do some things on Eldritch. Lower the stress level by spreading it over a larger staff that has a good track record, like, @Surreality.

Just food for thought since Reno seems pretty rough. But, what do I know My feeling about Eldritch was obviously way off the mark right?

[Ganymede]

@Coin said:

We'll see what we can do to ameliorate this, but in general, this sort of thing is more of a player-side issue that needs to be addressed by players.

You're presuming this will occur, but staff can take steps to make it happen.

For the Werewolf sphere, for instance, if players are supposed to run one another's Hunts, then make that known. If there are events occurring that could cause Packs to rally and protect their territories harshly, make them known. A weekly announcement as to local goings-on could go a long way.

@Miss-Demeanor: I play Dana on Eldritch, and Cai on Kingsmouth. As Cai, I could really use some coterie-mates or a ghoul or thrall or two. PM for more information, if interested!

[Coin]

@Ganymede Yeah, which is why I went on to say we¡'d see what we could do. But the bulk of the effort is on players: being open to new people, being persistent in the offers of roleplay, etc.

[2mspris]

@Sunny said:

There's a splinter game off of TR called Safe Haven Harbor, but it's invite only and I can't say I'd recommend it to anyone who isn't already invested in it. I stress that this is not 'unofficial' or 'official' -- the people involved in creating it had every right to the material, whether or not The Reach folks agree with that. None of it was the Reach's stuff to begin with, and afaik the actual creator of TR is okay with SHH being out there.

The actual creator of TR gave his blessing for SHH to be made, and was also briefly involved with helping things get going.

SHH is WoD (2.0/GMC as soon as those things come out,), sphere-wise we have Werewolf (2.0), Mage, Changeling, Immortal and M+. It is a "post-apocalyptic" world that story-wise splinters from TR's End of the World where the EotW did happen and this game-setting is what resulted. It is a smaller game, it has a smaller staff-group, a lot of the plot is staff run, it began as a by-invitation-only game. The game was never intended as an official or unofficial replacement for TR, it's basically an alternate reality. It's no longer strictly by-invitation but we're also not rushing towards dropping ads everywhere, a lot of work is going into world-building with setting getting fleshed out because there really isn't a "real world" reference to be made for everything like in a standard world of darkness game. We utilize stuff from the WoD: Mirrors book. Things are fairly scheduled-active, there isn't a lot of impromptu RP except what players arrange between themselves, but the majority of the players are people with fairly busy RLs. It's probably not a game for everyone, I'm happy with the smaller player base (it means I can give more direct attention the players who are there from a staff end, so a little bit it runs somewhat like an online TT).

[ThatGuyThere]

Since it hasn't been mentioned yet in this thread.
Sheltering Sky, it is a successor game to Metro set in Colorado, on the plus side staff is active and running things and there is grid rp happening, about 20 to 30 chars logged in most nights.
The cons are a lot of people had issues with the staff at metro and it is a lot of the same people. I know that has been a deal breaker with a couple of the people I tried to recruit.

[TNP]

@Ganymede said:

@Miss-Demeanor said:

The hardest part, for me, is finding RP outside of plots. A lot of people are still kind of... hiding away in private rooms or the OOC room and being generally unresponsive to prompts for RP.

I have found the same for Eldritch,

Likewise. I usually avoid simple +1 posts but I did want to in this case just emphasize that it does seem to be a general trend. I have no solutions. Except this: hit Jared up for RP. I"m open to most anything.

[Arkandel]

I sometimes do public scenes outside PrPs but not always. The reason is simple - I don't always like how they escalate; you start with two or three people and within twenty minutes there are six or seven.

At that point I'm not having as much fun. It can still be when there's structure - such as in a plot - but otherwise it's just not for me.

[Spawnblade]

Wow! I did not expect so many responses so quickly. Thank you, all, for your time and effort in doing so.

@Silver - I did notice Eldritch was staying away from Mage, though only after a great deal of digging. I found this regrettable, but I can understand the reasons. Mage's power seems to be balanced heavily around Paradox, and I guess that can be difficult to monitor / quantify in a MUSH. I wish White Wolf had more splats that allowed people to be so flexible in their character design though (both in powers and in personality,) but this isn't a game breaker. I plan on starting Mortal, wherever I play, and just seeing where that takes me and, more importantly, what group of people that takes me to. Staff is always important. I do like the 2e focus (feels a lot more balanced to me than 1e, particularly when comparing different supernatural templates) and the encouragement of cross-sphere interaction rather than shunning such roleplay. Seems like that would make the game feel larger and more populated relative to a server that isolates the spheres.

