Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning

[Caryatid]

I've struggled with a lot of the code too, especially since a lot is still in flux and they are still working on many of the help files. I spent a lot of time whining at @Apos, in fact, about how I was too old and had spent too long on MUSHes and MUXes to easily shift to learning a new way of doing everything. I feel a lot more comfortable after several weeks of just throwing myself at it all though. I figure out one system at a time and that's made it feel a lot more manageable. I'm also trying to hold regular OOC sessions where I do walk-throughs for things like the +support, +investigate and +task systems, which has also helped me get a better handle on all of it.

If you're looking for RP, I'm available there as Dawn and happy to help get you hooked into some things. Also happy to do impromtu learnin' sessions to help get some of the system use things down, if you'd like.

[Kanye Qwest]

The player help in explaining things to people is wonderful. WONDERFUL. Also, our help file situation should improve drastically. We know they are not great.

[Apos]

Yeah, it's one of our big projects in getting help files and presentation fixed up and making everything more intuitive in general, and I won't hold it against anyone that waits for us to be further down in development and the game to be more polished before diving in. I do greatly appreciate the patience and feedback of testers as they try it out, though.

[Arkandel]

Well, my impressions of Arx so far...

For starters I need to give Apostate, whoever he/she is, kudos; I came in knowing nothing about the theme and I was just Guest4, but they helped the hell out of me. Usually I barely get pointed to the correct help file by staff in most games let alone anything useful I can use to build a better character but they actually collaborated with me, took my ideas and added to them, made sure to offer options and alternatives to their suggestions, and... well, it was top-notch. That stuff makes for an excellent first impression.

The lack of meetme is a bitch but at least @directions works...it's a little tiresome after a while - I hate navigating in grids in general - but I could get to events every time so that's good, right? Speaking of, their +event system seems less feature-rich than in the nWoD MU* I've been playing, as unless I'm mistaken there's no way of telling who/how many people are currently going or become able to run a first-come first-served scene.

Speaking of such scenes... not sure if there's anything like temporary rooms either. I want to run PrPs (one of the great things about fantasy settings is the freedom you get) so I'm not sure what the procedure for running one is yet, but I guess I could always hijack a grid room for that - assuming of course that's permitted. Is it? I've no idea. If staff wants more things ran they need to make clear what the rules are though.

Finally the code seems intriguing, I like the idea of a coded combat system a lot. I don't even mind the fact equipment is coded so they're trying to shift what you're wearing from the @desc to the actual coded items, as that offers roleplaying opportunities for crafters and tailor/seamstress PCs. They do need a primer though for things like 'how do I get gear', 'how do I fight a guy' and of course 'I'm a Storyteller, how do I run NPCs?'.

[Kanye Qwest]

We do need those guides, and actually one of those wasn't even on the list so I am adding it. Thank you!

As for temp rooms: you're right, we don't have them. There will be an exploration system that will generate rooms of challenges/puzzles/fights etc for groups of people striking out into the wilds (or semi-wilds). I think ship combat (further out) will utilize the same system with a different skin. I don't know about temp rooms for PRPs, the idea is that you can run things on the grid or in those exploration rooms. I mean if you are going to PRP a gan fight or whatever you could just spawn those in the lower boroughs.

We definitely want people to do storytelling for others, and are going to have a feedback system, by which you can 'level up' as a storyteller and get access to more tools (such as NPCs/creatures, metaplot elements etc).

[Marshmallow]

@Arkandel PrPs are definitely going to be a thing, just not right this very moment during alpha as far as I know. There are going to be rewards for STs and some sort of structure to keep consistent theme.

Guides are very much a work in progress too, thank you for your suggestions, because it's good to know where knowledge feels the most slim to new players. Gear, prestige, agents, there's a lot on the to-do list right now!

Edited because I type too slowly.

[Arkandel]

@Marshmallow I wasn't concerned about rewards, just the ability to run scenes or even about acquiring the permission to do so or what it entails.

Plot-running is the lifeblood of games guys. Don't let momentum stall unless you have a great reason to do so as once you lose a ST it can be a bitch to get more.

[Marshmallow]

@Arkandel I totally get that and understand, and we're super excited for people to run things. But like I mentioned, we still have to work out the issue of consistency. This is a completely original theme, we don't have source books for people to use when running things, so we are still hashing out what and how people can PrP. Bear with us! There will be a way. Plot is and always will be the big kahuna, and we're getting there soon as the train hauls into beta. We're just not done yet.

[Darinelle]

My biggest case for a +meetme command is actually because it makes it SO nice for newcomers. Once I'm in a MU and I know how to get around it's no big deal, but honestly when I'm new and just want to RP with someone, sometimes that initial "but where am I and how do I get to where the fun is happening" is intensely frustrating. A +meetme lets me hit the grid and start RPing immediately, which I really dig.

It's also helpful in scenes when you're running it already and someone logs on late and still wants to come - cuts down the between here-and-there running you do. I get that you don't want people to exclusively use meetme and ignore the grid entirely, but some implementation of the command proper would be super helpful, IMO.

