CarrierRPI - a Survival Horror MUD
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CarrierRPI is a survival horror, roleplay intensive game with an emphasis on exploration, mystery, and world-building. Starting off with a small area, the players are set to survive against horrible threats, each other, and the elements, as they discover why they are where they are and the mystery behind their location.
Hi! I'm Sabrelon, Lead Staff, and I'm happy to say we're working hard on getting the game out swiftly and fully. Using a custom codebase built off of CircleMUD, we have access to years of work that was done before us that we have ready to put to use!
Our forums can be located at http://carrierrpi.mudhosting.net/forums/index.php and I suggest if anyone has any questions, suggestions (I'm open to any and all), or comments, please swing by and check us out! Beyond story, I try to make it a point to be transparent, so if anyone has any questions for me personally feel free to shoot me a message on there!
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Hmmm, interesting. Another RPI in the mix, I'll check it out.
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There's really not much info either in your post or on the forums that I can see. Can you tell us a bit more? Hows it play? The theme and setting? Anything unique aside from "Explore and horror!".
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Yep! Sorry, mostly been focusing on building and everything, very little time to set up solid promotions beyond the fact that it's an RPI, and that it's coming soon. Unfortunately for now, there's very little explicitly to share beyond some basics like: Crafting! Combat! Mystery! But I'll throw out some info.
The combat is a pretty huge step away from the automated combat that was seen in Arm, Atonement, or SOI. While basic, we think it does a good job of allowing people to actually roleplay while in fights. The flow of combat goes something like: emote, then attack, then respond. It's simple, but effective.
Beyond that, we're planning for a pretty large craft-suite as things go along, especially at start so that players have the ability to act on their own.
Like a lot of MUSHes, we're planning for a good deal of staff interaction. The concept of a Sandbox isn't for everyone, but that's my primary goal. We'll be allowing players to interact with the grid, create their own space (which is less of a perk and more of a requirement for the story), and protect themselves with what they build.
tl;dr We're using the old Dark Isles codebase to create a new Survival Horror RPI with descriptive, emote-oriented combat, crafting, and world-building.
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How does "role-play during fights" look on a Mud, anyhow?
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It mostly means that combat is slower, that you describe the actions of your character as they fight, as opposed to letting the code handle it all explicitly. Code does impact how well you are as a combatant, and how successful you are at your attacks, but the players are able to describe how they hit. Or, conversely, not fight.
So, for example, a player is able to describe how they're trying to scurry away from whatever is trying to kill them, or describe how they're clawing at someone else's face if they're being assaulted, etc.
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As a Musher, I would think that your idea of "slower combat" and mine are probably different. Hell, your combat system would likely look like it barely took any time at all compared to the monstrosities I get to look at. Do you have any logs, or examples?
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Not yet, but once we have some I'd be happy to post them!
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@Thenomain I think there's also a different idea of what is a reasonable time to RP what you're doing as well. From what I've seen RPI MUD's allow only enough time for a few quick blurbs, maybe a line or two, posed before the code triggers anyways. So the 'RP' is by necessity lighter than what some may be used to from MUX/MUSH comparatively.
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I broke my roleplaying teeth in on ShadowSiege and Dark Isles, so I might be able to help answer some of these questions as long as the codebase has not been changed drastically.
The combat would look as follows:
Player 1:
Emote: "John steps forward, the soft hiss of a blade leaving its sheath piercing the quiet room mere seconds before he launches himself forward for an upward slash over #player2's chest."
Attack player 2Player 2:
Emote: "Phillip is completely caught off guard with the sudden attack, thin shirt splitting beneath the sharp edge of #John's dagger and quickly blossoming into a red front as flesh is torn with cloth. "What are you doing?" He shouts out, voice several octaves higher than usual as he flings himself back, arms lifting in a pathetic attempt to shield himself."Player 1:
Emote: "John follows the upward slash with a turning of his heel, dagger flipped quickly in his fingers as he follows the fleeing man and moves to bury the few inches of steel deeply into Phillip's chest. "Killing you.""
Attack player 2The combat system itself is pretty base. You have stats, strength, dexterity, agility, wisdom, intelligence, wits?(Can't remember the last)
Then you have skills which cover all the uniqueness of the character. Far too many to list from memory. The system itself is based on a no grind style where every skill is dependent on "Role-playing points" which are earned every hour based on emotes, the number of people you were roleplaying with and the size/quality of emotes (Not sure how that works. Was not staff, never saw the code.) -
As a question, In what way is this RPI being staffed? Are DI players returning? Are DI staff returning? If I were to join, could I expect to run into previous staff members? Tigerlily, Hyperion, Mina, Knyghthyme(Sp?), etc...?
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The only staff that'll be coming back from the old games is Nyssa, who's our acting Coder. Otherwise, none of the other staff are involved in the project, just myself, her, and another who'll come out of the woodwork and introduce themselves around here at some point, I'm sure.
The only capacity in which you might run into previous staffers is if they decide they want to play the game!
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Opening when
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We don't have a hard date set yet, but considering we're about halfway done with building, and the deadline I have set for myself is quickly approaching, I'd guess sometime in the next 3 weeks to a month.
I'll post more when I have a guaranteed date!
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So some more information about the game that have been set:
The crafting system that we have in place is primarily going to be oriented towards supporting the themes of survival. While initially it might not be hard to survive on the given resources alone, eventually players will need to go out and find supplies that allow them to live (not comfortably, of course.)
