What is a MUSH?
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@crayon (in http://musoapbox.net/topic/341/optional-realities-project-redshift/643) said:
In any event, the type of code being utilized doesn't really much matter so much as the design philosophy behind the game. Haven's actually an interesting case in that while it's exceptionally heavily automated and almost certainly a "MUD", I want to say, its design takes a lot of prototypically "MUSH" approaches in terms of how roleplay happens. Tangential, really.
So, what makes a Mush?
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
I... have to shake my head.
These terms are for the codebases, they are the names of the codebases, not 'philosophies of game design'.
I don't call a black and white spotted cat a Holstein just because of their color patterns, either, and it's for a reason.
Oh fucking well.
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I would say the lack of automated enemies. Really that is the biggest difference I can see, in general there is less of an emphasis on coded actions versus rp but that is murky but i have never heard of a mush that had mobs to take out.
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@ThatGuyThere said:
I would say the lack of automated enemies. Really that is the biggest difference I can see, in general there is less of an emphasis on coded actions versus rp but that is murky but i have never heard of a mush that had mobs to take out.
Firan. Which, granted, is sort of the exception to many rules, but it had wildlife to hunt (deer, bears, etc.) which would fight back, and that was fully automated.
You could argue that there are some cultural things that coalesce around specific server lines, but I think it's less a philosophy thing and more "if I want to do X with a game, Y server is easier to do it with", and thus all the people who want to do X tend to use server Y.
a.k.a. Packetdancer (or "Pax" for short)
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I did not know that, as you said Firan was a bit different in a lot of ways but i would still count it as MUSH for whatever that is worth.
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In my experience, the primary thing that most people consider when comparing MUSH/MUX vs MUD and its variants, is the setup and what comes pre-packaged. Most people differentiate it simply by the codebase and what the code entails, regardless of the design aesthetics.
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Firan was a Mush derivative, since they had their own not-quite-but-often-considered-forked code. A lot of the concepts were folded in, but many of the hard-coded things that Firan needed were not and you must still compile them that way.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@surreality said:
These terms are for the codebases, they are the names of the codebases, not 'philosophies of game design'.
This is why I would like there to be a good, preferably not codebase-synonymous name for the general philosophy-of-game-design I favour.
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@Thenomain said:
Firan was a Mush derivative, since they had their own not-quite-but-often-considered-forked code. A lot of the concepts were folded in, but many of the hard-coded things that Firan needed were not and you must still compile them that way.
Sure, but Firan's codebase differences (as of the MUX2 version) were minor enough that I'd still include it in the normal MUSH line. I mean, it had only a handful of differences from stock MUX2, so I think it still counts as a MUSH if we're counting MUX2 as MUSH. If those codebase differences are sufficient to make it "not MUSH", then neither is Rhost.
Either way, those codebase changes weren't needed for the combat code (which was the thing cited as the differentiating factor); combat would've run fine on stock MUX2.
But the gist of my argument was that I think "MUSH" is a particular family of servers, not a particular philosophy.
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@Ninjakitten said:
@surreality said:
These terms are for the codebases, they are the names of the codebases, not 'philosophies of game design'.
This is why I would like there to be a good, preferably not codebase-synonymous name for the general philosophy-of-game-design I favour.
This. Very much this. Because repurposing the names of codebases for something other than codebases themselves... that way lies madness.
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Platform is not genre, I think a mush is a text based roleplaying game that is run on one of the mush servers; Dust is a Rhost Mux, etc. Genre is different than that. Online text-based roleplaying games are mu*'s, I think, indicative of all of the different platforms.
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@Sparks said:
You could argue that there are some cultural things that coalesce around specific server lines,
Just so. This happens, but a MUSH is a MUSH because it's using the MUSH code.
Now, here, we have this thread because on the Optional Realities/Project Redshift we've got @crayon redefining a MUSH to mean, not a game that uses the MUSH codebase, but any game, regardless of codebase, which displays cultural standards that he associates with MUSHes that follow cultural and code-use standards that are highly unusual for MUSHes.
"... you'll find the story doesn’t end how you think, and the most important characters aren’t who you expect.” - Penny 40 to Derek, The Magicians S04E07 ‘The Side Effect’
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@il-volpe said:
Now, here, we have this thread because on the Optional Realities/Project Redshift we've got @crayon redefining a MUSH to mean, not a game that uses the MUSH codebase, but any game, regardless of codebase, which displays cultural standards that he associates with MUSHes that follow cultural and code-use standards that are highly unusual for MUSHes.
...which is so gaggingly stupid it makes my eyes water. I'm sorry, I know we're in the semi-constructive section, but this let me totally redefine a thing and then act like everyone who agreed on the old definition should know what I'm talking about nonsense is exactly the sort of thing that leads to the sort of communication breakdowns that more or less turned the thread that spawned this one into a giant clusterfuck of mixed messages and confusion.
As mentioned before, if I started referring to a black and white cat as a Holstein, and people suddenly asked me what the hell a cow was doing lounging about in the sun on my windowsill, I would, perhaps, consider the possibility that my repurposed use of terminology was inherently problematic.
Oh fucking well.
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@surreality said:
As mentioned before, if I started referring to a black and white cat as a Holstein, and people suddenly asked me what the hell a cow was doing lounging about in the sun on my windowsill, I would, perhaps, consider the possibility that my repurposed use of terminology was inherently problematic.
I'm not supposed to keep cows on my windowsill? Dammit, why didn't anyone tell me this before?
a.k.a. Packetdancer (or "Pax" for short)
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@Sparks I envy the scale of your windows, madam!
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@Ninjakitten said:
@surreality said:
These terms are for the codebases, they are the names of the codebases, not 'philosophies of game design'.
This is why I would like there to be a good, preferably not codebase-synonymous name for the general philosophy-of-game-design I favour.
So, like, player-driven storytelling community?
I mean, to me, that's what makes the difference. The stories being told are told by other players. It's people interacting with other people, with the coded systems serving as a functional support to that. MUD's, on the other hand, sometimes require no interaction at all. It's a lot more automated enemy-killing dice rolling foo. In a MUSH, the story is quite flexible, and told by people who specifically tailor stories for other people rather than there being a coded challenge open to everyone.
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It's too bad that RPI is taken to mean a MUD codebase. It's a nice term meaning ... well, admittedly nothing outside the MUD community. Context, yo.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
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I dunno... STG? (Story-Telling-Game)
...STM*? (Story-Telling-M-whichever-the-fuck)?
...STRP?
...hell, just call them STRIPEs, for Story-Telling-Intensive-Role-Playing-Experience and call it a day.
Oh fucking well.
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