Too Much
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So I don't MU anymore. I RP on a GTA RP server these days. It's different in a lot of ways and the same in others.
But this is where it really really differs. I have been at and run events where there's so many people that area of the city is crippled and framerates struggle. We're talking 50-80 people in one spot. But since you can only hear in a limited realistic range you end up with more realistic clusters of people interacting.
I don't miss the days of 'I have to respond to everyone here or else someone might get upset at me' and I love the realism of going 'hey guys I see a friend I'll be right back' and running off to greet that person. You miss out on stuff yes absolutely but it's not in your face that you missed out.
Also scenes don't last twelve hours and it's a million times easier to just bug out.
Big events are one of the things that keeps me in this (still new to me) environment. I had stopped attending them altogether on MUs due to a lack of mental capacity. Now I'm running them again on a regular basis. It's refreshing.
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This caught me, I don't think I've ever seen you throw in a gif. I laughed, good thing its my planning period and no students where in the room (in which case I wouldn't be on-line but still).
Lol. It's rare for sure. Glad to amuse.
Some day, when I have more time and energy, I want to convince you to help me set up an original space fantasy game.
Sounds fun! When I have more spoons I may run another BSGU spinoff. Continue my battlestar expanded universe. Who knows.
Pose order can be useful for async scenes or play-by-post roleplay so I think it has its place, but I just personally don't enjoy it in an immersive roleplay environment.
Pose order is a conundrum for me. I don't like that it slows things down, but at the same time - without it, I have an even harder time holding the threads of conversations. You'll be in the midst of typing up a reply to one thing someone said, then suddenly somebody else replies to them first and the convo goes off on a tangent and your pose no longer makes any sense. So I view it as a necessary evil. Honestly 3-per and free-for-all pose orders just give me a headache and suck the enjoyment right out of a scene.
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Pose order is a conundrum for me. I don't like that it slows things down, but at the same time - without it, I have an even harder time holding the threads of conversations. You'll be in the midst of typing up a reply to one thing someone said, then suddenly somebody else replies to them first and the convo goes off on a tangent and your pose no longer makes any sense. So I view it as a necessary evil. Honestly 3-per and free-for-all pose orders just give me a headache and suck the enjoyment right out of a scene.
Sorry to hear that, but yeah, I can see where you're coming from. I guess it really is a personal preference sort of thing. I tend to write short, interruptable emotes when I'm in a non-pose-order situation. It just feels more like normal conversation to me, but the thing that is lacking in a text interface is ... seeing that someone else is in the middle of talking. Maybe someday a mud client will be developed that shows when someone else is typing -- dialogue, not action.
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the thing that is lacking in a text interface is ... seeing that someone else is in the middle of talking. Maybe someday a mud client will be developed that shows when someone else is typing -- dialogue, not action.
This seems possible.
There are ways this could be coded, but the way it's done could also be handled via (spammy) OOC messages, possibly combined with pose guidelines.
I think it could be done and used for some scenes, but I don't think most players would like it, as most things I can think of require them to add something to a pose to indicate how it can or should be responded to in terms of interruptions, and changes in pose order.
Is anyone interested in this topic as its own thread?
I have a waggish sense of humor.
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@misadventure I am, I have often thought that just a mechanic like on Discord that says 'someone is typing' would be helpful for any number of reasons.
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@misadventure said in Too Much:
Is anyone interested in this topic as its own thread?
It's not really possible with current MU clients and servers - would require code changes on both sides to add support. But certainly happy to discuss further in a separate thread if desired.
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I recall @tangent used to do massive scenes on some of the games we were on together, but broke them up into different rooms and ran them concurrently. They were comic games, so it would typically be one group of heroes punching the Big Bad Robot guy while another group dealt with a bunch of smaller robot minions and a third rescued civilians or whatever. All the rooms would get the same emit about big things going on, but each would ALSO get individualized poses about the results of the heroes' efforts...
Not really a take on how much is Too Much, but man was it impressive to watch.
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Not really a take on how much is Too Much, but man was it impressive to watch.
I think it completely plays into the consideration of 'it depends'. If someone, like @tangent, can run a few small scenes to break up the groups, then that helps with making the players feel more impactful in what they're doing in their scene over hoping they don't get missed in a large scene.
@Misadventure mentioned breaking off thread for something to show like typing, but part of it goes back to management. I wonder if more folks who play via the web portal on Ares can speak on whether it helps or hinders managing multiple scenes. The notification box from Ares vs the flashing in older Mu*s.