[Apos]

@Arkandel I definitely agree, I'll probably write up tonight a rough and dirty guideline for PRP type storytelling in alpha and beta until we get the code support for it, but the very short version will be as long as someone runs a story by me so I can check it for thematic consistency, it's fine. Since there's a ton of hidden elements that could contradict what people find to be intuitive from a storytelling perspective, I'd just want to sign off on it until more becomes clear, and for now anyone could just shoot me a page on Apostate as the easiest thing, or a request. It'll be much, much more clean once we get the systems coded, but that'll hold true for just about everything.

[Arkandel]

Oh and while I remember... I was told the code is restrictive in allowing players different levels of access to the web site so we can't alter commonly used pages like "used PBs", so you may want to just create a parallel wiki for those sorts of things. If the same styles are applied the interface can look and feel identical to the rest of the site (menu uniformity could be an issue of course if you change the original layout), but it'd allow us to do things like that without staff intervention.

[Ganymede]

@Darinelle said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

My biggest case for a +meetme command is actually because it makes it SO nice for newcomers. Once I'm in a MU and I know how to get around it's no big deal, but honestly when I'm new and just want to RP with someone, sometimes that initial "but where am I and how do I get to where the fun is happening" is intensely frustrating. A +meetme lets me hit the grid and start RPing immediately, which I really dig.

It's also helpful in scenes when you're running it already and someone logs on late and still wants to come - cuts down the between here-and-there running you do. I get that you don't want people to exclusively use meetme and ignore the grid entirely, but some implementation of the command proper would be super helpful, IMO.

All of this. Yes.

[Caryatid]

I'll probably be pilloried for this and, in full disclosure, before this game I did not think I could live without +meetme. However...

This game has so many neat little lore hints and clues in every single one of its many grid rooms, both public and private, that if there were a +meetme, I'd never have seen any of them. On every game with +meetme that I've played on, no one uses the grid. They teleport out, they RP, they home again. If there are temprooms, they rarely if ever use the grid at all, except in private room RP.

Without +meetme or temp rooms, I've come to actually feel the place as an actual world. I've also compiled a hefty list of clues for the upcoming beta and start of GMing, for the metaplot.

[Arkandel]

@Caryatid Yes, but. BUT.

1. While I'm scrambling to get from A to B where there are, y'know, people waiting for me to be in a scene with them, I don't read the descriptions. I'm going somewhere to roleplay, so +meetme's absence does nothing at all. With @directions I'm just parsing the output to see which exit to take next.

2. There are better tools to encourage grid use than eliminating otherwise great commands like that; hidden rooms for instance with IC secrets in them, if someone codes it for Arx there can be resources or items spawning on the grid, plot tips for characters to investigate in real time instead of over +jobs, etc.

[Thenomain]

@Caryatid

Before meetme there was travel.
Before travel there was taxi.
Before taxi there was speed-walking.
Before speed-walking...well, there's been speed-walking since there were Muds.

I'm not saying that the design consideration isn't well-considered. It is, but people will skip whatever they want. In fact, the more you write, the more that will be ignored. Only time will tell if you've hit a golden mean, but your post didn't seem aware of history and I wanted to pop on to mention what people have done, what people can do, and to advise not to put all your eggs in one lack-of basket.

[Apos]

@Arkandel said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

2. There are better tools to encourage grid use than eliminating otherwise great commands like that; hidden rooms for instance with IC secrets in them, if someone codes it for Arx there can be resources or items spawning on the grid, plot tips for characters to investigate in real time instead of over +jobs, etc.

I'm still debating the pros and cons myself, but I thought it would be a good time to highlight that for #2, some of that actually already exists. There's a few different implementations for secret rooms (some are only accessible to organizations, some only require guessing of the name), but I think I've made a dozen-ish or so. I'd have to count to get a number, they are mostly for the core different secret societies, metaplot secrets, etc.

[Auspice]

All the games I played on when I began MU*ing lacked meetme (or speedwalk or whatever).

I'm lazy af and use it now, but I also don't mind meandering rooms. However, I wholly admit... I don't read descs while doing so. So I miss out on those lore bits. Ahem.

[Glitch]

@Arkandel I'm a fan of +meetme, but I don't think you're right when you say there are better ways to encourage grid use. I couldn't give you directions anywhere on any game I've played that has +meetme code. In ancient mud/rpi times, however, I was much more aware of grid locations and relationships. While I find +meetme code eminently useful and convenient, I 100% believe that to implement it would destroy grid usage or significantly reduce it.

I do agree that clear guidelines on how to run stories, and what the limitations and opportunities are, is essential.

[Misadventure]

Grid wandering seems a poor substitute for an actual living setting (which is beyond anyone to provide unless you have tens of thousands of players, and even then they won't want to be all the roles that you need), and it's the unusual circumstances where you meet someone you might never run into otherwise, or come upon a scene in progress.

Seems to meet meetme handles the scenes in progress, and better handling of general calls for RP can handle the former. Perhaps a way to suggest a setting and circumstance, and possible outside factors and events to add suggestions of what might happen or go on.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Misadventure said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Grid wandering seems a poor substitute for an actual living setting (which is beyond anyone to provide unless you have tens of thousands of players, and even then they won't want to be all the roles that you need), and it's the unusual circumstances where you meet someone you might never run into otherwise, or come upon a scene in progress.

My experiences lead me to disagree! I got into mushing on a text game with a high population. There was a big grid, and it was all enforced IC on the grid. I joined the game knowing two people. 80% of the RP I found there was organic, grid wandering RP. That found-rp was 100% of the reason I stayed.