Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing

[Auspice]

@Ghost said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

It's a bit fuzzy, too, exactly what the hobby itself is given that the hobby is shared with automated bot-killing MUDs and heavy code-fixated MOOs.

I always get annoyed by this.

MOO is a codebase. That's all.
Every single MOO I have played on bar one was code-light and RP-heavy. Most had way, way less code than your average WoD game. WNOHGB (Trek game) was the only code-heavy one and it was still RP-focused.

I've encountered MUSH/MUX (the two Crystal Singer games back in the day come to mind) that is just as code heavy as people wanna insist MOO is.

[Arkandel]

It's not ideas that the hobby is lacking. We have plenty of those.

Some things we do lack:

1. Word of mouth. People can't join what they don't even know exists.
2. An interface that doesn't look like it was created thirty years ago. A black screen on a dedicated telnet client downloaded from some obscure web site riddled with features and terminology that makes no sense to an outsider isn't it.

The specifics can vary as do tastes but the more we try to hold onto the paradigms that just happen to be familiar to us the fewer new players we can get.

There's a sense of denial about this in the hobby ("why, I have met several youngsters myself!") but nothing to explain exactly how when internet usage is far more widespread than ever before we have the smallest number of people playing on MU* than ever before, too.

[mietze]

@Arkandel that is just the thing though. It is more widespread both in access and content.

Why would you assume that mushing would expand at the same rate?

People are finding it that enjoy it for what it is, text based usually real time roleplaying without graphics or sound, that can run on any machine/device just about that can sustain an internet connection.

That is super niche. It doesn't surprise me that people who find that lacking will lean more into other stuff. Or that people who do enjoy it also enjoy other things and will divide their time further because there's more options for pastimes.

I think the folks who seem to think that there is some magical marketing technique or some interface that will radically make it so that mushing is hot amongst those 20 something that are interested in online RP--i think that's engaging in some denial right there.

[Tinuviel]

There are things that are easier, faster, better written, and prettier that also don't involve interacting with other people. MUing has never been "popular" and it likely never will be. People continually conflate MSB with the MU community as a whole.

Can newer, better tools help gain people? Sure. Are we going to have thousands of people filling our servers? No.
We're not WoW Classic, we're Zork.

[mietze]

I like the idea of people being able to "act" using graphics utilizing their face or to incorporate sound/voice in the actual rp if that's what they enjoy, though I would argue that would be a fundamental change to what I enjoy about mushing and would be more like enhanced virtual tabletop to me--I like tabletop but that has absolutely no appeal at all. But I do not see anything wrong with and would in fact cheerlead for folks developing that. I just don't think it's a magical formula.

I have seen more innovations in types and formats of games in the last 5ish years than I have in awhile. I would like the community to support more of that even when it is not their yum, as well as to be more supportive of first time runners. I just dont think that the mushing community was ever large to begin with (it is super incestuous), I do not think we are going to see the huge lists of active games that happened with all the GOMO clones and when people played on 6 different games, ect.

Sometimes I think we get in our own way of achieving drawing in new folks because of how vicious and kind of debbie downer people can get when a game opens that they dont care for the person running it or the theme, or how people freak out if there is a lull, ect.

[Auspice]

@mietze said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

I think the folks who seem to think that there is some magical marketing technique or some interface that will radically make it so that mushing is hot amongst those 20 something that are interested in online RP--i think that's engaging in some denial right there.

Precisely this.

I could pay for ads on Google and similar all I want, but the chances of gaining any new long-term players is still slim. I'd probably get some early bites and then people would wander off.

We have to consider the culture and style heavily. There's a lot of different kinds of text-based roleplay, too. Back on Livejournal, I'd see people 'scene set' in a post and then everyone would RP through the comments. When I moderated a forum of tweens & teens for work, I saw TONS of roleplay, but people were constantly cycling through and trying new characters or the same character in different places/situations/times/etc. There was a lot of RP, but almost none of it (even ignoring the 'interface') like ours. GTAV has a mod/servers to roleplay, but it's a mix of avatar action, /me emotes, and voice chat. I'm sure PBEM still exists.

I've tried or witnessed all of these and the core approach is wildly different to us. We sit down, as @Ghost said, for hours at a stretch. And while things like Ares alleviate that with the portal scenes: look at peoples' reactions to my discussion on asynchronous plots. A lot of us have no interest in doing things play-by-post (which, again, is what a lot of kids these days do in their RP!). That's a huge divide right there.

It's not a fancy web interface. It's not marketing. (I'm part of a huge group of nerdy women here in Austin. I've spoken of MUing to the ones that like 'roleplay:' none are interested in the format. And they range in age from 18 to their 50s.) It's just that we're a different culture and style. People will find us, but... there's no magical 'solution.'

[Tinuviel]

I don't know why we keep being the ones being asked how to improve the "recruiting" of new players. Us of all fragments of the MU community.

We're not marketing or sales, we're custodial staff.

[mietze]

Well that's the thing too. We represent such a small slice here. There are many games that go unmentioned here (probably a good thing). Considering how many people who are a genuine part of this community on MSB are by their own admission isolated from actually mushing either by choice or just time concerns, ect. I dont know that we as a community have a great snapshot on things either. That's not a strike against this community, it's just a natural thing that happens.

