A new platform?

[SquirrelTalk]

So, I’ve been wondering for awhile if there’s any sort of new or popular platform or app or program for role playing now a days.

Mush communities are shrinking, and I refuse to believe that there aren’t any young people who are mad into the idea of rp, so I have to imagine the format is the problem. Most people straight up don’t know about mu’s, and anyone who finds out has to figure out an ancient interface for an even more ancient play style.
So I’m wondering if there’s any sort of modern new equivalent to mu’s out there, and, if not, if one is being made? Something that can still let you set up room descriptions, hang out ooc, and invite people into scenes, or anything like that that isn’t just forums, Facebook groups or discord? Heck some resource to be able to find rp games on THOSE would still be pretty rad.

I’d really hate to see this style of rp go extinct just because the tech is older than the pyramids.

[ZombieGenesis]

I know a lot of people who use Roll20. I use Discord for some stuff. Personally I still love the idea of everything being on a MU. I'm a big fan of AresMUSH as a possible next step in the evolution of MUing. It has some really great features.

[Sunny]

I'm sure there are.

We're still using this platform though, so it's probably not the best source for this information. Google might help.

Alternately, both AresMUSH and Evennia are 'new' codebases used for this style of RP with a great many improvements, but they are still compatible with telnet.

[SquirrelTalk]

That does seem promising, I just wish I knew how to solve the issue that googling ‘roleplaying’ With or without any sort of qualifier doesn’t get you anything useful. I’d have to actually see an ares game to figure out how good the interface and information are. Like I said, discovery and technology seem to be the biggest hurdles to our hobby.

[Sunny]

@squirreltalk

There are MANY topics of discussion about this exact thing on this very board, so if you can't be arsed to bother to read through forum history for the information you're looking for, I'm not sure how to help you.

[SquirrelTalk]

@sunny No need to snap.

[Sunny]

@squirreltalk

Snap? Uuuuh, okay. Good luck finding what you're looking for. I hear there's twitter RP out there you can find if you look hard enough for it.

[SquirrelTalk]

Why the hostility, friend?

[Three-Eyed Crow]

There's not a platform that does all the things MUs do in terms of persistent, shared environment for real time RP, at least not in my experience. Platforms like dreamwidth journal rp and tumblr rp are very popular but also pretty dissimilar in terms of the experience they offer. I do feel like it wouldn't be hard to take what Roll20 has done and introduce more support for an ongoing world, it just doesn't seem to be what they think the audience is.

Ares and Evennia seem ultra promising and I'm curious if they expand the audience for this type of RP.

[SquirrelTalk]

@three-eyed-crow That’d be pretty cool. I wish I knew how to just make something like that.

[SunnyJ]

@sunny Man, you have been a dick in two recent threads now without any good reason. Relax, man, what the fuck. @SquirrelTalk asked the MU community if we have any "direct competitor" or alternative, and it seems like this forum would be a great place to start her search. You are being rude for no reason, and it is not the first time I've seen you do it. Can you chill? Is anyone forcing you to post on these threads?

@SquirrelTalk I hear Roll20 is supposed to be taking some people away, but I rather wait for an in-community solution for a much needed 'step forward'. MUs are so clunky and needlessly old. I can't believe we can't do better.

[SquirrelTalk]

@sunnyj I agree! My only worry is that we’ve gone so long without one that it might not really be coming. Better late than never, though; I’d love to not only see this rp style evolve, but also gain a reliable way for people who’ve never rped to find it. Heck, I basically only discovered mus by a fluke. ^^;;

[ZombieGenesis]

I'm actually shocked by the lack of advertising avenues that are left in the MU world. I recently logged onto Gateway after not having been on for 3 or 4 months and found not 1 new game had been posted. It kind of made me sad. For me the only place I can even really think to advertise any more is here. I'm not sure how well used MudConnector is any more and I'm unsure how many people visit Gateway any more.

[SquirrelTalk]

@zombiegenesis Yeah. I’ve tried to use mudstats.com, but they took nearly a year between updating new games onto their list.

[Lotherio]

@three-eyed-crow said in A new platform?:

Ares and Evennia seem ultra promising and I'm curious if they expand the audience for this type of RP.

While I can't say the influx is ground breaking, I have as staff elsemu encountered handfuls of players who have come into Mu through both Ares and Evennia.

I know Discord and Stack have gotten some similar RP going, not quite the same as a Mu as pointed out by @Three-Eyed-Crow, but there are campaigns that can be found and joined on new social media that are similar in a manner. They utilize various dice programs that are easy to install and use.

[SquirrelTalk]

@lotherio That’s cool, though I lean more towards collaborative storytelling rp games. Might be fun to have the potential for random disaster, though.

[Apos]

Tumblr, roleplaying forums, slack, discord, MMO roleplaying communities, facebook groups, etc, etc. There's a ton of roleplayers out there, and most of those formats dwarf MUs as a hobby in size. All the formats have their strengths but none really duplicate the same large scale interconnected stories thing that MUs do well. I think Evennia and Ares will really help in making it accessible, though there's some other issues even aside from telnet and that most people have never heard of MUs.

[Jennkryst]

@squirreltalk Easiest answer is code.

I feel MUs have fallen out of popularity because of variable command structure. The bboard code has been around forever, so everyone takes it for granted that you know the way it works.

BUT. Last night, City of Hope saw someone new to MUs go crazy because the help files weren't clear. +help bb, not +help +bb. @mail is another area, considering the differences between Penn, BRANDY-mail, and... I forget the others.

To say nothing of game- or genre-specific commands. +hurt? +damage? +lose? +equipment? +inventory? +gain? +spend? (The list can literally go on forever)

[SquirrelTalk]

@jennkryst Heck, I’ve had that experience just from going from one mu to another.

[surreality]

@jennkryst That one isn't as easy to solve, since not all games have a uniform list of what they need.