Optional Realities & Project Redshift

[Alzie]

@crayon I can't remember a single time in this thread when one of us responded to your article with serious consideration and it wasn't rejected outright with something along the lines of 'You don't understand,' 'that's not what we meant,' or 'It's just a mud thing.' In the article about advertising and making money, I gave a lengthy criticism and discussion about the article which Jeshin and you both, in fact, dismissed entirely by stating that I had missed the point or by latching onto a single thing I had said, in Jeshin's case that he spent too much time talking about Diku, because he certainly felt he didn't, and completely ignoring everything else.

Case in point: We're not stupid. Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. Why are you even still posting here? I mean really. Here's my challenge to @jeshin and @crayon. In one sentence, devoid of bullshit, explain what you want from this community.

[Jeshin]

Hey,

We want to share our community with this community.

Until we get asked to stop posting by a MOD or the thread is locked we'll continue to try and do so and even make changes to how we do so.

[Alzie]

@Jeshin said:

Hey,

We want to share our community with this community.

Okay then, That's perfectly fine. That's an entirely different request from 'We want discussion on our community' however. Thank you for being blunt.

[Thenomain]

So. Meta.

[WTFE]

@crayon said:

I'm not sure what we can do to encourage article discussion any more than we already have with the article discussion threads. They don't tend to attract too much discussion, but it's something we've been working on. If you have any ideas for gearing articles more towards discussion and debate, I'd love to hear them.

From what I'm gathering by reading comments here (I still refuse to actually visit the site based on the attitudes displayed by Jeshin and now you), the part at the bottom that says "comments" is turned off and you have to go to a completely different part of the site to dig up the thread that discusses an article.

I'm sorry, citizens of planet Zapplemoos, but this is not how we human beings work. What you're doing is the equivalent of this:

A: …And this is how we foobie the gizmos.
B: I think I see, but did you consider…?
A: <holding up hand> C'mon, B. You know better than that. We have a room for discussion and feedback. I'll meet you over in building C, third floor.

You may want to consider instead of turning off comments, repurposing them into, you know, links to the thread. Or even better, how 'bout making the comments section also go into the threads and get the best of both worlds?

Oh, sorry. That's a "science fiction is better than fantasy" thing. Feel free to ignore it. Like you've ignored every other suggestion made to you.

[Thenomain]

@WTFE,

They do link the article to the discussion forum for it, but the articles I've read have been very Mud-centric "and this is how you do things" kind of way. I must be old, because when The New York Times posts an article on facts I don't jump into the comments to give my opinion. Reporting is to report. The commons are the commons. I'm kind of surprised that people have been posting reactions, which knocks a little wind out of my sails on that front, but I still don't think it's very inviting.

[WTFE]

@Thenomain said:

They do link the article to the discussion forum for it, but the articles I've read have been very Mud-centric "and this is how you do things" kind of way.

Ah. I stand corrected then.

I must be old, because when The New York Times posts an article on facts I don't jump into the comments to give my opinion. Reporting is to report. The commons are the commons. I'm kind of surprised that people have been posting reactions, which knocks a little wind out of my sails on that front, but I still don't think it's very inviting.

Well, frankly, I've found their entire performance here as uninviting as I could imagine. I mean I'm not even married to the MUSH format (I started in a heavily-modified Diku and have played loads of games with heavy automation) and I find their approach here so fucking grating I want nothing to do with them. And I'm their target market (unlike hardcore MUSHers).

He we are about 360 messages deep and the fact that their approach isn't working here is so painfully clear that my seven year old son could figure it out. And yet, when faced with this, their reaction is to double-down and try harder.

We really need an "ignore thread" paired with an "ignore user" feature in this board…

[Lithium]

@Alzie Not going to happen. @Thenomain was right when he said I was kidding when I said I didn't know why, I do know why. It's because every single post I see on this thread from @Jeshin and @crayon always seem to be the same old tired stuff consisting of 'Look how cool we are, you want to be like us, you want to read our opinions on gaming and you want to follow them religiously. Why? Because we said so and we have a site and that makes us cooler than you.'

THAT is how it reads to me, and that is why I don't care to look at their articles, because the very presentation on this site is that it is their intention to /replace us/ with their own site.

It's like we don't know how to think, and must think along the same lines as they when it comes to our hobby.