@ThatOneDude - Thank you for the warning. Reno's population does preclude me from really giving it a fair chance, at the moment. As for the plots in Eldritch, however, I admit that I actually prefer staff running / facilitating smaller plots for individuals who want to do things that affect the server rather than staff spending their time on large, cumbersome metaplots which leave very little room for true player engagement. In Neverwinter Nights, DM-run "main plots" (as they were often called) tended to be completely railroaded. No diverging paths, no meaningful player decisions or actions / consequences. Perhaps this is not the case with the "main plots" run in MUSHes, though? Thanks again for your advice.

@Coin - You say you (Eldritch) don't want to be "the next big thing." Does this mean that you do not want a larger player base / new players? It seems you'd prefer a lot of niche servers, rather than one where a lot of people with differing views/personalities can clash. Is this correct? I suppose my aversion to small / shrinking player bases is founded upon what often happens when we humans interact with the same people day after day with nothing to shake things up -- we start talking about the weather. Regardless, I appreciate your desire to see all of these places succeed. I wish more people held such goodwill.

@Sunny - My use of the terms was based simply on the Reach website pointing to one successor, while others were ignored by that same medium. It seems I misused them? I wasn't implying that one server had the right to be open and the others didn't -- I do not think this at all, and have experienced similar fracturings in the past with different games (UO shards, NWN servers, etc.) I get that people have different visions, and I whole-heartedly believe anyone who is willing to put forth the effort to realize them, should be able to.

Ah, I had read that New Prospect had no policing / staff interference, but hadn't read the same of City of Hope. That's unfortunate. Much as that would work in an ideal world, I discovered at an early age (thanks to many days of rescuing LEGO princesses and fighting [losing] LEGO wars with friends) that when presented a game/world without rules or referees, my friends had an incessant need to always "win." That's what makes these systems (DnD, WoD, SR, etc) so appealing to me -- the ability to handle conflict resolution in an unbiased (less biased?) manner when people are unable to compromise. Kingsmouth is the Vampire-only world, right? Would you mind telling me what non-WOD game has seen so many people? Thank you for all your insight Sunny.

@Miss-Demeanor - I've never understood the private hideaways. Always felt like that defeated the purpose of roleplaying on a medium like this. I'm not surprised that's a problem on MUSHs as well, but I'll certainly keep an eye out for it, and hopefully I can find some players who are not so inclined to the safety of their private cliques.

@Ganymede - I enjoy the idea of a multi-sphere world, but only when the spheres aren't isolated from one another. However, I do enjoy Vampire more than most spheres, even if some of the lore feels restrictive (never came to terms with the idea of playing a creature that was, in turn, playing at being human stuck in time, incapable of true change from its original personality.) Can't remember if Blood and Smoke loosened that a bit. I didn't know about that Off-Screen System. Just read up on it and find it quite interesting. Seems it would help lighten the load on staff while still aiding in fleshing out a true Vampire experience. Thanks for the recommendation!

@2mspris - Ahh, I heard about the whole EotW thing. In fact, I think that was going on when I first discovered TR. That's cool you guys set up an alternate reality to explore it. Doesn't sound as much like my cup of tea, though, having never played on TR and likewise, the carried-over characters would certainly be daunting for a new player (or maybe that's just me.) Good luck, though, and thank you for the clarification.

---

I appreciate all the help. All the opinions and points. All your time. I believe I've collected quite a bit of information, even about some servers I hadn't realized existed. If anyone has further advice, I'll certainly consider it. I think Eldritch and Kingsmouth seem the most intriguing as of now, so I'll have to try out both and see if either of them click. Maybe one more, not sure what one. Maybe I won't get that far -- maybe I won't need to.

Thanks again.

[Coin]

@Spawnblade said:

@Coin - You say you (Eldritch) don't want to be "the next big thing." Does this mean that you do not want a larger player base / new players? It seems you'd prefer a lot of niche servers, rather than one where a lot of people with differing views/personalities can clash. Is this correct?

No, not really. I mean, it's not wrong in that I don't want to have a huge, sprawling game, but it's not correct in that I don't want new players. So I guess it's a contradictory position to take when you ask it that way?

The crux of the issue is that I want to tell stories in my setting that I can include people in. With larger player bases, that becomes impossible, because I can't include enough people to ever feel like I'm being inclusive enough. Further, large games are unwieldly and hard to manage, require excessive amount of administrative staffers, which inevitably create extra drama. But most importantly: I prefer more accessible numbers, and I also think that it will benefit the entire hobby to have people spread out among other games rather than moving, lemming-style, from one big game to another.

I suppose my aversion to small / shrinking player bases is founded upon what often happens when we humans interact with the same people day after day with nothing to shake things up -- we start talking about the weather. Regardless, I appreciate your desire to see all of these places succeed. I wish more people held such goodwill.