Its a lot of work on older clients, but I remember being able to fork conversations/poses to different windows on the client side through events. It was clunky, but I could see that being similar. ONe event window as "Scene 1, Robot Fight" and another as 'Scene 2, Destroying the Shield Generator" and such. Real tanget, using multiple windows in one client in the 90s was useful for in depth simulators like battletech mux with a map window, a hex window, a heat/armor window, a coms window, etc.
I'm just a surge protector doing my job, sir.
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My personal take on organizing poses would not be "X is typing". That tells a group almost nothing, and it would require coding before it could be tried out.
I see it as more of a culture change. And the biggest one I could think of would be having poses cover a short amount of actions or words, so people can react, specifically if that reaction would interrupt the ongoing flow of the poser. So someone who "has the floor" might typically offer 1-3 short poses with a quick round of "reactions anyone?" then communicate they yield the floor.
I can imagine a whole overlaying pose routing system, but the simple raise hand tool in meeting software barely changes anything, so again I doubt people would be comfortable or happier using anything regimented.
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@lotherio It helps me, and I've done it, but it depends on the scene.
Multiscening is miserable for me if I'm trying to run coded combat. It's fine for me if I'm doing up to 3 small freeform scenes that are mostly centered around 'same conflict, different parts of the map.' 4 is pushing it and I'll feel fried at night's end. But I have to be in the zone to do it at all, lots of energy and momentum and engagement from players, rested and fed and happy. Otherwise I'm best sticking to GMing one scene. I can GM one and play one no problem. I can do two non-GM'd scenes in two windows no problem, especially if they're moving at different paces.
In my younger days, lol...I could do all sorts of shit. Six windows with 7 players each and lots of insanity reigning? No problem! Let me just enter a sort of mania-trance-state and ride the high, I've got this! But these days that would be a recipe for disaster.
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For me, whether big scenes are too much depends on the game I'm playing. I used to think they were horrible, but when I hopped into another game I realised they're great. It came down to game design and culture.
Game #1 was a game where everyone typed slower and adhered strictly to turn order. Every single emote had a response to everyone else in the scene, it was chaotic and nonsensical. Nothing ever got done.
Game #2 automatically forced players to split into groups when the scene got too large. There was no cultural pressure to follow turn order, people just cut in with quips whenever it felt appropriate. Emotes usually focus on one thing instead of trying to address every little thing going on. Scenes moved fast, stuff happened, actual stuff other than hi/bye.
It took some watching and learning, but adjusting my playstyle to not be so rigid helped immensely.
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It came down to game design and culture.
I think you're right, this is what it comes down too.
Know, I like smaller scenes. I'm Dyslexic, when there are 10 people going I can get lost in the scene. I have done the thing where you force a client to highlight when your name shows up on screen and even then, I still feel lost. I understand some folks can't easily engage in a large scene.
That said, I completely concur, the necessity to respond to every prior pose in a strict pose order does slow things down. As you suggest, its part of the culture and learning that one doesn't need to respond to all prior 10 people that poses is essential to getting into the flow of 3pr and such.
The design part sounds good, but can it be forced? We can have things like places so that the trio of three friends don't keep posing with each other each time someone else poses to help them have their personal conversation amidst the large scene without making it too difficult for slower people, but can it be forced. Is there a better design to help filter the groups conversing/interacting between their friends to do so in a less distracting manner? I can think of ways to do it old school in a client for me running a large scene like a battle but splitting up the fighter group from the help the civilians escape group by sending certain peoples poses to other windows on my client if I need too. Is there some way to do it code wise by having an area emit and a local emit - at the celebratory feast, I can pose as Sir Brastias telling a story to the table he's at during the feast but he can stand up for the boisterous punchline in an area emit to everyone at the feast.
Just thoughts on helping build culture/design, I could be completely wrong or in left field by myself. Just thoughts that come to mind.
I'm just a surge protector doing my job, sir.
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Just thoughts on helping build culture/design, I could be completely wrong or in left field by myself.
Preferences based on experience, personality, or other traits are never wrong. Caring about other players, empathizing with their limitations and/or needs, and adjusting accordingly is far more important in a game's culture, and I don't think that can be legislated or coded.
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As you suggest, its part of the culture and learning that one doesn't need to respond to all prior 10 people that poses is essential to getting into the flow of 3pr and such.
