How to launch a MU*

[faraday]

@lotherio said in How to launch a MU*:

There is/has been a push in the traditional platforms for web-socket functionality. You can but a client on a browser, with JS you can add some buttons for like talking on pub or checking the hangouts. You can also add in a logger of your liking, which can be used asynchronously by all players.

Yes, but like you said: you can add those things on. It requires custom coding and setup that is beyond most MU runners. Anyone can connect to a game from a web browser using WebMu, DuckClient (in chrome) or the built-in Evennia web client, but those are not conducive to async gameplay. I assumed that the OP was asking more about interactive websites and async features.

[Sarc]

@krmbm said in How to launch a MU*:

@wizz Just on the flipside of this: Some people (hi!) actively avoid the "sim" games.

This. A lot of people pay for an MMO sub of kind or another. As one who does, I'm definitely not doing tasks in my RPing too. (But this is also because RP fills a specific niche for me in my personal downtime, and the MMO another, and I've zero interest in combining that in any way.)

I guess what I mean is, if a task system is in any way required to advance in the game, you will lose some interest. Though this gets back to the other part of KB's reply: maybe that's what you want, and it's fine if you do. Just know that players who aren't into that will probably avoid the game even if the rest of it (theme, etc) would be their jam.

[Lotherio]

@faraday said in How to launch a MU*:

Yes, but like you said: you can add those things on.

OP:

What's the expectation for web-based and/or asynchronous gameplay and your opinion on the degree to which that is table-stakes in the present day and age of the MUSH?

Nothing about built in, just how important do builders think these features are as essential to gameplay. They further expressed they're looking at SceneSys (I assume @Volund 's SceneSys). Which would allow asynchronous play via in game logging. Relevance to expectations or not, they're on track to have it available either way it sounds like.

[faraday]

@lotherio Since WebMu and DuckClient work with literally any MU, there's no point asking about "web-based gameplay" unless you mean something more than that. My point still stands that many games get by just fine without it. I never said that you couldn't build it in if you wanted it. You can build almost anything with enough effort.

Regardless, the OP has the info and can make their own assessments.

[Pacha]

I think one of the most important things to consider when planning out a MU is what you actually have the technical capacity to do.

When I was working on my place, I had a few different ideas and settled on the one I chose because it was something I had all the tools for and felt confident I could pull off.

Having done it once, I now have the tools I could do something more complex next time. But embarking on a project that is going to take a massive amount of coding you just don't have the know-how to do is kind of doomed from the start I think.

The upside is that systems like Ares mean that making a game is no longer just something reserved for those with technical expertise, which is great. Because very often I do not think the skillsets of "knowing enough code to make a MU" and "having the social skills to RUN a MU" overlap very much.

[Auspice]

I like both. Pure RP and games with Other Stuff.

It's why there's always this little bit in the back of my brain that's like 'go bring back CrystalMUSH' (I mean it'd be super easy I just tell my friend I game with multiple days a week 'hey boot up CM for me and gimme Admin'). There was tons to do in 'off' hours and when I played, I had insomnia heckin bad so I was often the only one on late at night. Not that it was a 'dead game' but there's just times no one is around. Or you wanna do shit but you're working so you need passive stuff (lot of people can MU at work but not MMO after all; I've totally joined MUDs to fill downtime at work before).

CM's systems were nice tho in that they pushed you to interact with others. If you're a singer, you had to interact with other people. Sled broke? Gotta talk to a sledtech. Cutter broke? Gotta talk to a cuttertech. Injured? Gotta deal with those sadistic medics. And yes, you could just leave a note and they'd do it when they were around if times didn't sync up, but the impetus to RP was there.

(Tuner was prob the best role to Do Shit while not interacting with anyone. Which was half the reason there were so few Tuners. The other half was because you had to have the skills (OOC) of a Singer and Sorter both so it was one of the hardest roles.)

WNOHGB was another game where I loved the systems in place, but it only really worked when it was a highly populated game. I fuckin' loved having my Indie company to do space trucking with and hey, when insomnia hit, I'd just setup marketing runs to occupy myself and make us mad bank.

