Kinds of Mu*s Wanted

Arkandel · Dec 4, 2015, 4:20 PM

For players who might have a better idea than I do, what would you say the impact of movies and TV series is - the big expensive, well advertised properties - on MU*, both in terms of new games being created or them attracting players?

For instance in the last few years we've had a major resurgence of superhero titles, are there more games based on them as a result? Are existing ones more active on average?

Alternatively... The Force Awakens will also be a smash hit blockbuster of a movie but do you think it'll result in games ran in its new future setting? Are current Star Wars games currently considering a switch (even if they can't do it yet since we don't know what the story is yet)?

I'm curious.

ThatGuyThere · Dec 4, 2015, 4:33 PM

Not sure on star Wars since my few mushing attempts at it usually ended with me getting real bored real quick.
For superheros I definitely think it has lead to more games, at least games being created. Most do not find a real player base and then end up ending fairly quickly as well, same could be said about any genre but Superhero in particular seems to have a faster life cycle then say WoD games from what I have seen.
As far as activities on individual games that has stayed the same for the most part, Superheros games do have a lot of sitting around oc til someone runs things but most people are ready and willing to rp if it gets mentioned, compared to WoD there the ooc room dwellers are less numerous but usually permanent residents.

Coin · Dec 4, 2015, 5:04 PM

@ThatGuyThere said:

Not sure on star Wars since my few mushing attempts at it usually ended with me getting real bored real quick.
For superheros I definitely think it has lead to more games, at least games being created. Most do not find a real player base and then end up ending fairly quickly as well, same could be said about any genre but Superhero in particular seems to have a faster life cycle then say WoD games from what I have seen.
As far as activities on individual games that has stayed the same for the most part, Superheros games do have a lot of sitting around oc til someone runs things but most people are ready and willing to rp if it gets mentioned, compared to WoD there the ooc room dwellers are less numerous but usually permanent residents.

It is a lot easier to run things in consent-based games. It's also very easy to make a game when it doesn't require stats (especially coded stats) and when your characters are already largely well-known properties.

I can make a superhero game in a month; it took like eight to make Eldritch.

Wizz · Dec 4, 2015, 9:13 PM

@Usekh said:

@Wizz said:

ECLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPSE PHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASEEEEEEEEE

pls

So much this. I have only recently been introduced to the glory of Eclipse Phase and so much

Seriously. I just read through it again and I want this so bad it hurts me in my soul. I'd pay to host this, if any of you wacky coders want to make my dream come true of having a place where you can play an uzi-toting cyborg octopus on Mars.

Roz · Dec 4, 2015, 9:20 PM

@Arkandel When I staffed on X-Men Movieverse for several years, we used to actually have conversations when a new X-Men movie was coming up. They 100% caused a surge in interest and applicants.

Arkandel · Dec 4, 2015, 9:22 PM

@Roz Were you ever tempted to advance/alter the game's timeline to match that of a movie? I wonder if that's ever happened on an existing, running game.

Usekh · Dec 4, 2015, 9:31 PM

@Wizz said:

@Usekh said:

@Wizz said:

ECLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPSE PHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASEEEEEEEEE

pls

So much this. I have only recently been introduced to the glory of Eclipse Phase and so much

Seriously. I just read through it again and I want this so bad it hurts me in my soul. I'd pay to host this, if any of you wacky coders want to make my dream come true of having a place where you can play an uzi-toting cyborg octopus on Mars.

Apparently there is a coded place out there, but has been abandoned

Roz · Dec 4, 2015, 9:31 PM

@Arkandel XMM started back in like 2001 initially, so only the very first FOX X-Men movie was ever true canon. (I wasn't on the game for the whole time -- I was there for a couple years at the very start, wandered away from MU*s for a while, and then came back in 2009 until the game closed in -- what, 2012 I think?) I think I was gone before X2 came out.

Short answer is: not really. Definitely not alter existing canon. Crib cool ideas from the movies? 100%. I'm a firm believer that if you're setting a game in the continuity of an existing universe, you mark a point of divergence and you go AU 100%. You use stuff that comes out afterwards if you want to and if it fits, but you never go "oh this new canon doesn't match what we already did on the game, let's change the game after the fact." So XMM did some Stryker stuff, but they didn't overhaul things that had already been established in the internal game canon.