We're /never/ all going to get along about any one thing, and there is no way to pander to everyone. It's impossible to do with human nature being what it is and it seems to me that they don't want to believe that they aren't the next best thing since sliced bread to gaming.

[surreality]

@crayon said:

What I don't much care for is debating something where I think both perspectives are equally valid, but have a personal preference one way or the other, because it doesn't really accomplish anything.

And there, in a nutshell, is your problem. That's more or less our specialty in these parts. If there is one thing this group can do, it's fine-grain shit right to death. (Dead horse beating is how we make sure our parties have a good rhythm goin' at all times.)

The reason debate's been tepid at best here is because most of the criticism has been founded on the basis of this 'Us vs. Them' mentality or a 'MUSH vs. MUD' grounding rather than on actual ideas themselves. And I don't really care to debate that because I honestly don't really care about that contention.

See, this would be a lot easier to believe if you didn't haul out what follows, because it rather proves the disingenuous nature of that remark; it goes from being 'to each their own' to 'this is beneath our lofty notice'. Observe the bolded portion as to why.

Most 'criticisms' tend to turn into a circular debate that routes right back to our site's criteria for community games, particularly the requirement for automation which I think Jeshin and I have both made a pretty lengthy effort at explaining to satisfaction. If you're adamantly against automated arbitration and decision of in-game outcomes (eg. coded combat, automated dice rolls, etc.) or you're completely against permanent death you're probably not our target audience. And that's okay, games and players of games that aren't our target audience are still perfectly valid.

Most of the games discussed here absolutely have permanent death (more, I would say, on average, than MUDs do, apparently, from the discussion here about respawns). Coded combat? Some do, most don't. Automated dice rolls? Almost every game has them; whether they're a requirement or not varies, many games do require them. (Note: the people you're arguing with coded the ones in the broadest use at the moment, so far as I know.) Some have automation for travel, for healing, hell, Firan apparently had code to tell you when you needed to pee or take a bath. If that isn't automation to the point of absurdity, I don't know what is.

This all does not appear to be sinking in, which is rather mind-boggling.

And because that's not sinking in, the fundamental assumption here becomes problematic. The fundamental assumption is your advice will apply to any game that fits the criteria you've laid out. This is more or less a failure to understand the most basic of scientific principles here; you're trying to keep the theory intact by discarding outliers by insisting they can't fit the criteria, but the basis of this discard process is predicated on the basis of: 'because if it fit our criteria, our advice would apply'.

This is a failure of logic.

I bitch endlessly about the tragic lack of self-awareness being a common thing in this particular hobby, but I suppose it's one more thing that we can be said to share across the great divide. So that's a thing? Yay?

[Thenomain]

I think this has changed slightly since last I looked, so here I archive OR's main page, what I'm calling its Charter. I expect at least one exploding brain:

Optional Realities is a community and design blog for text-based, online Roleplaying Games, with a focus on character and story-driven games that include permanent character death as a feature. While many call this genre of game an RPI (Roleplaying-Intensive Game), Optional Realities is dedicated to all text-based Roleplaying Games of this nature, whether they be MUDs, or MOOs, or MUXs, or MUSHes, or RPIs, or any of the other sub-genres that we've divided ourselves into over the years.

Optional Realities is a place where we acknowledge that we have a lot more in common than what separates us ... where the greatest minds and stoutest supporters of our community can come together to share ideas on design, writing, and what makes each of our games most meaningful to players. Its contributors are leaders from Roleplaying Games that have been around twenty years, as well as new games currently in development.

Join us in creating a better, more intelligent, more supportive community for our favorite game genre.

[Lithium]

@Thenomain See. I was right all along.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@surreality said:

Most of the games discussed here absolutely have permanent death (more, I would say, on average, than MUDs do, apparently, from the discussion here about respawns). Coded combat? Some do, most don't. Automated dice rolls? Almost every game has them; whether they're a requirement or not varies, many games do require them. (Note: the people you're arguing with coded the ones in the broadest use at the moment, so far as I know.) Some have automation for travel, for healing, hell, Firan apparently had code to tell you when you needed to pee or take a bath. If that isn't automation to the point of absurdity, I don't know what is.