I agree with you, but I think it goes beyond everyone thinking they need to respond to all 10 people, and more into everyone just paying attention to what's already going on and responding accordingly. Conversations are woven together in a really bizarre fashion, and that's definitely a cultural thing.
Is there a better design to help filter the groups conversing/interacting between their friends to do so in a less distracting manner?
This was something I spent a lot of time on when designing Ares, seeing if it was possible to design a better 'places' system. To be honest, I came up empty. When you consider that the scene needs to feed into a single text log at the end, and that people might flit between places and be at least peripherally aware of what's going on at the others (i.e., those guys are laughing in the corner, that table is having some raised voices, etc.)... it becomes difficult to truly isolate things.
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This was something I spent a lot of time on when designing Ares, seeing if it was possible to design a better 'places' system. To be honest, I came up empty.
On Liberation, there was a codebit that would allow participants in a room to characterize a scene there as Green, Yellow, or Red. If the scene is Green, then anyone can see the poses made. If the scene is Yellow, then the participants there are visible, but their poses are kept between them. If the scene is Red, I think the limits of Yellow exist, and also no one else can pose in that place (or something like that). I think Thenomain may have coded it, as I believe he helped set the place up. Not sure how it works.
The only suggestion I could give for "places" is something similar. If you are at a place, then rather than using a code like 'tt', your default pose, emit, or ooc command would only be seen by folks in the same place; if you wanted to pose/emit/ooc to others in the room, you would have to use a separate code. Would make it a little easier for new folks to get used to using "places". If you add something like the Red flag, then I guess you could limit poses to a certain few folks, with no one else able to interject, but allowing them to still pose at their place normally.
I don't know if any of this is feasible.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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The only suggestion I could give for "places" is something similar. If you are at a place, then rather than using a code like 'tt', your default pose, emit, or ooc command would only be seen by folks in the same place;
I don't know if any of this is feasible.It’s not that it’s infeasible per se, but when I explored it the cons outweighed the pros. For instance GMs wouldn’t be able to utilize places in their scenes because they couldn’t see what was going on. Historically people are bad at posing out to the world when they’re in a place, giving players no chance to notice the rising tempers at the back table until suddenly the table gets tossed. And it all wrecks havoc on scene logs because everything’s invisible.
So the Ares places system is just informational. You pose as normal, no special commands. All it does is flag your poses as being in a certain place.
Not saying that’s the only way to do it of course. That’s just the way I thought was the simplest and covered the most cases.
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Every single emote had a response to everyone else in the scene, it was chaotic and nonsensical. Nothing ever got done.
I have this habit (trying to respond to everyone), mostly cause I'm really paranoid about making anyone feel left out or ignored, and I am only now starting to realize it could create problems. This is good to know though!
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It’s not that it’s infeasible per se, but when I explored it the cons outweighed the pros. For instance GMs wouldn’t be able to utilize places in their scenes because they couldn’t see what was going on.
What if it was set up in such a way someone set as GM could?
So, similar to the green, yellow, red code @Ganymede referenced. That sounds like the trend to echo everything in certain rooms to outside viewing areas for folks to watch other scenes.
This is just in the traditional sense I suppose. What if I had a room set up as a parent to some child rooms. Feast Hall is set up as the parent of Alcove (room), Side Gallery (room), and Near the Fire (room). Each room is set up to listen and echo everything into the feast hall; but instead it only emits to certain players. If the player is set as staff or has some GM flag/attribute on them, they get everything from each child room while their in the parent room (In the alcove, John's emit. Near the Fire, Janes emit.) Players in the room can have a couple extra commands. Emit/m so they can mutter something that is possible overheard in the parent room while in a child room - like mutter for tt/places. Then they can emit/l for loud emit, emit/l John starts yelling at Jane. There would be some fluidity, every child gets emits from the parent, so folks in a child room would get things from other places. Could add glancing like folks used to look at the next room. While sitting in the Alcove, one could glance/on near the fire to try and see what's going on there and such.
It get's a little clunky maybe, maybe too much commands for some folks to use, but opens up some . But building into the design and trying to make it part of the culture?
That's only from my understanding in traditional soft codes for Mu. I've no idea how it might translate into newer codebases like Ares or Evennia, but I imagine it could translate with some similar code or quick addons?
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My thought on this is basically table talk, but where anyone (or at the very least a GM player) can be at as many places as needed? Like the green/yellow/red idea above, have it switch to a specific command to emit to the entire room.
It could also be looked at as a bunch of channels.
@faraday Do you happen to have or recall a list of the pros and cons for the setups you looked at?