I think 'code toys' can/should serve two purposes:

1- Encourage people to RP with one another (such as in the CrystalMUSH example). The best way to do this is like they did: don't allow people to do All The Things. In my personal opinion, I think this is where a lot of games break down these days. They want people to have fun so they open the door so everyone can do everything (see: Arx & Investigations) and in the end, people no longer NEED to reach out to someone else. They can do it in a vacuum. Which is fine! If that's your model. It does let everyone do and be what they want, but it doesn't encourage interactivity. In the Arx example: since you can use any stat/skill on an investigation (and it isn't mental-focused), you can just spin whatever story to use your best combo and throw a bunch of silver and resources at it and boom. A clue without having to include anyone else. You can pop almost a clue a week this way. Again, not knocking it: it has let my non-mental alts still poke at stuff that I might be unsure about and not ready to share. But on the other side of the coin, it'd be cool if my primary char (Teagan) who is a Mental char had more to do. I'd love if people came to me and went 'hey can you help me look into...'

2- They give people something to do when they don't have opportunity to RP. Maybe they're too busy IRL to RP, but can still be online. Maybe they're on at a time other people aren't. The number one goal of any game is 'keep people here/coming back.' If you give people something to do even when they don't/can't RP, you're keeping them around and they'll be present to see and create RP opportunities.

All that said:
Code toys do not suit every game/concept. Kingsmouth did well with it, but I personally wouldn't want code toys in my WoD. I played Pern for many years without and even today, if I added any, it'd be automated threadfall since gdi we all wanna do threadfall but no one ever wanted to run it, it seemed. But Star Trek, Star Wars, Crystal Singer, certain styles of fantasy game (Arx, Firan, anything with a complex econ system) all support the idea of coded gamification very well.

But like @faraday said: capability is also a huge thing. I've had ideas for years that I am not remotely capable of making happen. So I stick to the non-code-toy concepts.

[Carma]

This post is deleted!

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@lotherio said in How to launch a MU*:

For me this isn't a seller. Most MU's I've been on have not had NPCs or tasks or mini-games to do when no one else was around; unless one counts the rise of wiki's in the past 15+ years and prettying up the wiki as a minigame. I see this closer to MUD-type play and they do it better. Whether its farming, fishing, trading, econ, quests, mobs, interacting with old-school style 'AI' npcs, whatever. If I want these I'll go there or just get the app that fits my fun for minigame.

If no other players are around I'm probably moving on.

This. There are plenty single-player games out there, and they have better graphics. I play MU*s to interact with people and tell stories, to write, and to talk about what we write. If I want to kill time playing a simulation or resource management game, I'll fire up one that does it better.

I don't mind some semblance of these things existing in a MU*. I played MUDs for decades, and going to whack mobs with your buddies while chatting OOC is nice and social. But farming it alone -- again, there are better game options available. It all boils down to, for me, these are social games, and if I want to play solo, I can find better.

[Nessa]

So, I've been on a lot of games and it has been a long time since I managed to launch a game successfully. That said, I've done it more than a few times, and the lessons I've learned are the following:

NPCs don't need to be around. But some manner of reason for players to get together does.
PCs need to be on-grid for the grid to matter, and the grid needs to not be bigger than your people. If you have 6 people logging in regularly, you probably only need a couple of rooms. If you have hundreds of people logging in it might be worth it to build out a mini-city of options. Most places build too much, and then people stay spread out. They are not 'forced' to engage.
It must be EASY for people to meet, and EASY for people to get rewarded, but rewards should go for making RP.
Make any upkeep tied to skills, if you want to ignore upkeep costs. So, lifestyles in CP or SR.
Mini-Games and hacking and whatnot, can be fun while you aren't needing other players around but they also encourage people sitting isolated and not playing with other players when Players ARE around. So, I say, adding those things is just dangerous to activity.

