SerenityMUSH - Discussion

[Tinuviel]

@TiredEwok said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:

we were able to pretty much RP with anyone

Oh, I remember.

[faraday]

@Ghost said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:

With a good enough system, a decent staff, and perhaps a reset to wash out some of that Mal and Inara corruption past, I think Firefly could go that route.

I'd love to see another Firefly game take off, but I agree with the others who have said that Serenity has too much baggage. And the wiki seems busted. No logs, no recent updates. Or maybe they're just not using it? Either way, not a good look.

But the issue with past FF games (other than bad staff) is that what made the show magical was the focus on a small crew. You don't get that same vibe on a MUSH without splintering the players into ten zillion tiny groups and stifling RP. I've long mused about doing a planet-based "space western" FF game, but I really don't think that's what people come to a Firefly game for. I think the draw is hopping from planet to planet in a ShipOfOurOwn, having epic adventures like TV-Mal and company. That's great for the FF tabletop RPG (which is loads of fun) but doesn't work so great on a MUSH with dozens of people.

[Ganymede]

I wish I knew more about the setting.

I think that if Faraday opened a Serenity game it would be flooded in a matter of minutes.

Hint hint.

[Auspice]

I've got a lot of ground work around here... somewhere for a FF game that would be station-based and allow a sort of central-hub for RP + for people to have their ship crews.

...I just didn't wanna write all the website material needed. I just wanted to make the game and start running shit.

[surreality]

I still secretly pine for the idea of the old rag-tag traveling space carnival game that was half FF, half Carnivale. Grid being the caravan of ships, and the 'worlds' on the fringes of settlements and colonies they visit to perform changing every so often as bare-bones spaces and mostly temprooms.

[faraday]

@Auspice said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:

I've got a lot of ground work around here... somewhere for a FF game that would be station-based and allow a sort of central-hub for RP + for people to have their ship crews.

There was one of the FF games way back that had Persephone as a "RP hub". I sat there a lot. Alone.

[WildBaboons]

Being split into crews isn't necessarily a bad thing. When I played on Serenity and it was active that's how it was. 3-5 ships with crews of half a dozen ore more that ran PRPs internally, but also interacted with each other frequently. It also helped that the game has a good Shuttle system so that you can hop from one side of the verse to the other in moments without having to rely on a relatively slow transit time of a ship.

That said, if you were soley ground based, you typically were SoL unless you could offer a hook/hub of RP yourself

[faraday]

@WildBaboons said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:

Being split into crews isn't necessarily a bad thing. When I played on Serenity and it was active that's how it was. 3-5 ships with crews of half a dozen ore more that ran PRPs internally, but also interacted with each other frequently.

It depends on your point of view obviously. (And maybe this deserves its own thread, since it's tangential to SerenityMUSH specifically, but I'll leave that up to the thread owner/mods.)

A crew-based game makes it very difficult for new players to get involved. Because you have to find and join a crew to get any RP, and that's not always easy (especially for introverted players). And heaven help you if you fall in with a crew that includes a bad player. It's hard to avoid them when you're on the same ship all the time.

Even once you're established, If your ship is out in the Black or on a different planet and nobody from your crew happens to be online at that time, you're SOL for RP. It's the same problem a lot of Star Wars games have by splitting their players among different planets.

If that's your thing, groovy - I'm not trying to detract from anyone else's fun. Just saying that I love Firefly as a setting/show but I've never had a good experience on any FF game.

[Ghost]

@faraday said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:

I'd love to see another Firefly game take off

I FECKIN SAW WHATCHA DID THERE

Also: Faraday is right. One thing that can be learned by Serenity Mush's past is how the concept of insular crews can become a hotbed for clique behavior, competition, and locking other players out or plot content.

I think the Firefly universe has a future in mushing, but advise people to find new ways to try to avoid this before attempting.

One thing I think may help combat that is to make it less about stuff (credits, coded guns, etc), because on Serenity mush it was clear who had the starter popgun bullshit and who had the WTFBROKENCHEATCODES guns.

[TiredEwok]

@Tinuviel

I have no idea what you mean.

As for the subject of insular RP, that's going to happen on any game that has teams/crews/etc, no matter what the theme. Was a thing on most comic games I RPed on. Was a thing on Star Wars Mush, albeit not quite as bad. It's just how it is. People want to RP with others whose characters have a common goal, I guess.

