Posts made by Apos

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

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

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

@wildbaboons I had a similar eye-opening moment when during uh, some kind of Q&A session they ran on public channel, @Apos mentioned the (fairly large, though I forget the exact) # of secret orgs. With neither of my characters being in any, it was a little perception-changing.

Yes! this! I knew there was a couple. A handful maybe. Apparently there are tons and that is where a lot of plot seems to be.

Not really. Like to a large amount. Both from my experience outside of them and from what I've heard in passing from those with PCs in them.

Yeah to be honest way too much of my time is spent responding to player initiatives for me to create sweeping new storylines that would come from there, and I'd prefer if I could. It's one of those things on my to do list in order to try to wrangle things to the point where I can focus more on that, and that will probably have more of a bottom up approach (trying to seed things on lower characters and let it flow up) than top down, since I think the characters in positions of power tend to naturally get involved regardless.

@wildbaboons Your character is an example of a slight tweak in approach, in that the first secret was imo extremely poorly designed on my part and just didn't do anything to connect the character to the plot, so when it made sense to overhaul it we did, and I think it just works better to connect him. There's a number like that, where I just misjudge what I think players might follow up on that doesn't really work out that way, and I'm trying to re-approach them to focus on current issues that can help someone get more immediately involved rather than a very vague, broad scope.

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

I think this is the real issue more, and it reflects your overall story structures. What use are negotiators when our enemies are demon generals or demon pirate kings or demon-elves or... you get the picture. Oh, also all the foreign nations are run by evil sorcerer kings/dragons.

I think there's a misconception there that state of play will be permanent and that there will always be an other that's isolated and monolithic, distant, and immune to influence. That belief is contrary to my original planned story arc for the game and so far I don't see anything taking it off that path currently, so diplomacy will likely becoming increasingly relevant as time goes on, and it's not a coincidence that I'm working on it now rather than later.

@arkandel I more lean in the camp of clear, intuitive negative consequences for someone that has no ability or training in attempting to do something difficult. I just think there needs to be a very clear pathway to getting the help of characters that have that ability or training, and try to nudge that forward, since it fosters RP and interdependence. I don't think I need to necessarily restrict people coming into power that lack the ability, so much as having the consequences be consistent and automated if they try to act without help.

Strong, established characters are always going to be an issue, and one I'll never be fully satisfied with, because again it's a balance. You can't only approach it from the angle of new characters feeling edged out, or at risk by being bullied. Those are two terrible possibilities that have to be counteracted. You also have to ask how capable should new characters fresh to the grid be of disrupting all the existing power structures or destroying an established character, and what degree of effort it should require and how feasible it should be. On one hand you have extreme outcomes that can feel unwelcoming, and on the other hand no meaningful stability or structure to play off of.

From a game design perspective, I think it's significantly easier to punish established characters that would use abuse cases that would be hostile/unwelcoming to new players, than it is to have a much flatter entry point and then try to ensure that new players all avoid abuse cases due to that flatter scale. I think the level of investment necessitates opting for the former.

@lisse24 In a perfect world, anyone not interested in a system or that doesn't find it fun just wouldn't participate in it and it wouldn't trouble anyone that exists on its own, but that's not really how I have to plan things, unfortunately.

So there's a ton of questions I have to ask for any coded system in order to keep the same atmosphere I want. Who is this fun for? What kind of RP does it help foster? What problems does it solve? What potential negative behaviors might it introduce as a consequence, and how to counteract that? What are the abuse cases and how do we stop those?

Those are the most basic ones, then you get into a lot more nebulous feel, because for any system with any kind of mechanic benefit, you have this really fine line of feeling worthwhile for players that are motivated mechanically, but also then you'll have a niche appeal of ones that will enjoy it and ones that won't, and you have to try to make it worth enough that most players will see it as a worthwhile endeavor without being so overwhelming that it feels mandatory.

One use case that you just can't help are players that are true completists, that feel extremely unhappy unless they have total mastery over every aspect of the game and are completely independent and self-reliant. Particularly when you design specifically to counteract that by trying to design collaborative systems that create scarcity by force reliance upon other PCs, because the former goal can lead to extremely problematic outcomes. The best you can do in those situations is try to balance by degree in trying to make the rewards scaled to give diminishing returns.

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

@apos Please don't make clothes a thing that affects anything else. I love the standard position that, "If someone's not wearing clothes, assume they're wearing clothes,"

That would still be unchanged. It would be for a specific opt in, that's one way of many to gain prestige.I don't really see many people who don't care about it changing what they are personally doing, so much as funding people that do care about it.

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

• I have zero interest in pretty ANSI described clothing. Is there a functional bonus to wearing a fancy tiara? My PC is in the "wouldn't bother IC" camp, but if there is a functional reason (does it affect stats?) for him to have better clothes (I know steelsilk etc., but the rest of it?), let me know.

