Optional Realities & Project Redshift
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Damn it people! Stop posting while I'm reading. This state of the art forum software automatically scrolls me to the new post while I'm trying to read one 7 posts above.
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@Jaunt said:
One of the biggest issues with older MU* Engines is their restrictive licensing.
Most older engines do not allow them to be used for the purpose of creating for-profit games. Evennia does not have that restriction.Independent of the "discussion" above, I think this freer licensing is a good thing. I've met Stallman, and it was a wonderfully reaffirming moment for my preference toward BSD/MIT/etc style licensing.
RHost had a fairly restrictive model a while back-- with an NDA required, etc. Once you talk to them though, they were pretty friendly and really only wanted to establish proper attribution, which is a good thing to do in any case.
As for a run-down of modern MUSH-family licensing, see the licensing markdown file in my mux fork for details. In rough summary, most of the code bases have borrowed very heavily from each other and have code lineage going back to the original tinymud and concept lineage dating back to PDP-10 era Muddle and the like. (36bit mainframes ftw!) Artistic License seems to be the standard there.
Artistic License regrettably may prohibit certain types of commercial activity. Relicensing code that has copyrights and contributions from large numbers of users over many decades isn't feasible. BUT we can certainly talk about lessons learned and how we can use those ideas to make newer technologies better.
In general though, the big advantage of a python-based mu system is... python. No one who has looked at mushcode, muf/mpi, moocode, etc can seriously disagree.
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@Chime said:
As for a run-down of modern MUSH-family licensing, see the licensing markdown file in my mux fork for details. In rough summary, most of the code bases have borrowed very heavily from each other and have code lineage going back to the original tinymud and concept lineage dating back to PDP-10 era Muddle and the like. (36bit mainframes ftw!) Artistic License seems to be the standard there.
Artistic License regrettably may prohibit certain types of commercial activity. Relicensing code that has copyrights and contributions from large numbers of users over many decades isn't feasible. BUT we can certainly talk about lessons learned and how we can use those ideas to make newer technologies better.
In general though, the big advantage of a python-based mu system is... python. No one who has looked at mushcode, muf/mpi, moocode, etc can seriously disagree.
As usual, very useful information (I've been wading through MUSH-family licensing dispersed all over the net trying to make sense of it for the past couple of days), and I agree with all that you've said above.
I think Griatch is coming from a place of learning from the community's past in both his design and licensing of Evennia. And ... Python.
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It's not just relevancy (though the ATTEMPT at relevancy is a good start) that is a problem here. It's that as you've made perfectly clear, you're really not willing to discuss things. 'Well that's my opinion' is a shut-down, not a discussion. This is a discussion board. @Thenomain is trying to freaking help you and you're being a gigantic dick in response.
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My 'bravo' has naught to do with this -- rather, I express approval at OR reducing the frequency of their updates to once a month.
I think we've been-there-done-that with pay-to-play MUs.
I don't think we need revenue to advertise the hobby. We just need better newbie support, more different kinds of games, and to take advantage of free advertising among table-top and play-by-post RPGers.
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@Jaunt said:
@Thenomain said:
@Jaunt said:
One of the biggest issues with older MU* Engines is their restrictive licensing.
... What?
Seriously. What?
Most older engines do not allow them to be used for the purpose of creating for-profit games. Evennia does not have that restriction.
That's not at all accurate. This restriction appears to be limited to only DikuMuds and some LPmuds. It certainly never affected Aber, Mush, Muck, MOO, or the 50+ other mud servers released (many of them Dikumud clones).
In fact, most of the older mud engines were created specifically for commercial use. -
I knew the pay to play thing was going to be a focal point. Posting from my phone, so I'll be brief. I think that model is a bad idea for many reasons. Even if we're just talking about rpi's, I don't think the quality of rp justifies paying for it. People are going to expect and want things for paying.....eventually you're going to give it.
I could go on and on, but please don't monetize your new mud.
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If you need persuasion, go look at the clusterfuck that was Skotos' batch of pay-to-play RPIs. ALL (and I mean ALL!) of the problems constantly reported in WORA/SWOFA/MUSB over time, often magnified to extremes (hint: Custodius started his online gaming life at Skotos) combined with the joy of knowing you're paying for the privilege of being fucked up the ass by a rusty chainsaw. At their peak they had something like five RPIs running: three using their grossly-hacked LP (or was it Diku?) "house system" and two they got in from a company they acquired using a different engine.
