Genosha (Interest Poll)

[RizBunz]

Note: Just to explain what people are writing to. I initially tossed up a pole about possible interest in a future game.

[Tempest]

I am never going to understand these sorts of posts, and I am going to explain why, in what I feel is a constructive fashion.

One, you shouldn't even be posting about the Fallout game. You're wasting people's initial excitement. Very few people are going to want to play the game by the time you actually finish it, because you posted about it months before it was ready and everybody already went through the "omg I would love to do <insert concept> in a Fallout setting!" and burned out all the energy they had to give a fuck about it. Or in the time between then and now, they will have found a new 'MU home'. You'll get a few people sure, but by the time you actually post an address for the game, the 'sort of, maybe' people will be past caring.

And then posting this sort of "haha I randomly thought about this and thought it'd be fun, what do you guys think, oh but we're totally focused on the other thing still" makes the whole thing seem super flaky, and tbh, makes it seem like not only is this Genosha thing never going to happen, but the Fallout thing probably won't happen either.

PSA (to everybody around here, not just Riz) : Stop posting about how "you're thinking about making an XYZ game" or saying you're working on a thing MONTHS AND MONTHS before it's ever going to happen. You're completely killing any "opening excitement" your game could have had. People stop giving a shit after a few months of seeing you post about your stuff.

If you want to make a game just go MAKE IT. You will be far more successful if, when you pitch it to people, they can actually log in somewhere and start exploring the wiki/game to maintain their interest. If they can't do any of that, they will move on.

The obvious exception here is The Reach-esque stuff that is just a giant "do whatever you fucking want, Shang-lite", those are always going to have players, no matter what. But these smaller, 'niche' games, you are shooting yourselves in the foot.

[Sunny]

@tempest

I disagree with pretty much everything said here save maybe that it does bring up concerns as to how serious the game lead is about current projects if they're already starting the brainwork on the next one. Excitement and such doesn't get used up, though, and excitement for the idea of and the excitement for something that is actually happening come out of two different pools. Nevermind that people look for collaboration and input and discussion and things. PLENTY of games have had a 1 year+ lead time where people knew about them, were off and on excited about them, and so on...and went on to be very successful.

I think this sort of thread is great and encourage more of them.

ETA: History just doesn't bear this out, and the vocal criticism of the contemplation of ideas seems really weird to me. Like, what, kill it when it's an idea so fewer games get made? How is that a good idea?

[SunnyJ]

@tempest

Can we stick this advice somewhere?

[Tempest]

@sunny said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

@tempest

PLENTY of games have had a 1 year+ lead time where people knew about them, were off and on excited about them, and so on...and went on to be very successful.

Can you name any, besides <insert generic multisphere WoD>?

[faraday]

@tempest I think an entire industry of movie and game trailers runs contrary to the idea that there is a finite amount of excitement for A Thing that will run out if you talk about A Thing before it's ready.

That said, I do agree that it's better to just build a game you want to play (and ask a few trusted friends if you want to know if they're interested too). Just because people are (or are not) interested in something now - that doesn't necessarily mean they will be in six months if/when you actually finish it. And MSB represents only a subset of the overall MUSHing population. It's also liable to bring out the "But you should do it this way!" crowd, leading to the danger of trying to design a game by committee. You can never please everyone, and it's very easy to become discouraged.

[Tempest]

@faraday said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

@tempest I think an entire industry of movie and game trailers

I'm going to be lazy. Just imagine a facepalm GIF here.

These aren't video games or movies.

I don't get invested in spending my energy creating things when I see a trailer for The Witcher 4 (not real, I know). That's just something I look forward to experiencing, not something I have to help build as a player.

If we were talking about MUDs, even, I wouldn't be saying this. A MUD, you log on, go clear some zones, practice your skills, wtfever. Those are actually like video games.

MUSHes are reliant on the players being excited to help BUILD the game, create stories, etc. That excitement is pretty hard to bottle up and extract, and is needlessly wasted by these posts about "we're gonna open an XYZ game in 6 months", IMO.

[Sunny]

@tempest said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

@sunny said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

@tempest

PLENTY of games have had a 1 year+ lead time where people knew about them, were off and on excited about them, and so on...and went on to be very successful.

Can you name any, besides <insert generic multisphere WoD>?

LOLOLOL.

Arx.

[Tempest]

@sunny said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

@tempest said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

@sunny said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

@tempest

PLENTY of games have had a 1 year+ lead time where people knew about them, were off and on excited about them, and so on...and went on to be very successful.

Can you name any, besides <insert generic multisphere WoD>?

LOLOLOL.

Arx.

Congrats, you named one.

The one that is more MUD than MUSH.

...Weird.

Edit : Arx also had infinitely more "development" effort from its creators than any MUSH is ever going to have, which is a big part of its success.