If you find yourself with nothing to talk about the weather, and wanting to shake something up, do it. I'm not saying you, personally, are someone who relies on others to shake things up for you, but that's the impression your comment gives. Meanwhile, if I really want some action to take place on a game and I have interest from other people--real interest, not just whining about 'nothing is happening' while they don't even try to participate with some enthusiasm--I will run the hell out of a plot.

It's the same principle I apply to "gosh, this game sucks, it could be done so much better." Well, okay, butterfly, go on and do it better then. I mean, even if Eldritch bombs, at least no one will be able to say "Coin whined a lot, but never tried to do it himself".

Again, this isn't me being defensive; just my view on your opinion regarding needing new blood to shake things up. Plot shakes things up. Otherwise, all you're adding is another person who you will eventually get to know and who will eventually join you in the "nothing is happening" spiral.

[BallisticOrange]

@2mspris That mean it's open for others at this point?

[Faceless]

@Coin said:

do it

[Coin]

@Faceless said:

@Coin said:

do it

Shia knows what's up.

[2mspris]

@BallisticOrange It is, yes.

[Sunny]

@Spawnblade said:

@Sunny - My use of the terms was based simply on the Reach website pointing to one successor, while others were ignored by that same medium. It seems I misused them? I wasn't implying that one server had the right to be open and the others didn't -- I do not think this at all, and have experienced similar fracturings in the past with different games (UO shards, NWN servers, etc.) I get that people have different visions, and I whole-heartedly believe anyone who is willing to put forth the effort to realize them, should be able to.

I was just clarifying that there wasn't any official/unofficial, that's all. The use of the terms didn't offend me or anything, I just wanted to make sure it was understood since this medium for RP is kinda weird compared to others. There was some stupid stink about the whole TR/SHH thing, so nipping potential drama = good. Nothing personal.

As far as what game blew up, it is KD, the one I babble a lot about; there's a thread in advertisements. It's nowhere near huge or anything, doesn't hold a candle to what TR was at its height, but I'd say it's a medium sized game. People always around, which is the important bit.

[acceleration]

@ThatOneDude said:

The experience of my friends is theirs but I know they slipped away which as you say doesn't matter in the long run but they never got HOOKED in. I was lucky and got in on a great scene Eerie ran early on that made me excited. Maybe I'm just the kind of person that see's that half-full glass.

I'm one of @ThatOneDude's friends in question.

I got into WoD MUSHes on the nWoD 1.0 system. I had some fun with that in a very small playerbase (12 people max, I think?) which never had a ton of metaplot but had plenty of PvP action, then had some fun on The Reach in small scale monster-of-the-week scenes, but never really got into the same depth of character I had in the previous setting.

I am trying Fallcoast, and I have tried Eldritch and Kingsmouth. I've also tried City of Hope, but I had a hard time getting into it just because of unfamiliarity with the system.

About Eldritch:

I've had a lot of trouble finding an initial hook into RP. Social RP is not the sort of thing I log on to a MUSH to find. I like intrigue and action, which presumably many of you play WoD to find as well. There may be intrigue in social RP, but for me, social RP is a means to an end, as in you finally make a friend who's willing to cut you in on the crazy happenings around the local setting. It's very difficult for me to sit through those types of scenes, but since I tried Eldritch it's just about the only type of scene I've been involved in.

Getting into intrigue-and-action filled RP has been very difficult for me. I personally dislike scenes with over four people in them. My understanding is Eldritch staff attempts to limit attendance to staff-run scenes, too. Every time I've seen a new staff event pop up, it's gotten a flood of signups right off and/or have been oriented toward m/m+, so I haven't really bothered trying to try to make one.

I completely appreciate Eldritch trying to keep it small. Small groups have been the most fun for me and I think 3-4 people a scene is where you can maximize emotes:fun. That said, Eldritch's playerbase has quickly pushed past a manageable ratio for staff, and difficulty of getting in on a staff scene or hearing that the metaplot is moving forward is another obstacle in getting properly hooked into the game.

I haven't really gone out of my way to RP a lot with the playerbase due to lack of interest in social RP, so part of it's on me. As @ThatOneDude says, I just never got hooked into the game initially.

I've also tried Kingsmouth and felt the following (though this was awhile ago, so it could really be outdated):

Kingsmouth's staff seems great. The system seems great. They seem interested in their playerbase's fun and everything. But there's a definite time investment in order to progress that... I guess these days I'm less willing to make, and if you want to get into their downtime territory system, you need a lot of minimums that are very difficult to meet straight out of chargen. That can be frustrating. For me it was and I stopped logging in.

As for Fallcoast:

It's too early to say.