For example: Food and water are a necessity, and while they might be easy to get early on, they'll get increasingly more difficult. That's where the craft system comes in. Only certain characters will have the prerequisites necessary to learn how to do certain crafts, which forces the players to work together to survive.
A basic example: Players learning to craft water filters, or water purifiers, using salvaged equipment they might find. Learning to dry or smoke food so that it keeps longer. Learning to make water catchers that will fill up when it rains IG.
Combat also supports this. While players might start off with basic weapons, they'll prove to be extremely ineffective against the enemies that roam the forest, so it's necessary for crafters to learn to make weapons and armor that better support them, so that they can explore further.
As I'd mentioned earlier, exploration is an incredibly important aspect of Carrier, and without exploring the players will start dying off. Which means they have to be smart about how they explore. Running around with a bunch of combatants, killing mobs is an oldschool staple of RPI's, but I'm hoping to step away from that.
In Carrier, you're better off learning to hide, and be quick, when it comes to finding new locations and exploring them. Most of the enemies will be too strong for a group (initially) let alone a single individual, so using the stealth system will be necessary for getting around safely. Of course, this isn't going to be the case forever, as better weapons and armor are made by the crafters, but power creep is something we're considering significantly, and the gameworld is going to adapt and change based on the way the players act.
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@Sab is it a classless system? Sounds like characters are going to need to be able to do a little bit of everything.
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Yep! Level-less and Class-less system. RP Experience is gained and used to raise skills, and you get it by roleplaying with others.
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@Sab sounds good! I'm all for types of RP that's collaborative. I've been playing Arm lately and it's so anti social lately. If you can balance social with highly lethal (and it sounds like that's what you're going for), it'll be a really good game.
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From a conversation I had with someone over on TMS:
Having played versions of your codebase before, I had a couple of questions about your upcoming game.
It seems to be being built around the idea of cooperative group effort. With MUDs already having a small playerbase, and RPIs being a subset of that, with combat oriented characters being an even smaller subset of that, I wonder how you will work around smaller player numbers for your group oriented content?
So it might start pretty slowly, initially, as the reliance of other players being around is going to be a big thing. Fortunately, I have a good group of people that I know will be coming in at launch, and between them and the Storytelling Staff that we have set up, I'm expecting the majority of the content being focused entirely on the starting area.
BUT, if for some reason that doesn't work, we'll be adjusting the enemy mobs, adjust the availability of crafting items, etc. until we find a nice balance for our players. Our coder is off-peak, as well, so it's likely there will be some content going on at any time of the day.
Also, one of the things I specifically encountered in Dark Isles, was a long wait time when it came to player crafting availability. When you have a smaller playerbase that tends to only have one or two people focus on a specific crafting skill, it can create long wait times as you are forced to wait for the blacksmith (my example) to log in, and wait for him to be available to make your thirty nails, which then allows you to make your whatchamacallit. There were times I waited a week for a blacksmith to log in, because crafting was built upon player-to-player exchanges.
This kind of thing I don't expect to be an issue at all. Early on, pretty much everyone will be able to do everything (as far as I'm aware, and if not, I'll be adjusting it) in regards to basic crafts. Then you get into specializations, and crafting trees, and all of those will require materials and objects that aren't available early on. Hopefully this answers this question.
With crafting and exploration/combat geared towards groups or player-to-player reliance, will you have incentive or activities for people to participate in when the community doesn't have the numbers to support these ideas?
Yes, yes, 100 times yes. One of the biggest failures of other RPIs was their reliance on groups to accomplish anything combat related. We wanted to step away from that. Besides that, it's a modern setting, so people are probably better at hiding then they are fighting anyway. Anyone should be able to learn to hide and sneak, and moving around the forest should be pretty simple using these mechanics, allowing people who want to explore and move around on their own the ability to.
I usually find when the RP is slow (or no one else is on) to be the times I would craft or explore. With these activities also based upon other people, what can be offered during the 'down times'?
My goal is to cater to as many kinds of players a we can. So, my post may have made it seem like reliance on other players is REQUIRED for things like crafting/exploring, but what I mean to say is that it is one specific way of playing. While later on players will need to interact with one another to get their goals completed, in the meantime, especially early on, a single individual who goes about searching in a smart way is just as likely to be able to do these things on their own as a group, if not better. (As they're more able to dodge enemies/spend time searching, etc.)
You have a neat genre idea and a great codebase to work with. I just lived through lower player numbers during the Dark Isles days, and saw how relying upon large player numbers to drive combat and crafting really only caused it to stop functioning entirely.
Yeah, the Dark Isles codebase is pretty much the only holdover of that time that we're sticking to. Their coder came along with us, but I never played the game, nor did I experience any of the old good, or bad. I appreciate the questions, though, it means there's some interest. Do you mind if I post them on the forums? I'd be happy to make you anonymous.
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Personally, every time I see a new RPI I mentally compare it to Atonement, which isn't necessarily fair, but it's kind of impossible for me to do otherwise. Atonement remains one of the most amazing games I was ever a part of -- which is entirely subjective of course. I've always tried to work out why Atonement just... worked so well for me, and while the story-driven aspect is a big plus, I think it was mainly the fact that it was often so incredibly tense combined with the fact that you often HAD to work with people, and sometimes against just about everyone else.
So, point is, the fact that this is promising to be a survival horror RPI with strong teamwork and crafting elements makes me super hype.