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@Sunny said:
It's not just relevancy (though the ATTEMPT at relevancy is a good start) that is a problem here. It's that as you've made perfectly clear, you're really not willing to discuss things. 'Well that's my opinion' is a shut-down, not a discussion. This is a discussion board. @Thenomain is trying to freaking help you and you're being a gigantic dick in response.
It's ... very difficult to converse with you when you make a point of being so incredibly wrong all of the time. I did discuss with @Thenomain, both here and on my site. It took @Thenomain four or five posts to actually make a point that was more in depth than, "Seriously, what?"
That's not being helpful. He was actually being pretty insulting without posting much substance, which I don't think is beneficial to discussion. We've been through that already. The one point he made that I felt he validated (the placement of one of my sentences being too low in the body of the text) I accepted, and I moved the sentence.
@il-volpe said:
I don't think we need revenue to advertise the hobby. We just need better newbie support, more different kinds of games, and to take advantage of free advertising among table-top and play-by-post RPGers.
I think that those things are important, too. But I don't think that they're going to sustain the genre in the long-term, as we continue to get older. Table-top gaming is likely to move, more and more, onto online platforms like Roll20. The play-by-post community is shrinking even faster than we are.
It's something that I can compare to real life work that I do. I perform/direct frequently for two different theatre companies. One of those companies does "edgy" plays and Rock & Roll musicals -- the average age of their patron is around 30-45. The other company does Opera -- the average age of their patron is probably 50-65. The age at which most patrons stop seeing theatre is between 65-70, for both companies.
Guess what the Opera company's number one goal is? Market penetration to younger audiences, and re-branding what they do to be more appealing to younger audiences. They know that if they don't do this, then the Opera will die. It's basically the same for Opera companies around the world.
It's the same for MU*s. We have to ask ourselves two important questions.
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How can I market to a younger audience? The most obvious answer is to penetrate the video game market, to get press from popular blogs and magazines, to cast a wide enough net that people actually know that we exist.
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How can I appeal to a younger audience? I believe we should be considering things like beautifying our game clients through MUSHclient plugins, or significantly improved web-clients. Create intuitive links between gameplay to helpfiles, engaging and immersive character generation and industry quality tutorials. Most of all, I think we need to find a catchier way to brand ourselves to them. Right now, for Redshift (for instance), I'm considering calling our game "an online tabletop RPG", and I've taken that branding to heart in my design of the game (by creating a tabletop like interface with the GUI and a tabletop-like combat system instead of a standard DIKU-like room-based system).
The solutions are going to be different for every game, but I don't think that we can afford to soft-ball our marketing attempts and expect to see a big change.
You hear the phrase "you have to spend money to make money" a lot in the world. It's relatively true. In our case, though, it's more like "you have to make money to spend money to attract a future generation of players". Unless you're independently wealthy --- I know that I'm not.
@Tyche said:
That's not at all accurate. This restriction appears to be limited to only DikuMuds and some LPmuds. It certainly never affected Aber, Mush, Muck, MOO, or the 50+ other mud servers released (many of them Dikumud clones).
In fact, most of the older mud engines were created specifically for commercial use.That's actually a rather contested point, and not just in our community. The Artistic License can be rather tricky when it comes to using it to make money, particularly because of how the code in the old engines has come from all different kinds of sources.
I was not able to find a single instance of a pay-to-play (via a one time cost, annual cost, microtransaction-based, merchandising, or any other type of model) MUSH anywhere on the net. Have there been professional attempts at MUSHes before? If so, can you link me to them, because I'd be very interested in learning more about them.
@ThugHeaven said:
I knew the pay to play thing was going to be a focal point. Posting from my phone, so I'll be brief. I think that model is a bad idea for many reasons. Even if we're just talking about rpi's, I don't think the quality of rp justifies paying for it. People are going to expect and want things for paying.....eventually you're going to give it.
I could go on and on, but please don't monetize your new mud.
There were some frightening things that I learned about Atonement (an old RPI of mine) when it ended and I did some calculations. Important to note is that idling is less of a thing on RPIs than on MUSHes, generally. Without some sort of trigger, RPIs will log players out if they idle for more than 15 minutes or so. There were players that, over three years, spent up to and over 50% (ON AVERAGE) of their waking day playing Atonement. The average play-time for its players far exceeded the average amount of time players spend playing games like WOW or Guild Wars 2. Can you think of many other types of game that people play for free for 4-8+ hours a day? Do you think it's unfair to ask players to spend $5 a month for their unlimited (which might reach 300 hours+) play on your game?
