Posts made by Apos

@aria Ultimately there has to be a lot of sinks, but I want them to be interesting ones that people might find fun. So sure, let me talk a bit about what I have in mind and I'm tweaking.

So about prestige becoming relevant, essentially prestige is going to be significant in most interactions with NPCs, and particularly leaders. It will be a modifier to income, and it will be a modifier for any character on the amount of resources they generate. So, for leaders in particular, it will become a chase stat, even if other characters uninvolved in running orgs might opt out and largely ignore it, since their interactions with NPCs in any kind of automated way is probably a lot less frequent. Similarly, commands to permanently increase domain statistics (and thereby raise income), will also heavily play off character skills and their prestige. Economics, stewardship, propaganda, war, agriculture for example would be significant. The actual domain skills I kinda despise from an implementation perspective and will likely be reworked, because dunking resources in them for a flat mod is terrible from a design perspective.

Prestige itself is being broken up into three parts. Legend (an extremely hard to generate pool that does not decay normally), Fame (what will actually be raised, and raised quickly, but will decay very significantly every chron), and Grandeur (a percentage of prestige gained from assocations, such as family, patrons, orgs, etc). Almost all of the new prestige gain mechanics will be focused around fame, and be individual minigames, and the social skilled characters will be very, very good at them. Donate reworked, praise reworked, event prestige reworked, all the current options reworked with significantly more new ones, such as a fashion minigame, and eventually things like performances, champion duels and so on all being potential prestige gain options. The goal, ultimately, will be to have enough of a spread where at least some prestige orientated options someone will find fun and engaging, and failing that, at least being able to get the help from social characters or other PCs that do, and someone could keep a significantly high prestige in grandeur due to the association with people that are engaged.

Now, aside from that, I'm going to be making AP into a much more of an economic model than it is now, by creating org pools that can be generated by social characters and then traded/given away, and making a lot more consistent and spread out costs, so characters working on building orgs will be able to engage in more avenues to increase them, particularly with the help of social characters. That does mean that the vast majority of minigame type stuff will have AP costs.

Resource wise, I think that it just needs a lot more avenues to generate it in ways that make characters feel significant and that their skills matter. So the task rework is one, running off character skills. Characters being able to barter at the market is another, and trying to get good deals at them, or just gambling AP to try to turn a profit if they roll well.

Ultimately, the intention is to have a number of characters all specialized in their areas be able to contribute meaningful to developing orgs, or just in pursuing fun minigames that interest them, and generate RP.

@packrat said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

One of the annoying peeves I always had with the code on Arx was that +task/work was not automatic if you end the week with unused task supports, you could actually miss out on not insignificant income/resources through forgetting or not realizing you could spam a command a couple of times on a Sunday.

Yeah, I get that it's annoying.

The issue is I really do not want any kind of passive income tied to characters, because it really creates dinosaur issues with inflation a lot more than people would expect. But what I dislike about task work is it really doesn't engage someone at all, there's no feeling of satisfaction at remembering to do it or anything like that.

So in the rework, task/work is still as simple of a code run, but it has an AP cost, and it has a skill check based on the type of work someone is doing, and is modified further by social skills and prestige and so on, and it might feel more meaningful. I think generally speaking, I want to replace anything that feels rote with something that has choices, however simple, since I think that is more likely to feel satisfying or meaningful.

@surreality said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

Going to mention my long-standing request again: a constructive dedicated dev section for brainstorming and games in development. This isn't the same thing as constructive generally, and I really would like to see it get a home. I genuinely think it would be a net positive for the forum. It'd be useful for startups, idea pitches, and existing games looking at adding new systems they want brainstorming and such for.

I'd really, really like to see this. Add about forty more 'really's there.

It would be cool to be able to post, 'Hey I would like to try X' without getting like, a barrage of how much that idea sucks and 20 posts about people bitching why won't someone make Y or Z instead until the original poster flees in terror. Like, I get the whole, 'Well they wouldn't have made a game anyways' but I dunno if 'game design by hazing' is really all that productive.

I'm not above anyone humming loudly and pretending the code doesn't exist either if that's not their jam, but hopefully I can keep trying to get it more intuitive and friendly as time goes on.

I don't think splitting threads that are going off on long tangents or dominating a conversation is that big a deal. I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't care if something I posted got split into its own thread or whatever.

