Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing

[Deleted]

Here's how you get young blood into MU*ing:

Marketing and browser-access. That's all it takes. For some sweet cherry flavoring on top throw in some phone-app functionality for connectivity on the go (without actual RP) and you're absolutely golden.

[mietze]

@Ghost the "writing with others" is the key factor here. I cannot tell you how many times I have encountered people who were very rude or thoughtless towards others because they did not understand why people were reacting negatively or avoiding them, even though they felt they were writing beautifully, and had to handhold them through understanding that process.

Writing skill and interest isn't really enough, and I would not want to set someone up like that. I would rather be honest with someone I am inviting in, as to what they can realistically expect, and also thinking also of value added to the community.

There are lots of nice and awesome people who will not take to the medium, and some people who are constant problems who will still keep going at it.

I just do not see the value in recruiting just to have more bodies or handwringing over certain demographics. Build and improve the tools (add me to the long list of people praising Ares for making mushing accessible without the need for a special client or telnet, making slower time scenes possible, ect to reflect the realities of how things have changed tech wise and use wise!), but it is still mushing that has to capture people's interest, which it definitely will for some people. New people are still joining up despite more options for interactive entertainment out there.

And to be clear, a majority of dicks I have encountered in the hobby have outright said that they didnt really care to pay attention or interact with any story but the one that they felt entitled to control, and would engage in manipulative or abusive behavior to try to assert that control. Most were actually excellent writers, both in scenes and in fast talking ooc. It is why when I think of great people to invite to join the hobby, writing skill alone is not at the top of my particular list. I just know 3 very successful dicks out of the many more that I have encountered, two of whom were actually praised for their writing ability in scenes (just...not for their control/truthiness issues outside of it!)

[SquirrelTalk]

@gryphter Personally I think attempting to act would hinder collaborative storytelling more than it would help; and also make describing your actions much more awkward.

[gryphter]

@SquirrelTalk You'd obviate the need to describe actions if you could just do them. But that would get old. Maybe in a few years when we're able to imagine at computers.

[SquirrelTalk]

@Admiral Seriously. It is incredibly hard to actually know these games exist if you haven't already bumbled into the MU community. We need to be way more accessible - both to find and to play. Heck, a whole new platform couldn't hurt. Something that emulates what MU's do with grids and such, but gives you a graphical interface for them somewhere on the web page or something.

Sadly, the only thing I've found that even slightly resembled that is kind of an impenetrable hellscape at the moment. Which may disprove my thesis.

I just know the current set up is a major barrier to entry, both to those looking to play, and those like myself that keep bumping into walls like a dork looking up how to START a game thanks to a reliance on Windows Command Line of all things.

[SquirrelTalk]

@gryphter You can't program the specifics of a rad kung fu fight, or climbing a mountain, or dodging falling rubble. A system that could visualize every scenario you can simply write out on a MUSH would be more complex than any video game in existence.

At any rate, voice-change-VR-RP and whatnot would be a separate thing entirely, rather than the evolution/growth/extension of MU-ing that I keep wishing for.

[gryphter]

Considering all that's been said here, it occurs to me that maybe our primary failure really is marketing. We're able to vocalize pretty cogently what we love about MU*; surely there are younger people who exist that would like the same things.

I know that when I was a kid, I found the hobby very much by accident. Looking to do a research paper on the Celts for school, I ended up on a game about fairies and whatnot with a name I've long since forgotten, and never looked back. I've heard a lot more stories like that -- accidental discovery that stuck -- than not.

How would you find this if you didn't know it was here? Honest question, because I really don't know. Perhaps if we answer it, we draw the new lifeblood any population needs to survive long-term. I would hate to see this dwindle and die with us; I refuse to believe this is a generational phenomenon.

[SquirrelTalk]

@gryphter Yeah, I have a hard time believing that there's no one else who's mad into the idea of collaborative storytelling via RP. I don't think that's something that dies off any more than acting and writing are. It's just a matter of both finding it, and for the thing you find to seem worth the trouble.

Sadly, I don't know if there's a genius website designer/coder around who shares that passion. There is one web site I found that, in theory, seems to have all the bells and whistles. Pages for individual games; tabs for information on locations and characters and plotlines; the option for honest to god grids you can look at from on high, and a OOC chatroom, but it's... unwieldly, and doesn't seem, at a glance, like it's still really being supported or frequented by anyone.

https://www.roleplaygateway.com/universes

Still, advertising is it's own problem.

[gryphter]

So how do we reach out to that collaborative soul, that RP junkie that doesn't even know it yet, and tell them we're out here existing?

ETA: I don't think format or codebase are the problems. I can haul up all the Evennia and Ares games I want easy as hell in the browser of my personal preference, but I have to know they exist first.

[SquirrelTalk]

@gryphter If fan sites were more of a thing, I'd say ask them to let people know about you if you have a relevant game. Though there's still the issue of 'you have to download one of a dozen unsupported decade old programs and learn new commands to start'.

