Codebase

bored

@bored You don't see how a web-based VTT and a free-form story "logger" and platform have anything to do with this? Seriously?

I see how they're vaguely related, in the sense that they're platforms for roleplaying online. But that's like saying a kitchen knife is related to a chainsaw, in the sense that they're both used for cutting things. It's true, but if I ask for something to cut down a tree in my back yard, only one is really relevant to that request. If I'm discussing with chainsaw enthusiasts gas vs. electric chainsaws, it's not terribly helpful for you to hop in and tell me that chainsaws are omg so passe, because some German company is making really great kitchen knives. It kind of just makes you sound like a hipster douchebag infatuated with the newest thing.

The reason people haven't abandoned MU'ing entirely for these other options is because neither roll20 nor Storium offer the style of gaming MU'ers are familiar with, as you say. But the building blocks are there. Storium is lacking in that their system is immutable and the real-time feel is a bit lost in the "post" nature of interaction. As for roll20, it has that real-time component, but little prominence is given to text-based RP and it doesn't do a good job at handling scenes as anything more than one long log.

... right. So why do you think it's relevant? You agree that those things you think obsolete MUs don't actually do any of the things that MUs are or MUers want. It seems like you're treating all roleplayers are some homogeneous mass, and asserting that any roleplaying related tool can replace any other if it's modern and fancy, despite our actual preferences and feature requirements. If anything, the lipstick on a pig line seems a more apt description of Storium, as it's basically something old (play by post) with a slick modern interface.

However, there are people that use roll20 for text-only RP (they have even recognized this by adding a text-only search option for people looking for games). It's basic, really only offering /emit, but it allows people to fold it in with the visuals of a "scene" with the rolling and combat that can accompany any PrP. Storium puts scenes into terrific order and flow and does a good job tracking the components of what could easily constitute any MU scene.

The former sounds an awful lot like AOL chatroom RP. The latter is PbP 2.0. But most MUSH/MUX players have already tried those formats for their RP fix and found MU to be the superior experience. You're literally telling us we should go back to something we already tried and found wanting simply because it's been delivered in a new package.

If people want exactly what they have now, then no, there is nothing that will replace it. If there's something that eventually comes out and offers things like always-on connectivity, flexible enough code to build a game around any theme or setting and the mechanics to play it? I'd certainly move on at that point.

... ok? So if Storium evolves to be something completely different and 100 times more complicated than what it is now, folding in all the MU features it doesn't have, we should move to that. Hopefully it will give out free blowjobs, too.

More realistically, checking in on it again after... 6 months or whatever since the last time I did and seeing only the most minimal and superficial updates? I don't think your optimism for it evolving into something suitable for handling MU-style play is warranted or even remotely realistic.

Evennia, on the other hand... is specifically a project with the goal of recreating a MUSH/MUX like experience and feature set with a modern programming language and other bells and whistles. It already does many of the things we want it to do and is adding features constantly. It seems more like a badass cyborg pig, than one in trashy makeup.

Glitch

@bored said:

It kind of just makes you sound like a hipster douchebag infatuated with the newest thing.

Evennia, on the other hand... is specifically a project with the goal of recreating a MUSH/MUX like experience and feature set with a modern programming language and other bells and whistles. It already does many of the things we want it to do and is adding features constantly.

I assume you're going to tell me, in your analogy, that Evennia is not some hipster German kitchen knife, but is obviously better because it is, in fact, the newest Swedish hatchet that comes free with a stylish beard and fitted plaid?

Your hatred of Storium aside, I never said it was the answer and even specified what I thought were its shortcomings. What I did say, is that it handled a section of storytelling that is important to many in the MU community as evidenced by all the prolific scene logging that happens.

I also specifically said that, The reason people haven't abandoned MU'ing entirely for these other options is because neither roll20 nor Storium offer the style of gaming MU'ers are familiar with. I was even paraphrasing something you said, which makes it all the more troublesome when you choose to overlook, or fail to notice, it.

As I started clarifying further, I noticed I'm starting with "I never said" to another one of your quotes and it's going to start adding up to too many "I never said" and "I specifically said". So let me tl;dr it for you so there's not as much for you to quote and then fail to read:

MU'ing needs an overhaul. Evennia does not go far enough. There are good, if incomplete, ideas in things like Storium and roll20. I sure hope something nifty comes out. The end.

Loki

I rather got the impression that @Glitch was suggesting we should develop something along the lines of roll20/Storium, rather than saying we should use those specific projects. I am pretty sure what he was suggesting is that there are a lot of features which could be made available with a client update, and that I should focus my efforts in those directions.

I think he's correct, but I'm not a client developer, so I'm not gonna do it. The suggestion of rich text and media was a darned good one (although media would be difficult since that introduces the ability to send porn unsolicited, if you're not careful).

Either way, I believe this forum is "Mildly Constructive" so can we move off the client code discussion and back to the constructive topic I asked for? You wanna fight about client codes, go somewhere else. I am still interested in hearing more responses like @Misadventure's.