So why not an inverse Hog Pit that's also opt in, but extremely heavily moderated and posts have to be in a respectful and civil way, with courtesy and care to avoid starting arguments?

Call it Theorycrafting for Mu Nerds, or Ostensibly Positive, or The MSB Demilitarized Zone or whatever, and just specifically state no snark, vaguebooking, venting, rudeness, shade thrown on the sly, whatever. Moderate it incredibly heavily, and just delete rather than move anything that even is vaguely annoying or could even in the most remote way be considered insulting.

Like the base tone of the MSB is pretty snarky outside the Hog Pit. That just doesn't work great for keeping threads free of people losing their shit because how dare someone impugn their MU honor or whatever. Yeah I mean the last couple pages have been pretty much, 'So Nemesis and 4chan trolls should be banned faster', and sure yeah why not, but it doesn't really do much for the future. Otherwise it's pretty much setting yourself up for some people to say, 'Hey you guys need to moderate people that upset me outside the Hog Pit, but all my own posts are totally fine since I'm an angelic scholar free from the sins of the world. Btw do this flawlessly and for free.'

@faraday said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@apos said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

And people wanna post their random flyby criticisms and throw shade without it ever being thrown at them so I dunno how you do that and make a healthy environment that allows people to talk about flaws in games or people without it becoming personal.

Uh... by not throwing shade? I mean, not all criticism has to be rendered with a sledgehammer, right? You can say "I don't like something" without turning it into a personal attack like "I don't like this thing you built and I think you're dumb for having built it and ZOMG can't you even see how dumb this is what's the matter with you?" There are things in this hobby that are objectively horrible and probably don't deserve kid gloves, but the vast majority of these flamefests are over disagreements as trivial as whether somebody likes chocolate or vanilla.

Yeah I agree completely but I think in order to do that the mods would have to be really proactive about snipping things that are provocative without even meaning to be in order to keep it civil. Like for example, someone could say, 'I don't like softcode'. Fine, okay. No one would object to that. Then how about, 'Softcode is stupid, it should not be used anymore. I can't believe anyone would seriously do it with the options available. The 90s called, they want their code back.' Now that's getting provocative, and it's phrased in a way that's combative. That's not a personal attack, but of course some people would take it personally, and it's understandable if they do. The problem is that I think people would only be chill with moderating the really, really egregious things that go miles past that, and that over the top stuff only happens when someone is crazy (hi @Nemesis ) or long after the first mild provocations spiraled into that, and it would have to be snipped earlier to keep things civil imo.

I've never really noticed any significant difference in the hogpit and outside of it, and don't tend to notice where the threads are. Tbh to me the tone is the same, and the only difference is whether a thread is talking about something people feel strongly about or not.

Like any criticisms are going to become personal because of the nature of our hobby. All of us are creators, whether it's RP or games or code or whatever. And most people don't take criticisms of their creations or behavior so great, so pretty much any negative commentary about anything is going to swerve to the personal unless someone takes unbelievable pains to be gentle.

A lot of the advertisement threads follow this formula:

"Hi check out our game." "I tried it but the people there suck." "No maybe you suck." "No u"

And people wanna post their random flyby criticisms and throw shade without it ever being thrown at them so I dunno how you do that and make a healthy environment that allows people to talk about flaws in games or people without it becoming personal.

@botulism When it comes to effort and overcoming adversity in pretendy fun times, most people buckle like a belt.

@faraday said in Real life versus online behaviors:

@arkandel said in Real life versus online behaviors:

On a MUSH or even MSB the pool is so much smaller, and possessing a recognizable identity is super important - your reputation matters, which is one of the reasons being an oldbie often conveys advantages either formally or otherwise.

I don’t think it matters as much as you think in some respects. I mean, how long did people play on Serenity? Or that crazy pants supers game that had a gazillion flamey posts here? Have hog pit posts really cost anyone RP?

MU players are shockingly tolerant to bad behavior. There’s also the illusion at least of being able to start fresh because we have no global screennames or other player identity. (And it may in part account for why so many MU players are resistant to such identity tracking.)

The reaction in most cases is just to be more insular, rather than actually confronting the bad behavior. So even when there are consequences, you don’t get the “you’re a jerk so I’m not going to play with you” feedback.