I don't. And I think people are largely reasonable enough to agree. We live in the Era of Microtransactions, where people are willing to throw silly amounts of money to buy virtual goods for social-based games, without a second thought. $5 is less than the cost of a Happy Meal. $5 is less than the cost of a pack of smokes. $5 is less than the cost of a movie ticket. $5 is about the cost of a buying a single episode of a television show (that gives you 21-60 minutes of entertainment) off of I-Tunes.
It's actually extremely reasonable when you think about it like that, IMO.
I agree that the quality of RP alone isn't enough to justify a "professional game". I think that you need to spend time on the bells and whistles. You need an engine without legacy problems, that's stable and modern. You need a game that LOOKS good, even if that just means a simple GUI that's going to be attractive (and, preferably, immersive). You need a pay system that's fair for players, but doesn't entitle them to more than what it's designed to. You need administrative policies that protect players from the too frequent corruption of abusive staff.
If your point was just to make enough money to help promote your game, a one-time fee after a first, free month of play might work. Or maybe you charge $5/month, or $2/month, or you have aesthetic only microtransactions, or whatever is going to work best for your game and community. You don't need to rob players blind like IRE and Simultronics do (though they've proven that players will still play anyways, I think most of us can agree that they're exploitative and overly corporate).
If 200 players pay $2/month, that's $400/month that you have to spend on advertising. Not only that, the fact that your game is pay-to-play actually makes you much more likely to be able to get reviewers from big sites and magazines to come check out your game, and hopefully promote it.
I think that that's important. It's not for every game. For instance, if you're using a shared IP (Middle-Earth, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, etc), obviously your options are limited. Thankfully, part of the benefit of using shared IP is that you have extra means to market your product to a younger audience already. It's another viable option.
@WTFE said:
If you need persuasion, go look at the clusterfuck that was Skotos' batch of pay-to-play RPIs.
Skotos' games were not RPIs. They also were terrible, and that's why Skotos failed. Their administration was often corrupt, their games were sub-par, and their marketing tactics were lazy and ineffective. They only had initial success, at all, because of the fact that they were "professional". When they couldn't meet expectations, they lost that good will.
Counter-point: Simultronics and IRE. While I don't like their pay-to-win approach, they've dominated for so long, largely in part due to their very attractive interfaces, reasonably high quality games (for their genres), more professional approach to administration and customer service, and far superior attempts at marketing to younger audiences and penetrating the video-game market.
There are success stories and failures. I don't think going P2P is for everyone. It's definitely more work. I do think it's worth considering. I do think it's necessary for some of us to do it if we're going to keep our genre alive, overall, well into the future.
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@Jaunt I'm just saying the average RPI has about 20-25 players, some less. Many of which actually are idle or sitting at a tavern or pretty much unfindable in some way (you know what I mean there).
I'm sure a few people will pay to play....but well, good luck with that.
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@ThugHeaven said:
@Jaunt I'm just saying the average RPI has about 20-25 players, some less. Many of which actually are idle or sitting at a tavern or pretty much unfindable in some way (you know what I mean there).
I'm sure a few people will pay to play....but well, good luck with that.
Well, for me, I just have faith that I'll be able to attract a larger group of players. Part of that is my experience with marketing, and part of that is that I've always been able to do it in the past, and part of it is my belief in my product being a significant step forward for the RPI genre.
I also tend to build my worlds in such a way to encourage roleplay and interaction, and to reduce the separation of players. You've gotta learn from the past, and like many of the MU* genres, I believe that RPIs are often-times stuck to certain design tendencies that are counter-intuitive and hurt them in the long run.
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@Jaunt said:
[@Thenomain] was actually being pretty insulting without posting much substance, which I don't think is beneficial to discussion.
I think you were being pretty insulting without providing any substance, and that you were purposefully getting in the way of discussion. And so the irony continues as two overly proud people talk past each other and blame one another for missing the point. If you know The Internet, this is a pattern that is well known.
While it doesn't excuse me to get into the "no you" dance*, it also doesn't excuse you from doing the same. Which is a point I made in there twice, and you were happy to continue playing the blame-game, like you are here. There are many people who post here who can ignore the "no you" game.
I am myself waiting for this nice-guy Jaunt who was advertised some time ago by this guy named Jaunt, but instead even without my involvement all we get this aggressively defensive, blame-fingering Jaunt who is all about Being Right.
I once again appreciate the irony.
- @Chime understood my self-awareness of the "no you" dance. Mom is Smart!
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You cherry-picked one thing in a rather substance-full post to pick on while ignoring the rest. I've since explained my stance on it several times, and haven't seen any attempts to refute those stances from you.
Being a nice guy doesn't mean letting you try to pass off antagonism as something that's well-meaninged when it's actually an attempt by you to marginalize myself and Optional Realities here on MSB.