Not currently but planned. The social systems I'm planning on will have a fashion mini game that will lead to prestige, and prestige will impact largely any kind of interaction a PC ever has with NPCs for good or ill modified very heavily by social skills. So in an indirect way it will, particularly in so much that I want to provide incentives for noble houses bankrolling social endeavors in general.

Characters that speak only in rhyme, meter, with a specific literary device, or only using grandiloquent phrasing. It's easy to fall in that from like having a few hour scene where every pose is only in alliteration or whatever, and then it's like, 'hey I bet I could make a character that only does...' no, don't.

@goldfish said in Silly things you'd been tempted to do on/for a MU*:

I'm on the East Coast. For years all my partners were on the west coast. I saw the sun come up many a morning while still posing.

Yeah, there was a time period where I often stayed up all night all the time because my favorite RP partner worked nights and could MU from her slow paced job. Maybe it was silly, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

@bobotron The reason I pick on it is the games I played just didn't have pose order of any form (I never heard the term at all before I checked out WoD), and people just kind of politely didn't pose several times in a row, with an unspoken 2pr. I definitely don't think it's a culprit alone but I do think the environments where it is common and ones where it is not having a striking difference in pacing. I'm sure there were extremely slow posers in the other games, but I just don't remember them at all since everyone customarily wrote past them. If it's customary for people to write slow in an environment, everyone slows down, and vice versa imo.

@arkandel I noticed a difference too, with the pace being much slower on nWoD in my limited experiences there. I attributed the spacing to how the game system puts the impetus of managing rules more on the players themselves with it being less coded, which in turn I think emphasizes a strict pose order since the consequences of someone being skipped or passed over is much higher.

In a fully coded combat game, often a pose or emit would effectively be purely social, but in less coded non-consent environment where players are all expected to keep track of themselves rather than coded, that could mean they miss their round in combat or aren't given a fair shake. That in turn means it becomes expected out of politeness to be way more mindful of people's poses, which makes people much more reluctant to pose past someone being slow, which grinds the pace down. And then since everyone knows the pace will be slow, plays accordingly. In something more freeform or consent driven or non-consent but heavily coded, I don't think those consequences are a factor, so it might still be rude to talk over someone but it wouldn't have dramatic consequences for them if you do, so it's just not as big a sin and the culture embraces a faster pace accordingly.

To not be totally off topic and tie this to what Gany and Surr are talking about, I think the system then also rewards people for being a little pushy, in so much that everyone is expected to watch out for themselves in a way, which probably fosters that behavior that shows in entitled ways.

I registered with a bunch of sites, but since the listing never showed up and I never heard anything back, I assumed it didn't work or whatever.

I see overpopulated games as a consequence of a lack of choices, but also people feeling a real risk in investing themselves into RP that doesn't have staying power. The more stable something appears, the more likely they will have a satisfying experience, and they don't feel like they are wasting their time.

I think there's like 4 general categories of challenges.

1. We have technical challenges, specifically in how difficult it is for anyone to initially create or maintain a game. If creating a game was as easy as a single right click and then running a setup wizard, of course we'd have an explosion of games. Right now the difficulty in creating a game is analogous to the difficulty in creating an entirely new platform. It's not like starting a new thread on a RP play by post forum. It's like creating an entirely new forum with code you made yourself.

2. We have creative challenges. It's a creative, collaborative hobby, and usually the person creating it is putting in immense creative energy. If they burn out, the setting stagnates, or even if they don't create something other people find interesting. And sandboxes by and large just pass the creative buck downwards.

3. We have administrative challenges. Specifically in arbitrating ooc disputes. Most people don't spend their fun recreation time because they enjoy working out personal issues between strangers who are ostensibly adults. And also doing it in a mature and balanced way that doesn't try to take advantage of the other people contributing, or make them a supporting cast to staff's main characters. Worse, the lack of transparency in the hobby tends to obscure other people's challenges, promote a feeling of entitlement due to how much someone feels they are doing while they can't see what everyone else is doing, and makes those with responsibility often feel justified in rewarding themselves.

4. We have awareness challenges. How many active MUs are out there? Fuck if I know. Doubt anyone does. We're a niche hobby, I probably run the biggest non-sandbox, and I doubt even a majority of people involved in the hobby have heard of it. We have community sites that have listings of games, but those are deeply flawed. A lot don't update, or are endless lists of things that have been dead for years. There's hundreds of thousands of new, younger gen RPers, and I doubt more than a tenth of a percent have even heard of MUs existing. Not that some games could handle an influx, but it is a little messed up.

Improve accessibility and playability to people unfamiliar to MUs without compromising the quality of the environment.

@moonman said in [The Death Of Telnet: Is It Time To Face The Music?]