Arkandel · Dec 4, 2015, 9:40 PM

@Roz Interesting! At least the playerbase was willing to be flexible about it.

I was playing on a Wheel of Time MUD back when the original series was still ongoing (and Robert Jordan was still alive); this presented us with some unique challenges since there were unanswered questions quite relevant to theme ('who is a Darkfriend?') and either had to make a call about it either way - and risk diverging from the books' plot - or somehow maintaining the ambiguity.

The former wasn't as easy as it sounds due to the butterfly effect and many players were hardcore about staying true to the official plot. Deviations were... difficult to introduce, so sometimes we were forced to work around such bottlenecks - they even affected mechanics in many ways. For example it wasn't until later books that it was established whether a Warder's bond could be dissolved while his Aes Sedai was still alive or if, once bonded, you could never not be bonded again, and attempts to settle the matter for just the MU* were very tricky.

Roz · Dec 4, 2015, 9:46 PM

Yeah, I imagine that'd be trickier, because in a series like that with an overarching plot and mysteries, there's probably going to be interest in maintaining that canon. Superhero movies are much different beasts and don't tend to have as much dense canon mystery as a series like that.

I'm staff now on a Transformers game based on a really awesome ongoing comic that is more like that: it's got a long arc metaplot and is really dense with the details and mysteries. We keep comic events in mind for our plotting, but there's just no way we'd be able to wait on all the answers unless we put the game on hold for another couple years and wait for the series to hit 100 issues. (Which the writer has said is how long his initial plan is for.) Sometimes there's totally room to incorporate new events in a similar way, because we haven't established anything to the contrary and it's just a new story to add. Sometimes we make new stories and maybe that ends up different in the comics, but oh well.

Wizz · Dec 4, 2015, 10:02 PM

@Usekh

Maybe I can hunt them down and talk about gorillas in space until they throw the codebase at me

Usekh · Dec 5, 2015, 12:58 AM

@Wizz Uplifted Ravens hackers

OrcRiot · Dec 5, 2015, 1:22 AM

What's this Eclipse Phase thingy everyones talking about?

ThatGuyThere · Dec 5, 2015, 2:22 AM

Trans human sci fi game. Really you should check it out Back book is free on the games website, can't beat the price

Usekh · Dec 5, 2015, 3:47 AM

https://robboyle.wordpress.com/eclipse-phase-pdfs/

Creative commons license.

Jennkryst · Dec 19, 2015, 9:27 PM

Re: Eclipse Phase: Dooo eeet. I'd staff and do an absurd amount of the the +myjob work. I will do double the absurd amount of +myjob work if we can magically include us some flying spaceships. Possibly flying morphs, as well.

Re: Star Wars: It's weird. I know Age of Alliances has fast forwarded to Ep 7, but they want to include as much of their post Ep 6 RP as possible, but have been wishy-washy on doing it all. Granted, the movie did literally just come out, so now that the Headwiz has seen it, maybe it'll get sorted out better. Generations of Darkness is up in the air, since it's a game set during the dark times pre-Ep 4. I really, really want to try to get a Fantasy Flight-style mush up and running, but I would need someone to teach me how to code or to bribe a coder (more likely that, honestly). Also with space flying zoom zoom pew pew. Because SPACE.

golgoth · Dec 19, 2015, 10:58 PM

Fading Suns + Eclipse Phase. I see FS is out, all I need is my EP fix!

OrcRiot · Dec 21, 2015, 3:30 AM

I'm still waiting on mudhost to get back to me, I'm guessing the holidays are holding him over. But I really want a fallout game and the lack of one is making consider using the server to try and develop one....Though as a staff member I'd find it hard to play, so I hope someone else makes one soon...

SG · Dec 22, 2015, 5:40 PM

North Korea: The Mush might be a fun one. You could run it like Paranoia. It might also be an amazing setting for Vampire. Somehow the hunters have cornered all the vampires in that tiny sliver of land.

Cirno · Dec 22, 2015, 5:57 PM

Something with more black people in it.