[faraday]

@TiredEwok said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:

Was a thing on most comic games I RPed on. Was a thing on Star Wars Mush, albeit not quite as bad. It's just how it is. People want to RP with others whose characters have a common goal, I guess.

Sure, but it comes down to how small your teams are. In a Firefly type setting you're talking crews of 4-6 generally. That's way different from a game where your "teams" are The Rebel Alliance, or Everyone at Xavier's X-Men School, or All BSG Viper Pilots or The Gangrel Clan. The more reasons you give people to interact, the more opportunities for RP there will be. The more siloed you make people, the more impenetrable your cliques become.

[BlackDahlia]

@Ghost I think I was part of that scene. If it's the only I'm thinking of, it was freakin' hilarious.

[Jennkryst]

Crews are actually a pretty convenient way to police alt crossing. It would suck for folks who won't make alts, though. It also presents a problem for new-new players. If I show up with a bunch of folks to make our own crew, yay. If I show up with no one and have to find one? Bleh.

A hiring board and willingness to @teleport folks is key. It would also help incredibly if people would adopt my highlander flashback-style of RP. 'Here is how we met years ago/here is some quick bond-building stuff' instead of just... constant... bar-p. It also fills the time of waiting in the black between planets.

[BlackDahlia]

@Jennkryst I always felt that part of the problem with SerenityMush was that the individual crews were how you got paid. If you didn't manage to join a crew, you were screwed for anything that required that shiny in-game money.

[Jennkryst]

Yeah, I would totally brainstorm alternative money making methods. Coded paychecks if you have npc employment, for one. A pile of money if you're a douchey noble.

I've always thought that some sort of tracker for time spent on things on (or off) screen would be useful, if annoying. I've only seen it implemented in an... okay-way (not perfect, but not terrible) on Shadowrun: Denver. But there is absolutely no way to earn money on that game outside of either going on shadowruns, or being paid by shadowrunners. They also don't track the time put in, so even if you should be busy for a week doing one task, there is no mechanism in place preventing you from doing another task in that time frame*, aside from threat of maybe a slap on the wrist in the event you are caught.

*this is regardless of intent. Doing this on purpose is obviously cheating, but you could do it entirely on accident, too.

[Jennkryst]

Double post because I am horrible...

People have mentioned the possibility of rebooting the setting. I would like to add a similar hot button idea to that - upgrading to HSpace 5!

[Cupcake]

An Ares/FS3 version would set my heart pitter-patter.

[WildBaboons]

@SerenityMush

I am curious if a full reboot has been discussed at all/is on the table?

The other tweaks and all would be nice, but really the best thing I can think of to actually get interest back in the game would be a reset.

[Jennkryst]

I took a glance here earlier, and will do a fancy thing after work if I remember. Whoop.

[Browncoat]

@WildBaboons said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:

@SerenityMush

I am curious if a full reboot has been discussed at all/is on the table?

Hi all -

We (Zoe and River, the newest admins on Serenity) have been following this discussion with great interest. We've also been traveling, together, so we haven't been able to sit down and respond until now.

We've actually discussed the possibilities of starting fresh, and weighed our options. We certainly see the appeal and merit to the idea. Two cards against us: neither of us knows mush code, and we're both busy adults with full lives. For the moment, we think that using the existing verse - with its fully functional grid and systems - is better than trying to restart, and spend months struggling to get something up and running. We haven't discussed these ideas with the other admins on Serenity yet, as they're mostly idle (busy lives again).

Full disclosure - we don't have full admin powers on the game yet, so we're limited in what we can do. We've both played there for years, dropping away for a while. We weren't part of the in-groups, so we aren't aware of all of the issues there (like the issues with Fanty... we'd still like to know what the complaint is there), and we hope people won't hold that against us. We're just people who want to keep having fun playing in the Firefly 'Verse. We want to do what we can in the current landscape, to get things up and running again. Anyone who wants to join us - to play, or work through issues - we invite to come onto the game. Revive a character, start a character, connect with us. We can try to come up with solutions to thinks like how to pay people who aren't on a ship crew. We'll do what we can to help out.

No reset has been done on the game in recent years, and doing so would require a conversation with the other game admins. Some of the long-standing, overpowered players are gone, and some still exist but don't really play any more. This is really a good time to start something fresh on the game. None of the long-running plots are active. So come join us!

-- Zoe