My instincts tell me it's time to face the music: Telnet is on its way out, and with it, MU*'s. It is the Internet equivalent of AM radio, except less relevant. If I were to start a roleplaying community today, I would make a Discord server, because I'm convinced people actually use that program for now. I wouldn't create a new instance of RhostMUSH, and I wouldn't write my own custom codebase, for fear that the command line would scare off perfectly sane, intelligent, capable, fun roleplayers. Clicking on things is just more straightforward to people. It's more comprehensible and frankly a superior interface to memorizing a thousand ad hoc commands. I love MU*'s and they will always have a special place in my memories but I think it's time for us to admit it: we lost the argument, this medium is going to die with us in our nursing homes, at the latest.

So, this thread is here to raise the question if I am right, and depending on the answer to the question:

• If I am wrong, how can we get the vast swath of roleplayers to join existing MU*'s and create their own?
• If I am right, what platform should we jump ships to?
• Should we even jump ships, or accept our fall into extreme RP obscurity?

On one hand, I agree telnet is a massive limiting factor and the hobby is intimidating and hard to join. Ares and Evennia are trying to make it much easier, but until they get to the point of having something plug and play that's extremely easy to setup, and transition to more of a web game with minimizing the archaic command line and using a mouse more, those problems are going to remain. It's not intuitive and very difficult for new people, and as a niche hobby there's an awful lot more resistance to trying to attract new people than I would expect. I'm relatively new to the hobby myself, but I remember clearly how offputting I found aspects of the medium, and I had to work at it to find things about it I really liked that I don't think are easy to duplicate out of it. So on one hand, sure, I think you are right.

On the other hand, how many players do you want?

It sounds like a silly statement but it's not. It is a lot of work to make a good game, but if you -do- make one, odds are strong that you'll have more players than you can really handle. Like if you're running a sandbox with full automation, you probably have no upper bound, but that's not really where MUs are strong as a medium. If you are trying to create a MU where the hobby really shines, with running a persistent world that supports a lot of interconnected roleplay, how on earth can staff coordinate 25,000 people without having some sprawling pyramid staff structure with like 5 levels of GMs? And that number isn't absurd, roleplaying communities are hitting in the tens of thousands, just not MUs.

It's extremely attractive to combine the intimacy of personalized GMing with the ability to involve a character in any number of persistent stories. That's a strong draw, and most new people that try out the medium find it really appealing. But it is incredibly labor intensive. I intentionally haven't advertised on big RP sites outside of the hobby because it would be impossible to support an influx of people and would just do them a disservice.

Dropping a sandbox and telling people to play amongst themselves offers no meaningful benefits over any other RP medium. GMing for them and making their actions matter in a persistent world does. But the setup and maintaining that right now is arduous, and until that becomes way easier and less time consuming, I don't even know if more players would help as much as it would seem.

I figure you have a few different options, and I honestly couldn't tell you what would work best for you or what you might find easiest to implement, since I think you'll have to take a look and putter with them a bit before you make a decision. You could have the default evennia webpage with a separate wiki that imports data, which is what we wound up with right now but it has its drawbacks. You could integrate a django wiki app with the webpage to have the functionality of both. Or you could try to just add in wiki like functionality to the webpage without adding in a whole app for it. I'm honestly not sure what would best suit your needs or be easiest, so I'd just take a look and think of approaches and then ask for advice on the evennia chat.

If you have your heart set on a wiki I'm sure there's a lot of random django apps for it. Googled and saw https://github.com/django-wiki/django-wiki at a glance.

@faraday Naw, I was hoping that my tone wasn't coming across as confrontational or dismissive either, because what I more was trying to get at is I think those kinds of automatic tools that are the rough analogue of wandering into a grid space are super important. I think that it dramatically lowers the barrier for entry socially for a lot of newer or shy players, and that stuff doesn't exist on a lot of MUSHes which edges people out.

I think that implementation would be fine, though I would probably go further and probably have a tutorial type equivalent that nudges people towards its usage and make sure there are incentives for doing so. Probably with a wander command for randomization, minigames for spending time in different scenes that are publicly accessible, etc. Could probably change how people enter a scene to accompany a set, to formalize the culture for whether someone is 'in' or not, compared to the whole, 'I'm here but I'm not here because I haven't made a set' thing that I find vaguely ridiculous and awkward.

@alzie said in Alternative Formats to MU:

@arkandel If we're talking about travel specifically, My personal opinion is that no game needs a grid. It's an expected feature of a game, but the reality is that nobody actually RPs in 90% of the rooms most games have. The reality is that you could open a game with a clear theme and maybe 10 important, constantly used locations alongside a coded RP Room creation wing and it would work just as well.

The problem is that if you do this, people will stare at you like you're fucking nuts.

Sure but design a game like that in a way that requires no ooc communication whatsoever to find RP. I mean, you can. It just fundamentally alters the base gameplay.