@ThatOneDude No, it's a server written from scratch in PHP using web sockets and ajax. It's not telnet over a web browser, telnet isn't being used anywhere. I'm nearly (?) done with the world editing tools, and once that's over I'll start working into making a +job system.
It's just a bit of a process since I need to implement from scratch at least the basics of what others have implemented for MUSHes for years. For example after that come 'boards', then channels, etc.
@Miss-Demeanor I find the idea of hard separation between staff and players to be a regression.
I haven't staffed ever since I was on TR; that's partially because I dislike the limitations that poses me (suddenly all my characters are 'staff alts') and because I don't need to be in order to help the games I've been playing. If I had been staffing on SHH I wouldn't have ran a different plot arc - I'd have done the exact same one. I wouldn't have spoken to Ruin less or more about it for brainstorming - I'd have done it for the same amount. On Eldritch I'm arguably running a story that's even more drastic in how it affects the overall spheres that it touches than most staff plots, yet I never felt @Eerie whom I ran it by felt it should had its scope limited.
Now, when it comes to systems, everyone can come up with their own. As @Coin says, and I agree, ultimately a game-runner runs the kind of environment they see fit and that's it. However by bringing it to these radiant forums it's all going to get debated anyway, which is what (I hope) we're doing bringing our own ideas, points of view and methods to the table.
My method is this: Define a goal then figure out the most efficient system that achieves it.
If the goal is to generate as many thematic stories of high quality and offer them to players then I don't agree what is being discussed here achieves it. There is too much red tape in the way (it sounds a lot like players would need to jump through hoops to run plot with a potential sphere-wide impact), arbitrary divides between staff and players (which are unwanted in collaborative gaming since they generate an us-versus-them culture), treats symptoms rather than causes (staff-alts run plot to get the same rewards as players is viewed as a problem, rather than than that the restriction is artificial in the first place, but without a benefit towards the system's initial goal), etc.
Now, you can say that this is what you want to do anyway and ... I got nothing. Fine, okay. But if we're still debating it then I must point out that what's being described here essentially comes down to taking TR's failed approach of handling plot, one we've moved on from since in newer games, and over-regulating it in order to patch up its side-effects. It won't work better in doing what it's supposed to do, and arguably it'll do worse.
To justify it, we're invoking arbitrary definitions of staff ethics. It doesn't add up.
@Meg said in New moderator.:
ok, but like, when are you guys going to make me a mod. i was voted 'most likely to be a funny mod 2018'.
With the power vested in me by the hosting provider's receipts I hereby dub thee honorary mod. You may now kiss the forum.
@Tanyuu said in Getting a sense of what sort of MU* ads are okay:
If the MU* was something that I had a hand in, I'd probably just post it in the advertisements section and be fine with it all. However, since I'd be posting ads for MU*s I don't have a personal hand in creating, I'm being a bit more cautious on that front and gauge how people felt about it.
It probably doesn't matter if you're not part of staff if you want to advertise a game you think is cool - you might be doing us a favor. 
The only exception I can think of is MU* whose staff don't want advertised, if for example they're still in beta or for any other reason.
So, as I'm wrapping up the first iteration of the 'grid' system, how would you innovate that concept without telnet's limitations?
For example I'm allowing for a picture (which might become a 'gallery' if there's a case for it) of the room so there's a consistent visual outside of the room description, and of course tagging rooms in a number of ways ("suburban area", "Red Eyes Gang territory", "entertainment" might all fit "Joe's Bar"), as well as starring it by characters to add it to a favorites list, but what else could be done?
How would you implement places on a web interface? One suggestion was to figure out a way to represent them in terms of the room layout but would that be both useful and clear? Representing these things on the UI might also be a disproportionate technical challenge compared to its effects in the game.
There'll be 'locks' per character/group and there's already a WYSIWYG editor of course for room descriptions and world tags. But I'm searching for ideas.
Anything else you'd do with the world building?
@ThatGuyThere said:
Messed up the quoting but @Coin said
Staff having access to metaplot information doesn't actually give them an advantage,Huh Of course it does, they now know exactly how to tailor a pc to be effective,they also know how the people running the meta plot think so how to interact with it better.