[Sunny]

@tempest

You asked me to name one. I named one. It's also not more MUD than MUSH.

ETA: It fits the criteria, and is evidence that your premise is incorrect. It's not an exception, it's not 'just because X' or 'just because Y' -- the leadup in this case is what's being discussed, and the leadup was a positive thing for the game in the end. Yes, there are other factors. There are always other factors. Asking for input / ideas / suggestions and/or discussing potential ideas is just not a damaging thing. These discussions are healthy.

[faraday]

@tempest said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

I'm going to be lazy. Just imagine a facepalm GIF here.
These aren't video games or movies.

You an imagine an eyeroll GIF here then, because duh. It was an analogy. I think there are general truths to product advertising regardless of the product. And MUSHes are a product.

MUSHes are reliant on the players being excited to help BUILD the game, create stories, etc.

And for that precise reason it's kinda helpful to know whether anyone is interested in helping to build a game, create the stories, etc. before you devote six months of your life to building the thing. I still think doing polls of strangers on an antagonistic forum is maybe not the greatest way to do said research, but I'm not going to fault someone for trying.

@tempest said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

Can you name any, besides <insert generic multisphere WoD>?

Can you name many MUs that were "very successful" period? Do you have any evidence beyond your personal opinion that some majority of people who say "Ooh yeah I'd play the heck out of that MUSH!" in February are all: "Meh, whatever" by the time October rolls around?

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@tempest said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

Edit : Arx also had infinitely more "development" effort from its creators than any MUSH is ever going to have, which is a big part of its success.

Also, I only became aware of Arx when it was in actually open "alpha" (and that alpha seemed a lot more like a 'beta' stage, from those who played it). Like active plotting wasn't going on but the game was BUILT.

[Tempest]

@three-eyed-crow said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

@tempest said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

Edit : Arx also had infinitely more "development" effort from its creators than any MUSH is ever going to have, which is a big part of its success.

Also, I only became aware of Arx when it was in actually open "alpha" (and that alpha seemed a lot more like a 'beta' stage, from those who played it). Like active plotting wasn't going on but the game was BUILT.

This is actually true too.

When Arx was first announced (presumably by @Apos? I forget), I don't recall there being any significant delay before people could log on and start playing.

[Apos]

@tempest said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

MUSHes are reliant on the players being excited to help BUILD the game, create stories, etc. That excitement is pretty hard to bottle up and extract, and is needlessly wasted by these posts about "we're gonna open an XYZ game in 6 months", IMO.

I mean, you're right that MUSHes are reliant on everyone collaborating and generating content, and it's very reliant on everyone's enthusiasm, but I really don't think talking about it is wasting energy or hype or whatever. I personally think that stuff is a little overstated. Yeah it might get people to have a look at a webpage, but let's be real, people telling their friends what a blast they are having with storylines is what gets people to invest that time way more consistently. If someone logs in and they get pulled into RP and have fun, they probably stick around, while if they get crickets in an OOC room except for a douchebag bragging about their character, they don't. A wave of hype helps create the former but it doesn't sustain itself that great since it's super fragile to rely on a bunch of people entertaining each other without a core that keeps it going.

I mean the big danger of the hype thing is someone logs in, makes a character, and then doesn't find RP or has a bad experience that sours them. Then they aren't going to come back again unless their friends tell them it's better or whatever.

[RizBunz]

Sorry. Ended the poll and went ahead and removed the idea. Didn't mean to ruffle feathers, I was just curious what people thought.

[ixokai]

@rizbunz said in Genosha (Interest Poll):

Sorry. Ended the poll and went ahead and removed the idea. Didn't mean to ruffle feathers, I was just curious what people thought.

You didn't ruffle feathers. One person had a silly tiffy of silliness.

Someone is always going to be that one person who is being dumb. We rotate for whose turn it is.

[Kay]

@tempest As one of the people who's gone from 'here's my weird idea what do you guys think' to 'In construction! Hammering out x y z!' entirely because I posted my idea in the development forum, I have not found this to be the case. The feedback I got was very helpful, and it also got me people popping out of the woodwork offering to assist (including a potential coder!) that I would never have made contact with otherwise. tl;dr If I hadn't posted on MSB, it would still only be an idea in my head.
ETA @RizBunz - I never got to vote but for what it's worth I thought it sounded like a very fun idea. Whenever you do decide it's time to develop it further please put up a notice, I'd love to see more.

[magee101]

Honestly my main prpblem with this post is the location. This is an advertisement forum. You know, for games looking for players? We have a couple side forums that can be used for this! Also I just totally agree that putting up an interest check for another idea while still in early dev of previous interest check looks flaky af you just shouldnt do that.

[magee101]

@sunny what does eta mean in this forum? I only know estimated time of arrival, and the only thing I can come up with is "eat this asshole"

[Kay]

@magee101 Not @Sunny but afaik it means Edited To Add.