Glitch

@Loki
You're right on both counts, so more constructively, I feel like individual scripting by players should be a low priority. What I would be looking for in a new codebase is the following:

JSON: I know you said it's just an implementation detail, but I think it needs to be an early and deeply embedded adoption
Pluginable: Modules, plugins, leaves, whatever you want to call them. It should allow installation, activation and prioritization of plugins. This could take some of the burden of work off you if this is baked in from the beginning. It will also encourage the sharing of code (for boards/jobs/rollers/whatever). It might be cool if there was a "settings" page for each of these modules that allowed for custom settings (created by the plugin writer) that could be stored and made use of on load-out.
Message/Command routing: It would take care of all the detail involved in routing commands through a:

{
  "cmd": "(command route naming)", 
  "opts": "(info passed from client and passed through to command)", 
  "req": "(originator, location, targets?, req chain for plugin bubbling)", 
  "res": "(response chain for plugin bubbling)"
}

Socket Wrapper: I think it's necessary to support websockets, especially if you want to see better clients.
Security: A big category, I know, but things like message/command authentication, sanitization for outgoing messages/commands, perhaps some sort of generic acl functionality that plugins can make use of.

I think those would be the minimum features necessary for a first release.

Derp

So @loki, I guess my biggest question about Evennia as it relates to a Mu experience is thus:

What would prevent someone with a knowledge of python from writing their own softcode style things to use in the Evennia platform like MUSH currently uses softcode?

I have no knowledge of python. But before I started this hobby a year ago, I also had no knowledge of mushcode. Or, well, MUX in this specific case, because I think that of the two games I've played on, they both use Mux, so that's what I learned. Is there some reason that players would not be able to use that code in the same way to create their own little bells and whistles? Because if that could be implemented, then I would darn sure take a look at it, but the fact that I can mess around with codey things to make my own tools/shortcuts is one of the big draws of MUX for me, even as complicated as it is.

bored

@Glitch said:

@bored said:

It kind of just makes you sound like a hipster douchebag infatuated with the newest thing.

Evennia, on the other hand... is specifically a project with the goal of recreating a MUSH/MUX like experience and feature set with a modern programming language and other bells and whistles. It already does many of the things we want it to do and is adding features constantly.

I assume you're going to tell me, in your analogy, that Evennia is not some hipster German kitchen knife, but is obviously better because it is, in fact, the newest Swedish hatchet that comes free with a stylish beard and fitted plaid?

Well, you're already confused. The !MUs were the knives, and the MUs were chainsaws! Evennia is explicitly MU-like, and thus a new chainsaw. Whether it's ultimately going to replace anything, I have no idea (the original discussion about softcode is still relevant). But you cannot argue that it's not based on modern libraries or doesn't provide some interesting features (the twisted game-to-web stuff). It is, as a matter of fact, a new kind of chainsaw.

Better? I have no idea, that seemed like the point of discussion... until your 'all chainsaws are lame, we should really be using knives' bit, which seemed highly dismissive, to say nothing more about the value of those specific platforms.

Your hatred of Storium aside,

I don't hate Storium, and I'm even willing to bet I spent more time with it than you did, along with several other MU people who all went to try it out together. It's a well-organized play by post with a light resolution system with no customization. But it had all sorts of problems, and many of them seemed quite particular to not having the kind of robust OOC arena a MU does. In the end, most games I saw died of inactivity and the people went back to MUs or other things. And glancing at it now, the number of games looks waaay down. So it doesn't even seem that successful in its own niche.

So, with no snark intended, I just don't grok how it's a prototype for anything. What in it is actually worth adopting? Surely not the resolution system, nor the inability to handle parallel scenes or locations, nor the very limited capacity for out-of-game communication, organization, and so on. Is there some technical point that I'm missing? (It didn't seem like it, as it still had most of the usual browser limitations, refreshing pages to see new posts etc). Nothing about it seemed very new other than it having a slick design, but that's just lipstick, to use your parlance.

As I started clarifying further, I noticed I'm starting with "I never said" to another one of your quotes and it's going to start adding up to too many "I never said" and "I specifically said". So let me tl;dr it for you so there's not as much for you to quote and then fail to read:

MU'ing needs an overhaul. Evennia does not go far enough. There are good, if incomplete, ideas in things like Storium and roll20. I sure hope something nifty comes out. The end.

That's a much more palatable rewrite of your initial comment. I don't think it really represents the spirit of the initial 'lipstick on a pig' line, but I'm not gonna quibble beyond that. I am very curious what some of these good, incomplete ideas are, or at least, the MU-applicable ones, because there seems to be a lack of specifics on that front and it really doesn't jive with my impression of those platforms (to be clear, I have no issues with roll20, I just don't see how it's MU-relevant).

Thenomain

roll20 API to a Mu* interface, side-by-side == I'll be in my bunk.

Storium harkens more to where we came from, when we were essentially turning the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books into a multi-billion dollar computer game genre. They're going back to the books, taking cues from the Fallen London engine, and mixing up something new.

I don't know where this ~~pissing match~~ disagreement of ideas came from, but I found invoking both "roll20" and the "Storium" to be along a path more right than Evennia. I will let the server nerds argue server shortcomings.