Yeah I think most MU players are really tolerant of it happening around them and extremely intolerant of it happening directly to them or close friends. I don't personally think Spider or Custodius are particularly bad comparatively to a lot of people, but they are so omnipresent that they are unavoidable in ways most people just normally ignore from everyone else.

I separate it into two different categories. If someone is really out of step with how seriously everyone else takes a game or event or something, and also would not feel bad if his or her own behavior was inflicted on them in turn because they don't take it seriously, I don't see that as a big deal. It's just being step and maybe a bad fit, but they would be okay with someone paying them in kind. This is like the playful shit talk people give one another, when they are fine with people bantering right back at them. That I don't judge that harshly.

But if someone would really NOT be okay with their own behavior being given back to them, and is using the anonymity of the internet to act terribly with no consequences, yeah... don't trust that person. That's who they really are imo.

I don't think there's any kind of rules there, people have way different goals and kinds of games they want to run. And a lot will approach stuff in stages. Like, we need X code and theme done before we start, then ideally Y done before we really get going, and Z somewhere in a nebulous future. I just think people get tripped up when they aren't realistic about what they want to have done or the work that it takes to get there, whether it's code or story.

I think restarts are very rarely successful because they face more challenges than would be immediately evident. They inherit the negatives connected with to a project without any of the positive inertia they maintained before, and need more work than a fresh start would. I think it can be done but I think it's significantly harder when most people are probably expecting to say, 'Open, come on back' and I just don't think it works like that at all.

Eta- reading 'restart' in this context as 'relaunching a game that's been dead for a while'

@mr-johnson Hey as long as it's something you're excited to do, can create stories for, and give people a platform to do the same and treat them fairly, you'll do great.

@three-eyed-crow said in Travel Times - Enforced?:

My own question is, whether a game designer can serve one audience while not alienating the other, and I'm not really sure that's possible. Unlike crafting, there's really no way to ignore that you're spread out on a giant grid of multiple planets that take days to travel to. Not that a game designer has to serve both audiences, mind. Ideally there are lots of niche games that serve lots of types of players. I don't know that the giant grid game can work long-term without a very large playerbase, though.

In my experience, I think the hardcore purists who really want a very narrow scope of something are the minority. Most people even if they have an appeal of 'Oh I like more realism for my immersion' or 'I like more handwaving so it doesn't get in the way of RP' are okay as long as there's a general nod in their direction and are willing to compromise a little, so compromise systems I think do pretty well.

@faraday A lot of those can be like the tabletop arguments between a GM and player like, "Well, did you remember to buy rope? Flint and steel?" that kind of stuff, that players take for granted and a Gm thinks can't be handwaved. Imo a lot of those are avoided with heavy emphasis on expectations, where if it catches people by surprise they get really annoyed.

@faraday said in Favorite Minigames:

• Mary is ignoring the +scavenge system, but is RPing having scavenged something nifty from the rubble anyway.

This makes for an interesting digression because I had this exact same worry about pretty much all systems that effect how people RP, and imo if you could pick one thing to feel reassured in general about MU communities being largely pretty good folks, it would be from this.

I was really worried about just this happening with coded objects, and what I found was it basically never came up. I've only had to mention this maybe a few times 'hey that really should be a coded object' and each time it was just a small misunderstanding. What I discovered really is that it pretty much falls into the, 'Well, @emit can say anything, how do you stop your players from doing crazy, ridiculous things?' and it just doesn't come up much, as long as the objects or standards are visible to everyone. People want to be respected and liked for their RP, and because of that, if there's a clear community standard like X things are objects that come from a +command, they just won't do it because no one wants to look bad in RP.

I think, with just how so much of MUSH rp culture is self-enforced, as long as something is clearly visible to players, we as game runners don't need to worry about that part.

