Hello!Project's Mysterious Game Project Thread
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So unlike when I popped off and shot my load when I was gonna make a game before, I decided to take it slow and one step at a time, and not even announce the project until it's further along.
What I'd like to do is make this general thread for posting any questions I have, and eventually when the game is further along in its development, make a thread outside of this portion of the forum.
My first question here, that I never asked or felt the need to ask, is how customizable is Ares? Like, if you know Ruby and such, can you just code the whole game for your liking, or is it meant to function in a very specific way?
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That's a loaded question. In some ways Ares is meant to function in very specific ways(transparency, for instance, is key since there really isn't a way to obfuscate most things). You must use single word names and you're very strongly discouraged from re-using names as things linked to the old player will now be linked to the new player even if they're technically different characters.
In other ways Ares is very customizable. I've coded many different character generation systems for Ares with very little training in Ruby. The catch is integrating it with the web portal, which takes a lot more effort and work. Even something as simple as displaying a custom character sheet can be a daunting and, for me up to this moment, unachievable task. Nevermind integrating your +roll system into the web portal for usage in scenes. That's not to say that it can't be done but it may take more work than the average MUSH admin is willing to put in.
I hope that helps answer your question at least a little.
Edited to add...I still recommend Ares over any other MU server out there at the moment just for the web portal which is fantastic.
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Going to recommend the Ares forum - https://forum.aresmush.com/
There's some good info about how to create your own plugin: https://aresmush.com/tutorials/code
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Thanks, I'll check this forum out.
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@HelloProject said in Hello!Project's Mysterious Game Project Thread:
Like, if you know Ruby and such, can you just code the whole game for your liking, or is it meant to function in a very specific way?
The analogy I like to use is that Ares is a pre-built LEGO castle. If you want a castle, it's great. You can add on new battlements or customize the interior in many ways to make the castle your own, but it's still a castle.
Now of course, it's LEGOs. You could disassemble half the castle and try to build something on top of it, but are you really going to be happy with a weird castle/highrise hybrid? You could even take the whole darn castle apart and make something with the resulting bricks, but that's a lot of work. It would be easier to start with a pile of bricks (a blank slate) in the first place.
So bottom line, it depends on how close what you want to build is to Ares' castle, what compromises you're willing to make, and how much work you're willing to do. If it's very different, start with a pile of bricks - aka Evennia or Rhost.
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@faraday Ahh, that's a good point.
I have a pretty defined idea of what I want to make, though also I'm kind of lowkey scared of Python re: Evennia, and Ruby seemed easier to learn. Like, I was trying to learn Python but I really think my approach was wrong, or didn't work for me.
Full disclosure: My brain is weird and I don't learn in a normal way, I have like a pretty specific method of studying things, and I've had trouble figuring out how to do it with Python due to the study materials available.
I think that if I could build an Evennia MUSH while learning Python, it could work way better. But yeah, getting this initial learning step going is pretty difficult.
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@HelloProject Ruby and Python are pretty equivalent in terms of difficulty. Everyone's different, though. I personally picked up Ruby easier than Python - it just gelled more with my brain. But there are plenty of other folks for whom the reverse is true. If you can find a way of picking up Python that works for you, it's probably going to be just as easy as Ruby in the long run.
Here's the bigger thing though - the Ares web portal does a ton of stuff, which is why folks like it, but that comes with a lot of complexity. So if you're going to want to make significant modifications, the learning curve for the web portal code is WAY steeper than either Ruby OR Python.
Anyway - like krmbm said, feel free to hop onto the forum, or stop by the demo game to chat, or I can PM you an invite to the discord.
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The support system for Ares is amazing. There are a ton of helpful people on both the Forum and the Discord.
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@ZombieGenesis said in Hello!Project's Mysterious Game Project Thread:
re-using names as things linked to the old player will now be linked to the new player even if they're technically different characters.
Just to clarify - that's not technically true. But what would happen is that if you delete Bob's character object, then posts from Bob now show up as "Author Deleted" and scenes with Bob no longer list Bob in the participants list. So you can delete characters and recycle names if you really want to, but it has some side effects because then the original "Bob" no longer exists. That's why it's suggested that you just mark idle characters as gone/retired instead (at least once they've actually made an appreciable contribution.)
@ZombieGenesis said in Hello!Project's Mysterious Game Project Thread:
I've coded many different character generation systems for Ares with very little training in Ruby. The catch is integrating it with the web portal, which takes a lot more effort and work. Even something as simple as displaying a custom character sheet can be a daunting and, for me up to this moment, unachievable task. Nevermind integrating your +roll system into the web portal for usage in scenes. That's not to say that it can't be done but it may take more work than the average MUSH admin is willing to put in.