I do not think that we shouldnt talk or brainstorm about it, it is a fun topic, and if it reminds people to be friendlier on games they are on or to invite a buddy or like maybe NOT shit all over someone theme for a game they're thinking of opening, it is a good thing.

I see this convo as less about problem solving on high and more of a reminder to keep a open mind.

[Tinuviel]

@mietze said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

I do not think that we shouldnt talk or brainstorm about it, it is a fun topic

It would be, if it weren't brought up every six months like a smoke alarm battery reminder.

[mietze]

@Tinuviel that is the nature of message boards. I think people can just chill or scroll on by if they choose.

[faraday]

@mietze said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

That is super niche. It doesn't surprise me that people who find that lacking will lean more into other stuff. Or that people who do enjoy it also enjoy other things and will divide their time further because there's more options for pastimes.

I don't see any evidence that it has to remain "super niche" though. People who enjoy video games will sit down and play them for hours on end, so we know there are people with blocks of free time on their hands. MUDs are still pretty huge. Play by post forum sites boast thousands of members and hundreds of games, so we know there are people who enjoy text-based RP. Storium had almost 7000 backers, but if you follow the community you'll see common complaints about the slow pacing and games fizzling out because one person dropped out, things that MU's dynamic/revolving-door nature do help to address.

I find it impossible to believe that there aren't a decent number of potential MU players out there.

But to snag them, we need more approachable tech, better tutorials/welcome wagons, and people willing to bend a little to accommodate them in actual RP. It's the latter that I see as the biggest challenge.

[mietze]

@faraday and we hear a lot about people on mushes or even the games themselves fizzling out due to one person or a few key people dropping out or shifting availability.

Potential pool of people and desire simply isnt enough. I think those same problems will persist.

So I do wish that maybe we decided to be more supportive of more variety. And not handwringing about game "failures" and instead maybe just try and keep a less idealized view of how things "should" look like for something to be a "success." More places and more diversity and less aversion to not looking like what we "grew up with" when we started (there are many very different eras of the last 30 years of the medium) will help.

And I know there's a decent pool of potentials and newbies, I run into them a lot and introduce people to it too. Maybe that's why I am not in the SKY IS FALLING club?

[Tinuviel]

@mietze And who is this "we" you keep bringing up?

[silverfox]

@Auspice said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

Back on Livejournal, I'd see people 'scene set

raises a nice glass of milk to Milliways Bar

[Auspice]

@silverfox said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

@Auspice said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

Back on Livejournal, I'd see people 'scene set

raises a nice glass of milk to Milliways Bar

I had a friend try to get me to join that soooooo many times. I think I DID briefly and it just... didn't jive with me.

[silverfox]

@Auspice

I spent... I think almost two years there. Played a few different characters. What killed me eventually was the wait between poses being hours or days long. I'd lose the excitement of a scene and struggle to pose. It was best when my friends and I had (good god I feel old) AOL instant messenger up to pop each other a message when we had replied.

In all the Ares talk of their web scenes and stuff that is one thing I have wondered. How do they keep that zest going when it can be a while between poses? Or is that just a me problem?

[Auspice]

@silverfox said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

In all the Ares talk of their web scenes and stuff that is one thing I have wondered. How do they keep that zest going when it can be a while between poses? Or is that just a me problem?

Well, the browser has alerts so if you're actively around you'll see that there's activity in the scene. Otherwise, it is a culture shift.

I'm used to it because I've played with a lot of people with vastly different schedules or busy RLs for whom a scene has to take days if it's going to have any meat to it. But it began with needing to 'pause' a scene on a game and going 'hey, why don't we use gdoc to finish this?' so that we didn't need to timestop ourselves. So I eased in to the idea.

[Tinuviel]

@silverfox said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

Or is that just a me problem?

It isn't just a you problem. I give serious side-eye to it.

[faraday]

@silverfox said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

In all the Ares talk of their web scenes and stuff that is one thing I have wondered. How do they keep that zest going when it can be a while between poses? Or is that just a me problem?

The browser notifies you when there's new activity, just like a MUSH client does. It's conceptually no different than using Discord or Slack's web client. Some folks prefer a desktop client for understandable reasons, but any expectation that "web scene = slow scene" is being driven by the people, not the technology.

You can do a regular "real-time poses every 10 minutes" scene in Potato or you can do one in the browser.

You can do a "I'm gonna pose at you once every couple hours while I do chores" scene in Potato or you can do one in the browser.

You can even mix and match some people on the browser and some logged in with traditional MU clients.

The only thing that Ares lets you do that you can't easily do on a regular MU server is an async scene where folks pose at each other here and there in their own respective timezones / work schedules without both of them needing to be online at the same time. That kind of scene has always happened in MUSHes too; folks just had to go off-game to Google Docs/email/livejournal/etc. to do it. Now you can do it within the game itself.

Folks can side-eye it all they want, but it's not doing anything that MUSHers haven't been doing for years.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@silverfox said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

In all the Ares talk of their web scenes and stuff that is one thing I have wondered. How do they keep that zest going when it can be a while between poses? Or is that just a me problem?

The Ares web scenes I've been in have been no different than the scenes I've played on my client, in terms of time between poses. You're just posing in a browser window rather than in your client. I'll admit the idea of scenes that're paced out in days, like forum RP can get, don't appeal to me. The opportunity to do different kinds of stuff is there, though.