So with caveats about everyone having different tastes and interests, and there being a huge range in good implementations and bad implementations, I think there's a few general categories that can have systems or minigames rub people the wrong way:

1. If the minigames feel required, or pressure is put on someone to participate in something they have no interest in. Doubly so if they are grind-y. And particularly for game runners pressured to implement things they don't want and don't interest them.
2. If they replace RP or get in the way of RP. Like if someone would have a fun scene about A Thing, but instead a coderun is done that makes it unnecessary. Or even if it occupies players in a way that makes them inaccessible for RP.
3. If they create a competitive environment that is unhealthy and quickly turns toxic due to resentment and ooc frustration. This one is particularly meaningful to me, even with my very limited implementations the majority of people that got super oocly antagonistic or problematic for me on Arx came from RPI backgrounds where there was pretty much no IC/OOC separation for them in competition over alternate coded systems, like resources.
4. If they break immersion by acting in absurd ways. IE, someone oocly forgets to wear clothing objects, so their dignified and intelligent character is now randomly streaking. Someone forgets to do a code run for eating, so their experienced survivalist character starves to death. Or games randomly giving flavor emits that make no sense to the character, like a Bioware conversation wheel option that isn't anything like what someone expected it to be.

That's what I see as the broad categories of drawbacks, and what I'd have to keep in mind whenever making something or adding it to the game. For me, I personally distinguish between a mini game and a full system just by degree, and whether I see something as a core component for game play that will almost certainly be part of someone's experience, or whether a player could have a solid roleplay experience without ever really playing with the system.

My list of pros, for why I'd add a mini game (or a full system), if I didn't think it would brush up against any of those pitfalls would have at least one of:

1. Adds immersion or flavor to the RP experience, helps inspire or foster RP, gives characters reasons to act together, or throws out plot hooks or minor touches of the game world that give people something to play off of. Can create a lot of organic RP by random, unexpected events.
2. Anything that's fun and engrossing that lets players feel like their characters are building towards something, producing something, that gives them a feel of progression or dynamic change in the world.
3. Automates things that would require a great deal of staff work to track, and adds richness to the world, where if it didn't exist there would be a lot of handwavium and stories about it would die or be so vague they lose meaning. Helps players feel like their characters actions have more consequence and it's not immediately lost at the end of a scene or a story.
4. Fun activities that creates a feeling of community between players by giving their characters reasons to play off of one another.

I think where they go wrong mostly is people getting excited about something in the latter pros and missing (or being biased and intentionally ignoring) something in the former cons, particularly when it's a matter of taste.

@faraday said in Favorite Minigames:

@arkandel said in Favorite Minigames:

I don't think the focus is diluted, that's all. If WoW is too different then surely D&D isn't, and it's been incorporating both story and loot for thirty some years; sure, different campaigns (which I can argue is a similar concept to 'different MUSHes') can definitely focus on one over the other, but the default case is to have both.

Yes, for a tabletop RPG I agree. But I don't think MUSHes work well under the tabletop model. This has been mentioned ad nauseam on various threads here. It doesn't scale to larger groups and it doesn't do as well with strangers. I think that the hobby is poorer for trying to stick to that model. But you're right - this is probably veering off topic so I'll shut up now

I don't think it's too off topic if we redirect it very slightly. How about from a perspective of someone that really dislikes minigames and sees them undermining the narrative focus of storytelling on MUs, what would be games that aren't a big deal and aren't disruptive even if they aren't something someone is into? In other words, what would be ones that are tolerable for people that dislike them, and what are ones that would send them running to the door?

Definitely correct me if I'm wrong since I don't want to misrepresent your position, but it sounds like the objection is against anything that represents alternate advancement because it undermines the focus on RP by getting people invested in some kind of progression for characters that aren't narrative/story focused, in a video game-ish way. I can definitely understand that, and from that perspective I'd think things like coded pool games or card games or whatever might be fine, or emotive prompts for story hooks or flavor would be fine, but anything that represents building or investment in developing something progressive would be bad.

I don't really think it's an all or nothing thing for most people and kind of a slow slide between purity of story and crunchy elements that has people invested in feelings of progression that aren't really related to story. I mean, systemless play by post type RP and things like tumblr or whatever are unbelievably popular, and I have a feeling a lot of those folks would probably feel revulsion at using any system to put a more game element to their RP. I enjoy all styles myself, and don't really think anyone is right or wrong and it's just a preference thing to me.

@arkandel said in Favorite Minigames:

@testament Yeah, and for reasons I won't mention here since it's probably out of scope for this thread unless @Apos thinks otherwise.

I don't think it's a big deal to talk about the pitfalls of features or minigames either, and it can be productive. I mean I know I'm going to get a lot of shit when I implement like equipment damage eventually.