I don't know if a concentrated Roleplaying Wiki would help, since you have to wrestle google not to show you Dragon Age or whatever when you search for roleplaying. Though if your game is based on a franchise, asking to be included in a section of a fan wiki might not be the worst idea. Not sure what the actual answer is. Maybe someone who knows more about searching/advertising/being findable in a search would know something.

If nothing else, it sure would be nice if it was easier to stumble on a list of/explanation of MUs in general without knowing the MU terminology beforehand.

[gryphter]

@SquirrelTalk So maybe the idea is to run a flag up into a major, active fandom that exists. See previous commentary re: Wheel of Time, maybe, or something stranger and braver still.

What are the young folk into this days, anyway, he asked with a painful lack of irony?

[Auspice]

A couple quick points:

It's not the codebase / system. I can tell you for absolute fact that a ton of teenagers and young adults RP on Tumblr and on forums much like this one. Shit that isn't advanced or full of bells and whistles.

The above said? They don't give a fuck about most of what we're fans of. Our fandoms and theirs are totally different. But I bet if you ran a Homestuck MU they'd come in droves.

[gryphter]

@Auspice ...what is a Homestuck? Is it a drug?

[SquirrelTalk]

@Auspice True, but Tumblr/Forum is an entirely different format and pacing. Granted, something that could give you the option to add poses to a scene at your own pace when schedules don't line up perfectly for an active scene would be pretty good.

Honestly I'd just say 'move it all to Discord' if it had a better system for storing/organizing scenes or making information available. Which... they might, I've only tooled around on Discord. I'm not married to grids, but they're nice to have.

[gryphter]

@SquirrelTalk I drew the breath -- so to speak -- to say that I am married to grids, and then it died on my lips as I realized maybe I'm not. Probably I'm not. The way Ares handles scenes I'm not sure you need a grid at all and we pretty much have it because we're used to it. Having observed the scenes system I think even shy people feel comfortable joining an open, public scene, and that obviates the need for players to 'happen upon' one another on a grid. Just join the open scene -- and people do. The behavior change took, in my opinion, and very quickly at that.

But you do need, if not a grid, something like Ares' scenes that lets people have some way to know when RP is out there that is open to them, and to let them know they are encouraged to join it.

[SquirrelTalk]

@gryphter Most of the MUs I've been on lately have a system for scheduling and announcing when a scene is going to take place. Other than that, it seems like most people who meet up for scenes to tell a story/develop a relationship can just say they're wherever they want to be without having to physically move there on a grid, yeah. Granted, I'm thinking entirely in terms of games based on franchises, where 'stumbling on RP' isn't really a thing that necessarily makes sense since we're not in character all the time. Games with a more open/adventurous theme might still have a use for them, but I haven't heard of anyone exploring a grid for more than either novelty, or to find the appropriate place for a scene in a long time.

[SquirrelTalk]

@SquirrelTalk That and MUDS, I suppose; I keep forgetting there are games where you actually travel around fighting monsters, which is probably the only reason grids existed to begin with.

[gryphter]

There are some benefits to not having everything occur on a grid, too. If Romeo and Juliet decide to bang in the fountain again, they can do it in a private scene nobody else has to read, even if they RP at, in, on, or around that fountain at the same time.

[SquirrelTalk]

@gryphter Exactly. And with Aresmush you can have a section and individual pages to list and describe locations. And be selective about what scenes you put up for everyone to see.

... Really it kinda sounds like we just need to find a way to direct people towards Aresmush; though there's still the problem of CREATING games seeming like a bit of an impenetrable pain in the ass. I keep wanting to try it, but it all looks like I'd have to commit money to a server first to even look at it, unless there's a download I've totally missed that just lets you open it up and tool around.

A new graphical interface for MAKING games might be the actual dream.

[faraday]

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

Really it kinda sounds like we just need to find a way to direct people towards Aresmush; though there's still the problem of CREATING games seeming like a bit of an impenetrable pain in the ass.

Full disclosure: Ares is still in beta, so anyone wanting to run a game in it should go in with eyes open. It's generally stable, but bugs happen. I just messed up achievements in the last upgrade, for instance

That said, setting up a game in Ares with the stock codebase is extremely easy. Yes, you need a server to host it on - which currently is $5/month - but there's an installer to set everything up for you, or I have a program where I'll do the initial install (conditions apply).

If you want custom code - of course that's a lot more work. Potentially a crap-ton of more work depending on what you want to do. But that's true of any codebase.

Which reminds me -- I think that the compulsion to have to have custom code on virtually every game is what's keeping us (as a hobby) from moving to a sort of shared hosting model like Wordpress/Storium/PlayByPost/Tumblr/etc. Which would not only make setting up a game super trivial and accessible, but it would also provide a common platform for folks to find said games. And to play said games, because they'd all be using the same commands/conventions. Of course, the immersive/interactive bit with custom code is what draws some people to MUs, so YMMV.

For Ares, you can technically spin up a local game on your Mac, or on a Windows PC using a virtual machine, but it's really a PITA. Save yourself the headaches and just take digital ocean's free month to try it out.