SerenityMUSH - Discussion
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God, I bet the wiz/admin level access to that database is fascinating and probably contains over a decade worth of stuff.
Because there's probably more than a few things the DB collected, I'd recommend a nuke and pave. It would get rid of dirty data if there is any. I also recommend spinning up a new canon with new characters. The dinosaur players might hate being barred from returning as their 50,000xp characters, but it is usually the best way to ensure the new run is just that: new
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Switching over to a new code base entirely would take some work, but would probably still be for the best. If not a fresh slate of DSS, there's the Cortex rules that are nice.
Still... find that HSpace master object and bring it along. Or hand it to meeeee before wiping everything. I need it. For things.
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There is a difference in orders of magnitude between "keep a game that already exists moving along" and "build a new game from scratch", and willingness to do the former does not in any way indicate the latter. It's not a fair request to make of somebody. Yeah, it would be great to build a new Firefly game, and somebody who thinks that should be done ought to do it. It's not the same project.
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Thanks, Sunny. We are not averse to building a new game from scratch, but we have to be realistic in what we can achieve within the limited time we have between work, RL, mushing and other interests. If it were only a question of digging a few rooms and handing out a few weapons and ships, sure, I'd be happy to do it, but it will require so much more. That said, I wouldn't mind it, if we can get the few still active players who I consider friends of sorts to come along. But why not give things on SerenityMUSH a chance for now, so we can chat / RP there and we could still consider a fresh start somewhere else if old players return to mess up things?
As for opening up Companions, I wouldn't have a problem with that as such - the only problem I see down the line is that particular breed of mushers who only ever want to play the "pretty flirty princess" type, so we'd be up to our ears in companions soon. But perhaps we could implement a rule whereby the numbers of archetypes must be balanced, so we won't have 10 companions, 12 gunslingers and not much else.
Wouldn't it be the simplest to avoid the 50,000 XP-dinosaurs from returning by simply idle-nuking their chars? I mean most games idle-nuke chars anyway...
Due to a RL trip I wasn't around much for the last week or so, but I'll try to be online now daily. I'm River there and Zoe will be around more again, too.
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@SerenityMush said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:
No reset has been done on the game in recent years, and doing so would require a conversation with the other game admins. Some of the long-standing, overpowered players are gone, and some still exist but don't really play any more.
I don't know anything about your game but it sounds like it's been going on for a while which, in a way, might be one of its strengths; longevity encourages nostalgia and loyalty, both of which are very good traits for any MU*, especially since the shelf life for most is very limited.
I'd be pretty careful with resets since it might mess with that. That doesn't mean you can't do some spring cleaning - code updates, new features, etc - but if too much changes too soon you might as well start a new MU*, and... again, shelf life. You probably don't want to alienate your existing and returning players by making them look at the result and not care any more.
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As some others have said you definitely don't want MSB to dictate your game.
An idle-nuke would be a fantastic idea if you didn't want to do a full story reset, it's a start at least.
As a player on the game that still logs in and idles almost daily though my vote is on a full story reset. Move the timeline to a point that everyone familiar with the settings knows like right after the movie, clean up the pirate debacle, the syndicate nonsense, Beau's very existence, all that stuff. Deregister all the ships and everyone makes a new character, throw credits at peoples so they can get started without you having to worry about fiddling with the cost of things, can crew up and apply for a ship, etc.
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@Sunny said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:
It's not a fair request to make of somebody.
It's a fair thing to discuss the pros/cons of a fresh start with somebody who's professed goal is "we want people to come play on our Firefly game". Nobody has a right to demand anything of them, sure, but I don't see anyone doing that.
They can't escape the fact that SerenityMUSH has a lot of red flags that others have already pointed out (lack of control over the server and database, lurking dinos who could come back and upend things at any moment, fragile code, etc.). To say nothing of just the horrible reputation the game has acquired over the years. They have to decide whether the nostalgia factor is balanced out by that baggage.
@SerenityMush said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:
If it were only a question of digging a few rooms and handing out a few weapons and ships, sure, I'd be happy to do it, but it will require so much more.
That entirely depends on what kind of game you want. If you think that the coded H-Space/DSS/Com/Medpack/Econ code is an essential selling point of the game you want to run - then yeah, absolutely, starting from scratch makes no sense.
In contrast though - here's a game I set up this morning using the Cortex skills system (which is what the Serenity RPG uses) just to prove a point that it can be just a question of digging a few rooms (with ships represented as rooms) and telling stories if you want it to be.
And if you don't? That's cool. Best of luck to you.
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@faraday said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:
In contrast though - here's a game I set up this morning using the Cortex skills system (which is what the Serenity RPG uses) just to prove a point that it can be just a question of digging a few rooms (with ships represented as rooms) and telling stories if you want it to be.
To follow-up on this one, if you can get Faraday to help you set up a game using Ares, you'll probably need to hire more staff to handle the influx of people. I'm sure there are at least a dozen people here who would be willing to help you write up news files, set up a new wiki, etc.
I sympathize with the situation you're in, having handled a couple of "game re-boots" in my long, sordid MUSHing history.
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HSpace is a flaming turd. Hate it. Never could figure out how to use it, it always found new and horrible ways to fuck with me, and it needs to not be used.
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HSpace is pretty terrible and way way too overly complicated for what a game like Serenity needs.. but as far as the game itself goes as it stands I wouldn't think they're going to be making any changes with something that code heavy. What's there works, even if it does take a dozen commands to do what should be done in three
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I liked HSpace. It 'clicked' for me.
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At least it isn't ASpace.
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I really wish that HSpace would get updated.
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I am partial to DSpace, what Star Wars Mush uses. It was nice, simple, fairly intuitive once one can remember the basics. I would be all down for that.
"Just leave me alone. I'm not myself. I'm falling apart, and I don't want you here." - ― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
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@TiredEwok Is there a distro of that somewhere?
Pay no attention to me. I'm old, jaded and generally unfriendly. I am prone to fits of stupidity, but I am still unique, just like everyone else. ~~ Current President of the Anti-Faraday fan club.
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Man, DSpace was old back when I first started MUing.
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@Seamus I have the code for HSpace 5 somewhere, but it's not anywhere close to finished. Bonus points, though, it's hard code, so you don't need to know Penn to work on it, but instead, I think... C++?
@TiredEwok If memory serves, DSpace is the weird maze that is Tatooine on AoA that literally takes you 2 hours to move from one room to the next (unless you're in a speeder, and then it takes X seconds based on the vehicle's speed). TSpace was the one they had, which I could maybe like if it got updated.
Like... yeah, I have issues with HSpace, too, but I like it better than any of the alternatives that I've seen (including just handwaving space stuff).
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@Jennkryst said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:
If memory serves, DSpace is the weird maze that is Tatooine on AoA that literally takes you 2 hours to move from one room to the next
The 'original' use of the term DSpace was the thing that HSpace was spawned from, back in the way before. Short for 'Dune Space', IIRC, as it was made for Dune MUSH.
ETA: I could be misremembering very, very badly. Or two different things just happened to use the same shortened name.
He/Him
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@Tinuviel Ah. AoA has... uh... Dynamic space. So huge swaths of grid don't each need their own room @dug out. It's a temp room made and deleted as you move through it.
In space, they use TerrySpace (TerriSpace? I forget).
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@Jennkryst Yeah, @TiredEwok was talking about Star Wars MUSH (as in SW1), not AoA.