Some of that might be issues with the documentation/support. Adding your own skills/chargen system is one of the places where Ares is designed to be customized. Continuing the castle analogy - it's designed for you to be able to take out the battlement that is FS3 and attach a new one for whatever skills/die roller system you want.
Now it's true that skills/chargen is inherently complex, and doubly so if you want it to work on web too... but that's true no matter which server platform you're going to use.
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@HelloProject If you do want to talk specifics on the Ares discord or what not, people are also usually pretty good at telling you whether what you want to do works with or against Ares' pre-built castle. Some things are easier to slide in than others.
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Sure, a discord invite would be good in that case. I can go over my intent in more detail.
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My feeling is if your game concept can be done in Ares, then it really should be - the amount of work that needs to be done to get an Evennia game up and running is pretty daunting right now, even with code samples from Arx or elsewhere. Hopefully that's not always the case, but as is I'd endorse Ares for anything that fits it reasonably well.
If your game can't and you do want to try Evennia, I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have, though.
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@HelloProject said in Hello!Project's Mysterious Game Project Thread:
So unlike when I popped off and shot my dad
This is what I read. I need to use the sleep.
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@faraday said in Hello!Project's Mysterious Game Project Thread:
You could disassemble half the castle and try to build something on top of it, but are you really going to be happy with a weird castle/highrise hybrid?
I dunno, man. Xanatos's pad was pretty dope:
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
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@Derp said in Hello!Project's Mysterious Game Project Thread:
I dunno, man. Xanatos's pad was pretty dope:
That is pretty dope. And hey, if you're happy with the castle/highrise Ares hybrid, go for it. It's open source. Go to town
You could build a MUD or a super-immersive thing like Firan with Ares if you took enough of the pieces apart and reassembled them. You just have to ask yourself whether it's worth the effort compared to just building it in Evennia (which is an equally-solid platform more geared toward that sort of game). -
@Tehom said in Hello!Project's Mysterious Game Project Thread:
My feeling is if your game concept can be done in Ares, then it really should be - the amount of work that needs to be done to get an Evennia game up and running is pretty daunting right now, even with code samples from Arx or elsewhere. Hopefully that's not always the case, but as is I'd endorse Ares for anything that fits it reasonably well.
This is why I ended up shelving my Sacred Seed project. Between writing a whole new fantasy setting (and I was convinced I needed to write -so much lore- right out of the gate), AND learning how to code it in Evennia, it was just too overwhelming for me.
With Ares, however, I'm almost done with my silly sci-fi game enough to start alpha. I highly recommend taking a look at FS3 and seeing if you think you can make it work for your game, and going with Ares if you're able.
Having poked at Evennia I'm in awe of @tehom and the work he's done, and everyone else who coded for Arx.
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Never underestimate the power of using the right tool for the job. Using the correct technology can cut a job's time exponentially; using the wrong one can increase it in the same way.
- Can I use it?
- Does it do what I need it to do?
- How much work is involved in making the answers to 1 and 2 both 'yes'?
Suggestion: Design document. List what features are necessary (for yourself, not us), including your own ability to learn it. Once you have in hand a definitive 'this is what I need the platform to do', picking it becomes easier.
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Also, while I suspect that you will ultimately find Ares is indeed the correct tool for your particular job at hand, remember that Evennia and Ares aren't the only good options -- there are other platforms to explore if neither of these do what you need, and some of them are still actively developed and assisted with (though many use their own proprietary languages that will serve no useful purpose outside of game running the specific game).
This is part of why it's doubly important that you have a firm understanding of what you need the platform to do, because you may have an unmet need that Evennia / Ares don't address, but Rhost does, or some mud platform, or whatever.
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@Sunny said in Hello!Project's Mysterious Game Project Thread:
This is part of why it's doubly important that you have a firm understanding of what you need the platform to do, because you may have an unmet need that Evennia / Ares don't address, but Rhost does, or some mud platform, or whatever.
Seconded. I focused on Evennia and Ares above because someone mentioned web stuff. If that's your focus, they both come with a website built in. The others have only a minimal web client, AFAIK. Anything more than that you'd have to build entirely from scratch.
That said, there are certain use cases that ONLY Rhost supports easily. So like you said, it all comes down to what your priorities are.
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Absolutely. I think that if the web presence bit is the primary priority, the choice being between those is spot on, and I really do think that all told Ares is going to be the solution here. BUT! If there are priorities that haven't been identified yet because that's not how the project has been approached, it's really hard to tell.
We don't see a lot of discussion about the other platforms either, so I wanted to make sure that people who haven't been making games for 30 years are aware that further tools exist than the ones we're mostly using now.