This. @Jeshin and @Crayon's posts don't bother me like they seem to bother other posters, but they do seem to come from a place of dumbness about the medium the people they're talking to play in. Every MUSH I've played on ever has permadeath as you define it. The ones I prefer have dicerolls. I've played on several with combat that was coded to varying degrees. These things aren't revolutionary to the posters here, or to the games they play on. Some like them and others don't, and there've been threads discussing them, in varying degrees of depth, for as long as this board and its previous incarnations have existed. It seems far less like "MUD vs. MUSH" than it does "Our Preferred Type of MUD and What MUSHes Are As We Define Them."

[Jeshin]

Hey,

@Thenomain

I actually updated that document, posted an announcement about the update, and linked it here at the time based off feedback from you. It's in the earlier part of this thread.

[Thenomain]

@Jeshin,
It's true that I can't keep track of everything in the dogpile, though now I vaguely remember it. We'll see if anyone's brains explode from seeing it spelled out. I'm still suspecting yes. Mine may still be one of them. You never know!

edit: Your site has discussed Choose-Your-Own-Adventures, tho they clearly have no permanent character death. That is, I still think your charter is vastly lacking and is applied inconsistently.

[Jeshin]

written by Raphael Osteen (“Jeshin”)

Welcome to the inaugural article of Optional Realities, a text-based RPG community with a focus on heavily roleplay-centric games. My name is Jeshin and I’m the founder of both this community and Project Redshift, which is a science fiction themed text-based RPG currently in development. I say founder of this community, and not owner, because I hope that this community grows and takes on a life of its own — one where every member participates, and contributes to its discussions and goals. For me to do that, you all need to know what the goals and purpose of this website are, thus the topic of this article.

Optional Realities was created to be a community dedicated to text-based RPGs, not just MUDs, or MOOs, or MUXs, or any of the various sub-genres that we’ve divided ourselves into over the years. Our connections page is for any text-based game that is focused primarily on role-play, has coded support for player activities, and includes permanent character death. This shouldn’t be taken as a discouragement to games that do not fit our listing criteria. At the end of the day I think it important that we acknowledge that we have a lot more in common than we have separating us. The community forums are open to anyone and everyone with an opinion or game they would like to share and I strongly encourage anyone reading this to do both.

With that concern in mind, I hope that Optional Realities can help bridge the gap between all of our games and create a home for our genre of text-based RPGs. To help facilitate this the, O.R. team, and leading administration of prominent text-based RPGs, will be producing weekly articles on various topics ranging from role-play, to administrative practices, and even on suggestions on how best to develop your own game. In addition to the weekly articles, the community forums will hopefully be a place of vibrant discussion, and will also allow for promotion of games in their respective sub-forums.

To wrap up, I’d like to introduce the rest of the O.R. team. We’ll begin with Redshift’s Lead Designer and Writer, Donathin Frye, AKA “Jaunt”. His focus will be on game design philosophy, story, and world building. Next is Redshift’s Lead Coder, Faye Yao, AKA “Apollo”, who will be focusing on implementation of game systems and scripting for text-based RPGs. Finally, we have myself, Raphael Osteen, AKA “Jeshin”. I will be focusing on why players unfamiliar with the text-based RPG genre should be playing it. I will also be writing about staffing philosophy and standards. We all hope that our articles are interesting and helpful to you. If you happen to be staff on a text-based RPG, please contact us if you’d like to write an article of your own, or have a sub-forum added to our community. We’d love to include your game if you fit our very loose criteria (roleplay-focused, coded systems, permanent death). As for everyone else, please check back with us soon to read an article by a contributing game’s staff and also Jaunt’s thoughts on Immersive Combat Design in text-based RPGs, and to get a bit of a tease on what our upcoming project, Redshift, is all about.

^ This is the full text of that article.

[Jeshin]

@Thenomain

I have stated dozens of times that the community forums discuss any game(s) that wish to promote themselves and that only, solely, exclusively, and specifically is our partnership with games for linkbacks and a sub-forum saddled with a filtering criteria. Any MUSH should and could go to the other games thread and post up right now. They could go start discussions about topics they feel are under represented on the website and people would participate with them.

The surprise at games being discussed shouldn't be a surprise at all!

EDIT - I mean go look at the Other Games thread, I love promoting Knee Deep because it was made by a member of the text-based gaming community (Brody from Otherspace) and it's a telltale like adventure game. http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=211.0

[Thenomain]

@Jeshin said:

I have stated dozens of times that the community forums discuss any game(s) that wish to promote themselves and that only, solely, exclusively, and specifically is our partnership with games for linkbacks and a sub-forum saddled with a filtering criteria.