In a game that is primarily about social interaction knowing more about the people you are interacting with is a huge advantage. Now most do not use this in a negative way but that does not mean the advantage is not there.
If you mistrust story-runners so much you think knowing how they think yields an unfair advantage you probably don't want to be playing where they are. That's a really paranoid way of looking at things.
For the record, the reason we don't delete accounts is the way nodeBB handles the event, since it can lead to all their posts which means threads will disappear if they were started by that account.
It can also point to situations like what Theno posted where history is effectively rewritten and there's no record of their posts any more.
@buttercup said in The hog pit thread titled Admin Derp:
Their board? Their rules? Isn't that what is preached on Arx deeming content? Is skirting around a locked thread to complain ban worthy?
The list of things one can get banned from MSB for is pretty short. They are all like "don't be a complete creep", and have nothing to do with bypassing locked threads.
@faraday Yeah, in my current design (a work in progress) you can just jump to any room your PC is eligible for, and add favorites for quick jump-to points.
However I do want the grid to have a more functional purpose as well, so what do you think about this: There's a "you are here" marker and of course all rooms have their normal fixed coordinates... but you can switch the context mask though to see them under different contexts; for instance one might be geographical view (you can see room A is in an urban area, room B is in a forest at a glance), another might be domain based (gang territories, Vampire turfs, pack areas, House duchies), etc. Furthermore rooms are color coded based on how welcome your PC is likely to be there - green for "welcome, friend!", yellow for alliances, red for usually opposed factions, etc.
I'm trying to think other cool things we could add to it. On a MU there's only so much you can do before the interface gets in the way, and the screen scrolls too damn much.
I'll be performing an upgrade to nodeBB version 1.13.0 on Friday Dec 06 2019 around 22:00 EST. A downtime of a few minutes is expected.
If Changeling 2.0 isn't careful it might induce me to play one for the first time ever.
@faraday A lot of the time the implementation, unless it's horrible (complicated interface, etc) is almost irrelevant in regards to its adoption by the playerbase. It's very often just a matter of it being culturally accepted, which is often just a catch-22 - if the first few players are using it and newcomers see it being used then they pick it up too.
Introducing new toys is usually harder once people's habits are set unless you're actually offering something shiny they didn't know they wanted until they had it.
@tragedyjones said:
@Arkandel said:
@tragedyjones said:
Currently I am playing on Eldritch.
Explain this.
Playing is a strong term. I made a vampire PC recently. I won't get into issues about why I game--hopped in a thread about me seeing some titties.
I can't think of a better place.
I jumped the gun a bit. Forum upgraded to version 1.13.0. I restarted the server for some system upgrades as well.
As usual please let me know if anything broke terribly.
@tragedyjones Sphere-only hangouts (Turs, Elysium, etc), mixed-sphere supernatural hangouts if applicable, and general public hangouts (bars, restaurants, etc).
Everything else is circumstantial for me, and usually/often spoofed as needed.
@Thenomain said in nWoD2.0 Support Code?:
Thinking too hard about it can be what kills it.
Speaking of, I think what kills innovation a lot of the time is people micro-analyzing it preemptively. "It won't work because $reasons". "I saw it tried once in 2003 and it didn't work then so it won't work now". Etc.
There are just some ideas whose time has come, or which happen to be implemented better even if the core concept is similar to something else that crushed and burned.
Also, fuck naysayers. If they don't like it they don't need to play/use it. It's better to try 50 things and see 1 work out than never trying anything because oh-my-god it might fail.
We had some downtime tonight since redis decided to freak out and took the nodebb service with it.
When I'm more awake I'll look into the root cause. Please let me know if anything more unexpected than usual has stopped working properly.
@Meg All I expect/want from the set description is a consistent environment. That's it.
Are there booths or just tables? Just seats at the bar? Is there a jukebox?
But no one reads those damn things. I remember when it was revealed to me there was no fountain in Xanadu on Shang, even though people have been posing it being there for years.
