Optional Realities & Project Redshift

Thenomain

Nepotism, now good for your social community management.

Jeshin

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nepotism

I own Project Redshift and founded Optional Realities. So you could say I'm biased. You could say I'm arbitrary. You could say a lot of things but nepotism would be incorrect. Also the assumption that we do not list games that are in-development and about to release would be incorrect. LabMUD was listed because it was scheduled for release 8 days after our launch and it meets all the criteria on the list. If any game was getting ready to release and wanted the exposure and was going to qualify they'd be just as welcome to contact us.

PS - If the website had no game list and no game sub-forums and was purely for RP and development discussions. Would you still have issues? If so what would they be? Have you taken the time to check out the community at all?

spasticgoat

/ˈnɛpəˌtɪzəm/
noun

favouritism shown to relatives or close friends by those with power or influence

Jeshin

I am neither my own relative or my own close friend.

Thenomain

Both statements are provably false.

Jeshin

Then I concede. I am guilty of self nepotism.

Jeshin

This week (one day late) on Optional Realities...

Brody from Otherspace MUSH discusses the difficulties of long running narrative games
http://optionalrealities.com/otherspace-lessons-from-a-dusty-crusty-old-universe/

Evennia Is Looking for Interested Developers
http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=155.0

Project Redshift Releases a Timeline
http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=147.0

Hopefully you guys find these topical and relevant, let me know.

Jeshin

I don't think we have anything particularly interesting to the MUSH community this week over at OR. So in lieu of an article or a thread link I'll give you guys a few days head start on a cash contest for July.

Character Concepts! Provide us with a past, present, or future character concept you have or want to make. This includes description, short history, personality blurb, and an example of the RP they'd be up too. 1st place gets 50 USD, 2nd place gets 35 USD, 3rd place gets 15 USD and it can be for any game, setting, whatever.

EDIT - Specific rules and details to be announced July 1st.

Jeshin

Character Concept Contest (any setting, genre, or game)
http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=198.0

This might be the breakout contest for musoapbox users to take 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. No more pesky restrictions or game mechanics in it. Just good old character pitching.

Thenomain

What I am discovering about people who are exclusive Mudders: They have a very specific, almost draconian idea of what "RP" means.

I will continue to observe and eke out nuances, knowing that there is no such thing as black-and-white, but the present image in my head is that Dr. Seuss story about the Sneetches.

Gingerlily

Dr. Suess has it covered. However please don't think that these discussions are representative of what all people who play MUDs think. RPI is...a different beast? Most MUD players I know/have known are very chill people. If you tried to engage them into a long debate about what 'true roleplay' really is they'd roll their eyes just as much as many MUSHers would.

There's some with VRY SRS ideas about what fun is good and what fun is bad and etc in both sets of games, but I don't think they make up the majority.

Arkandel

@Thenomain said:

What I am discovering about people who are exclusive Mudders: They have a very specific, almost draconian idea of what "RP" means.

Back in the day I had been playing MUDs exclusively for years when I made the leap to a MUSH.

A lot of things were very confusing, from moving around using uniquely-named exits instead of n/s/w/e, to everyday communication through page, navigating help file structures, figuring out the commands to set up a description, etc.

Roleplaying? It was exactly the same thing I had always known. We used emote instead of @emit but that's about it. Even the quality was about the same on average.

Obviously this is anecdotal, so take it as you will.

Three-Eyed Crow

It's also not like there aren't weirdly calcified ideas about RP norms within sub-genres. Pern players who've only played Pern have different ideas of the "typical RP experience" than WoD players who've only played WoD, and so forth.

ETA: My RP experience on MUDs was pretty bad, but that's on the games I played, not the genre. I think I had more trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that there weren't coded objects than I did posing, when I tried MUSHing. You could say you were sitting in a chair if there wasn't a chair, zomg.

Gingerlily

@Arkandel said:

@Thenomain said:

What I am discovering about people who are exclusive Mudders: They have a very specific, almost draconian idea of what "RP" means.

Back in the day I had been playing MUDs exclusively for years when I made the leap to a MUSH.

A lot of things were very confusing, from moving around using uniquely-named exits instead of n/s/w/e, to everyday communication through page, navigating help file structures, figuring out the commands to set up a description, etc.

Roleplaying? It was exactly the same thing I had always known. We used emote instead of @emit but that's about it. Even the quality was about the same on average.

Obviously this is anecdotal, so take it as you will.

No you say? The SAME you say? But surely one must be THE MOST BETTER ALWAYS.

(This is exactly my experience. Different code, different culture, and on a MUD people had less tolerance for me taking ten minutes to put pretty similes and metaphors and over the top prose into my poses which I do admittedly enjoy. Storyline and rp in general? Samesies!)

Thenomain

@Three-Eyed-Crow said:

calcified

I like this word to describe our expectations. "Draconian" was a word that was coming to mind, but felt too harsh. With the lack of a better term I left it in.

@Gingerlily said:

RPI is...a different beast?

The time (all 30 minutes) I spent on Burning Post II is that people are just people, and want to do things in the way that they understand. (I did get laughed at for saying that each game has a "culture", which made the rest of the conversation unplesant.) I just had a chat with @Orpheus that clinched it, that what we have between different games is different expectations, and no good vocabulary.

I find this lack of vocabulary to be the most frustrating thing about talking to @Jeshin, tho I don't hold it against him. We have to live with the differences between one another, either by avoiding one another or these topics, or trying until we get it right.

Arkandel

Is it not likely that speaking to a couple of people on a MUD for 30 minutes might not give you a general consensus of how things are done on all MUDs, any more than having a 30 minute conversation on a MUSH might not speak for the MUSHing community as a whole?

Although yes, the lingo is different. I remember thinking when I made the jump to MUSH that "tiny sex" was a hilarious term.

Tempest

@Arkandel said:

Although yes, the lingo is different. I remember thinking when I made the jump to MUSH that "tiny sex" was a hilarious term.

That, and the fact that every MUSH had a newsfile about TinySex. It was always just 'mudsex' and I had never seen it like..officially discussed or mentioned in rules or anything.

Thenomain

I think I can get a pretty good idea within 30 minutes that "people are people". It's not a difficult thing to measure. It's not like I claimed to know where the cultures differed, just that the reactions of these people are those I'd expect from the average Mush and the average Musher.

The only thing I found different was the interface. Even the way people reacted to their expectations were familiar.

Gingerlily

MUDs do seem to care far less about sex rp. There are certainly not files, rules, or discussions about it that I recall in the MUD 'community' other than the occasional 'do you, don't you, fade to black yes/no' that is common here. Granted with less OOC communication, it was less easy to make it clear what you were or weren't comfortable with, but there was still mail "Hey I like this romance story we are doing but don't like to rp the 'nitty gritty'" or like I said, everyone eventually did end up talking to their playing partners through other means. IM, Skype, Whatevs. I just don't recall it ever being such a Big Deal.

TinySex also made me laugh when I first learned the term, as did 'mav'. MUDs have no famous 'mav' for whom to give credit for every falsely aimed miscommunication, so it is usually just a 'mistell'

Stand by Theno here though in that its Just Not That Different. The ice cream discussion again I guess, but hey.

Thenomain

Thanks for the support, @Gingerlily. I am interested that in order to bridge communication gaps you have to want to bridge communication gaps, and that is understandably not something someone who has to deal with a newbie commonly wants to do. Changing your mental gears is tiring on both sides.