Now that I have your Charter in text, let me cut down the chaff of the first sentence:

Optional Realities is a [...] blog for [...] Games [...] that include permanent character death as a feature.

This is the first sentence. You are saying, above, that this is not true, that you're for whatever, except when you're not, which is a far more understandable perspective to run your personal site on.

You and @crayon are dancing around this because you don't want to address it. You say it's because you don't think it's a big deal, but you keep dancing putting us in the interesting position of having you give this criticism power.

I think if you stuck to your initial post (the one you quote, above), I wouldn't be complaining.

---

I'm glad to see the Connections page finally got a criteria bit:

Games looking to be added to our connections page, we do have some criteria for you. If you don’t meet this criteria than you are more than welcome to advertise and participate in the community forums. The connections page is meant to provide a selection of games which offer a consistent approach to text-based gaming.

Just to say, "more than welcome" and "feel free" are left-handed complements. They sound nice but they are generally taken as "welcome to second place". It's certain to get under the skin of people who don't agree with you.

"The connections page is meant to provide a selection of games which offer a consistent approach to text-based gaming" is an outright manipulation. "Curation" does not mean "quality" or even "consistency". You spell out your criteria and that's enough; don't imply that your criteria means anything more than what it is.

---

More head-exploding later.

[Jeshin]

@Thenomain

Once again I stated publicly here that we would include the criteria on the connections page after you stated it should be included. I gave a timeframe that it would be added and stuck to it. As to the phrasing, I'm probably not going to change it. There is a certain amount of salesmanship going on and yes I know you (most of you?) find it distasteful but it is what it is.

As to welcome too and feel free, that is the blunt truth. I've even gone and pursued some games to have them become members though I'm not doing that any longer. I'm sorry I didn't pursue your game or games that you feel should be on the site but we do have MUDs, MUSHes, and MOOs in our connections page and our sub-forums. We aren't lying. We aren't creating double standards. We are doing exactly what we said we were going to do and when that message has been unclear we've modified it (several times). Truthfully this website has probably been the largest contributor to edits to phrasing, policy, and approach for Optional Realities as we take your guys criticisms and do consider them.

There are at least 4 posts in this thread alone of my publicly announcing a change will occur in x time and that change has occured as promised on schedule.

[Alzie]

@Thenomain Why you bothering brocephus? @jeshin already said all he wants from this thread is to use it like a twitter feed where he announces new posts on his blog.

[Thenomain]

@Jeshin said:

As to welcome too and feel free, that is the blunt truth.

No, no it's not. Connotation is not denotation. It's not whether or not I like it, it's how you present yourself to your readers.

I'm sorry I didn't pursue your game or games that you feel should be on the site but we do have MUDs, MUSHes, and MOOs in our connections page and our sub-forums.

I don't care one bit who you pursue, but I do care about how you approach your target audience.

Now that you admit to smoke-and-mirrors, I'm starting to get over caring how you look while you do it.

We aren't lying. We aren't creating double standards.

You are. You have. Oh you've also told the truth and have been very straightforward, but you've also been conceited and self-aggrandizing against your own stated interests:

I hope that Optional Realities can help bridge the gap between all of our games and create a home for our genre of text-based RPGs.

Do you think you're helping bridge the gap?

Do you care if people here don't?

Honesty is about more than lying. It's also about being true to who you are and what you claim. People will read it and appreciate it, even if they disagree with you about it.

---

I personally think you're insane to consider here a source of anything more than some ideas and some of the worst-case scenario of those ideas. There are good ideas in here, and I won't say whether or not mine are (I don't know), but I will say that you're getting the idea what Soapbox—not Mushing, but our corner of it—is about.

I really do believe that you care about your readership, Jesh, but I'm not the only one here to say you guys come off as aloof and cold about thoughts concerning your project. The count is, what, six? If six people on your own site said you seemed to be acting unreasonable about someone, it would probably register more clearly to you.

---

Oh, and I think both of you should read this article: http://theconversation.com/no-youre-not-entitled-to-your-opinion-9978

I mean this with sincere effort to help, if only to get the use of "opinion" as a statement in defensive argument out of everyone's vocabulary.