The last game I tried to build but got stuck on, because I'm not a coder of any kind, I'm a project person who knows some outdated MU* code. Was this:
Use a system where logging scenes is your metric for encouraging roleplay.
Make logged scenes that want 'credit' to be posted on a web portal that everyone has access to.
Then have something like > Per line/character/etc that a person roleplays WITH others (whether they are emoting a scene for missions/questions/jobs or just going to a bar and creating a social experience) gets xp/karma/rewards. Ideally this is weighted. New players earn more than old players with a sliding scale. This rewards ACTIVITY, not popularity, but people who spawn 1 or 2 sentences, in a clique environment have no means of acquiring more than the person who isn't in a clique but does a lot on-grid to generate fun.
Make it a policy that PRIVATE scenes, whether that means SEX (should never be public) or PVP, if allowed, (you might want to keep your private dealings here private till you do the deed) don't earn rewards on their own. People can TS all they want, but you aren't getting rewarded for it outside of the scene (it should be its own reward).

From here, I wanted to make it so scenes that need monetary rewards got published to the web, and people who read them and graded them for rewards got their own reward as well. Basically, paying people to do queues, and their 'approved' stamp carries their name. So, if there's anything nefarious it's all transparent and can be backtracked.

Staff's only role then is code and policies. If they want to run something, they jump on their character bit and use the automated systems. It allows players to sandbox play all they want. A grid that's tight, but malleable, a world that is rewarding, in a system of your choice.

Where I stopped was, I could get logs to go to a website, and I could get character sheets up on the website with privacy rules. I just couldn't get the rewards in game to link to the loggers I was trying.

The less staff needs you have, and the more players can feel rewarded for just logging in and playing (even if tiny amounts of xp/karma/etc) you are done. The system takes care of itself. Now it's up to your playerbase. You've just removed all the other barriers and 'work' out of the system. Plots are auto-rewarded for xp/karma based upon activity (equal to coffee shop rp) but you can earn monetary awards. You'd have to create policies around what's a good money reward or not, but that was easy in the system I was using because it was already laid out. And I had more plans to create tiers of reviewers, people with experience and whatnot, but I didn't really need that to launch.

I think that system would really answer a lot of the problems MU*s have had over the past few decades, especially with the lower activity levels and playerbases. It is one of the reasons people have moved to system-lite games, but those also don't have as much system encouragement to create addiction in logging in.

My really long 2 cents.

[SquirrelTalk]

Also, in terms of workload, if you're making a game that's JUST about RP and has no meta-game qualities... reconsider how crucial the grid actually is.

By which I mean, you could just have a room where there's a list of major locations, and when you 'travel' to that location, there's a list of exits or teleport commands for relevant sub-locations, like friggin... Wayne Manor or whatnot. No need to get on the ground and look for it.

Or just have RP rooms where you emit something; though I admit it is nice to have desced locations. I just don't think the workload of an arranged grid is paying off these days. It's a holdover from a completely different type of game and mindset and seems like a barrier to entry for making AND playing games sometimes.

[Reason]

@nessa

Great thoughts. If/when I launch a game, I may co-opt a few. Particularly the idea of creating systems which incentivize role play, and crowdsourcing game-support from the player-base itself, with making staff objectives primarily code + policy.

My own sense here is that the less managing a game feels like "work" the more likely staff will continue to do it. The more likely role-play with other players is directly coupled to "progress" through a system, the more often it will occur organically based on players incentivized to seek it out.

Wonderful post, wonderful thoughts, thank you for sharing.

[Kanye Qwest]

@krmbm said in How to launch a MU*:

@wizz Just on the flipside of this: Some people (hi!) actively avoid the "sim" games.

Which brings us back to: build what you would enjoy. Not what you think other MUSHers will. We can't agree on a goddamn thing around here.

And if YOU don't enjoy it, but you try to make a thing just to 'appeal to a lot of players' or whatnot, you won't have the personal engagement and passion, and it will die anyway. Gamerunner engagement is key to keeping something going.

[silverfox]

Idly, what is a 'sim' game?

[krmbm]

@silverfox said in How to launch a MU*:

Idly, what is a 'sim' game?

Simulator. In this case, specifically games where you have little tasks you have to do - login and water your crops or whatever.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@silverfox Anything from Stardew Valley to deeply complex simulation programs. In a MU*, it'd be daily tasks you have to do on grid to earn currency or plot bits or whatever the setup is.