I'm not talking past you, you've just persisted in not engaging me in reasonable conversation. In short, you've baited me so that you can move this thread off-topic. It's a Catch 22 for me, because people here seem to think that if I don't dignify your bait-and-switch tactics with specific responses, it means that I'm not willing to discuss things. That's not the case, or else I wouldn't be here ... discussing things.
So, continue to bait me if you'd like. I'll respond to you as much as is warranted, and probably a little more so than what's warrented just to show that I'm willing to play the game that seems to be standard here. And when you make a good point (you've done so a couple of times), I'm happy to accept that point for what it is and make changes. Because I'm pretty reasonable.
And I'll still post meaningful content when I have something to share.
You might've noticed, though, that the rest of the conversation (besides my back-and-forth with you) has moved onto something actually meaningful. I'd much prefer that. As a moderator of this site, I would hope you would too.
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I didn't ignore the rest, I just had nothing to say about it. I don't feel the need to MST3k everything.
I'm not trying to marginalize OR, I'm trying to unspin the marketspeak.
I'm just as tired as you reading me as something I'm not as you say you're tired of me not engaging you in reasonable conversation. I find your definition of "reasonable conversation" to be smug, self-centered, and selfish. I'm tired of trying to find ways to think of you as not smug, self-centered, and selfish.
If you think "um ... what?" is not a lead-in to discussion, you can go fuck yourself with that close-minded presumption. (edit: likewise, the idea that every comment or criticism is a discussion, because dafuq?)
And I'll still post meaningful content when I have something to share.
And when you don't have something to share, too.
For fuck's sake, asshole, I encourage you to post meaningful things, even defended your updates as meaningful when other people were telling you to choke on your own dick.
So don't talk to me about negative cherry-picking and "ignoring the rest of the post", hypocrite.
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See, I'm just not interested in having this aggressive of a discussion with you. I know that you know that. I know that you don't care.
I'm smug. Check. (a lot of folks here, including yourself, are)
I'm selfish. Check. (I'm selfish on behalf of the OR community, because I think it's a great community with some important ideas and connections, and I want it to thrive)
I'm also not interested in flinging around insults and name-calling today. If you want to talk about some meaningful ideas, like some of the posters on the rest of this page have, I'm all about it. I'm not going to respond to anymore 'you vs me' crap today, and I'm not going to join you in escalating the insults.
It's just getting sort of boring.
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@Jaunt said:
I'm also not interested in flinging around insults and name-calling today.
Funny, you were interested when you called me insulting, then when you made presumptions about who I am and what I want, about my motives. I'm personally glad to hear you won't be doing any more of this. I'll try to act in kind.
It's just getting sort of boring.
It started boring months ago. I'm glad you're finally seeing this.
Moving on!
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@Jaunt said:
I'm smug. Check. (a lot of folks here, including yourself, are)
It is worth pointing out that those of us (and I make no pretense regarding my own smugitude) around here who pull smug and survive are the ones who earned there way there -- here.
Even people with entirely legitimate cred and skill to back up their smug in an objective setting... tend not to fare very well. It's the same in any given community.
You gotta earn it, man. It's just a thing... everywhere.
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It's not like that isn't fair. I'm just too old, and I've been around too long, to care about that sort of pretense. Either my arguments and my energy speak for themselves, or they don't. I'm not going to be anyone else here but myself, and I'm not going to be anything else here but honest.
Either you like that, or you don't. That's cool with me.
But I think the better conversation to have on this thread is about Optional Realities, and how it relates to MSB. For instance, I'd be very interested in seeing the MUSH community here get involved in the October Short IF Game Contest that I promoted in this month's content push to MSB. I think that seeing the difference in how someone from a MUSH background might approach IF differently than someone from an RPI background would be super interesting.
I'd also love to get more than the handful of developers already working on MUSHlike adaptations of Evennia involved with that project, because I think Evennia's one of the most important things happening in the greater MU* community right now. I'm interested in conversation in regards to the pros/cons of considering P2P MU*s, too.
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I don't see myself as smug. I see myself as opinionated, but I'm also eager to admit I'm wrong when I finally see it, and aware that it sometimes takes the head being tapped against a stone tablet with the words etched and on fire before I do see it.
I myself don't see that as "playing dumb", but as Theno Being Theno. I earnestly wish that I was quicker on the draw. Because of this, I do try to be understanding of the misreadings of others, but not when it comes hand-in-hand with pomposity (not smugness) and insults. I suspect Jaunt feels the same way.
I don't know if he enjoys crow as much as I do, though.
(edit: looks like less crow and more redirection, alas)
