@Arkandel said in Space Games and Travel Time? Why? Why Not?:
if you're on a Mage game set in Maine but you and your buddies spend most of the time living in Manhattan then why are you even on that game?
But if staff has gone out of their way to build Manhattan and tout it as an active faction, then it's hardly your fault for making a character who's based there.
That has happened to me so many times on multi-planet sci-fi games it's not even funny.
As illustrated by the results of the where you play poll, I think the community here is pretty insular compared to "MU*ing in general". I get a lot of "What's MSB?" when I mention the site to people.
I never participated on WORA because it was too toxic, and I am frequently driven away from MSB by the negativity. Obviously I'm dumb enough to keep coming back, but it's with reluctance not with joy. I cannot recommend it to my friends who aren't already here.
I think it's valuable to have an open forum for discussion, but that cannot be successful when different viewpoints are so frequently attacked as wrong, stupid, or "what's killing this hobby".
@friarzen Yeah I think that's the same effect you see on a Trek or Battlestar game. Everyone's together, but you can still venture out for missions to get the "space is big" feel. It works really well in a MUSH environment.
@Lotherio said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
I'm the opposite of this. On a Mu*, I want simple mechanics that makes for quick resolution and doesn't distract from role-playing.
That was basically the driving force behind FS3. There are many game systems that I love to play tabletop with, but none of them seemed very well-suited for the type of conflict resolution you usually find on MU*s. I wanted something that was just simple... hence Farday's Simple Skill System (FS3). Of course, simplicity has its down-sides too. I don't claim it is a perfect system, by any stretch, but it was one designed specifically with MU*s in mind.
@Tat said in Digital Ocean for Ares:
Not forever. We're starting to hit our disk space limit - I think we're sitting at about 85%. But definitely for a good long while, and upping it isn't that big a deal.
Yeah it depends on the size of your playerbase, grid, how many scenes people share, how many images you let them upload to the wiki, etc. I ran BSGU for almost 2 years and never came close to the disk limit. And as Tat mentioned, SL has a double install for their test server, so the real disk space usage is probably closer to 60% even with all their stuff.
But even at the larger $10/month droplet size, it's on par with most traditional MU hosting plans.
Folks can PM me here or on the Ares forum (or pretty much anywhere you can find me) for an invite to the discord.
@Ghost said in MSB: The meta-discussion:
It's smarter for you to moderate the forum, not participate much, and enjoy your rp without fear of a difference of opinion stamping you as persona non grata and having it infiltrate the main reason you're in the community in the first place: To seek roleplay and creativity with relatively small amounts of harassment.
Is that what folks really want this forum to be though? A place where people shy away from posting their opinions for fear of being dogpiled?
I mean, yes, sometimes people speak out against the dogpiling. But not always. And even when they do, it doesn't always stop.
I expect that sort of thing from Random People On The Internet, which is why I steer clear of open forums like Reddit. I can't read comments on Facebook without instantly regretting it. But I guess I kind of hoped for more from a smaller community which seems to have some designs on being, well, a community.
The template I use on my games, FWIW:
Golden Rule
Don't be a jerk. Don't cheat, harass, flame, stalk, etc. or you will be shown the door.
Don't Break the Game
Respect the theme when it comes to plots, characters and setting. Do not do things that will destroy or irrevocably disrupt the theme for others. Use common sense, and when in doubt - contact the staff.
Player-Run Plots
Every player is encouraged and empowered to run plots, large and small. Just remember the Don't Break the Game rule above. Staff will run plots, of course, but proactive players will get the most out of the game.
Staff Pledge
We will do our best to provide a sane, fair and friendly environment for you to tell your stories. Our goal is to respond to all apps and requests in under 24 hours. Staff alts are all public, and we do not spy on players.
Other blurbs include Rating, Alts, Consent, and Idle. They're just a few sentences each, so it's pretty short. Personally I prefer to read them all in one place, but that's a matter of preference.
I think lightweight policies are best. You don't need a lawbook to run a game. People won't read it anyway. Just outline your general expectations, and beyond that, use "dinner party rules". It's my dinner party. I don't need to provide each guest with a comprehensive list of unacceptable behaviors. If you're being a jerk, I will talk to you about it. If you persist in being a jerk, I will ask you to leave.
@WTFE said in MSB: The meta-discussion:
@faraday said in MSB: The meta-discussion:
I respectfully disagree. I believe that having the Hog Pit expressly encourages such behavior, and the absence of moderation tools for anything but the most egregious spambots and trolls IMHO is tacit encouragement to continue. But I understand your POV.
What is your alternative? Having a purely "make nicey-nice" board? It's been done. .... . I suspect that would be more productive than trying to change the way MSB was explicitly designed.
Actually yes, that would be the alternative. And again we seem to fall into the "it was tried once umpteen years ago and failed therefore it can never work ever..." type of mentality that people were decrying just a few pages ago.
To be clear, though, I'm not trying to change the way that MSB was designed. I don't like it, but it is the way it is, and the owners are quite clear that it's working as intended. But in a thread that asks about the effect that the forum has on the community and whether it's a net-positive, I think my comments are relevant.
Sorry for the double post, but I did the first one on my phone and missed @Thenomain's reply. I agree that having a low "time to project" / "time to playing around" threshold is important. I think @WTFE brought up a great point earlier about bridging the gap from player to MUSH developer.
But I don't think that having the ability to edit code 'live' from inside the game itself is essential for either of these things. I believe that you just need to have an easy setup for a sandbox environment and a clear set of "Hello World" style tutorials ala Amberyl's old MUSHcode tutorial.
Look at FPS/MMO games for a good example of this. You can't design an AddOn or a new level from inside the game itself, but there are toolkits and tutorials to get you going. And you don't need to be a professional programmer to use them.
That's all you really need IMHO.
@surreality said in Course Corrections:
As staff, what do you tell this player?
"Sorry, no. <and here's why>" usually works pretty well for me 
If it's not too crazy of an idea, you can also try the "No, but..." angle. Turn their idea into something that isn't game-breaking. No, you cannot win the war by inventing a Cylon-killing computer virus, BUT you can influence a major battle by messing with them for a time.
Either way, a game has constraints. It is not unreasonable to expect players to stay within them.
@Thenomain said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
Okay, so if a "game dev" is anyone who can run code...no, that still doesn't make sense. I can log into a Penn game, run some code, and therefore make my own code more portable. I don't have permission to do so, and I'm not a game developer.
Again, I think we're not talking about the same thing.
Yes, on Penn/Tiny, anyone can run code, but the overwhelming majority of people just don't. There are a handful of folks who insist on having their own +ansi or +this or +that code, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
"Game devs" are the people making the code for the game that everyone else uses. On old-MU servers, they're the ones putting globals into master rooms.
If you have a better term that avoids potential confusion, I'm happy to adopt it.
(Eta: And while we're at it, I'd love a better term than old-MU for Penn/Tiny/Rhost, because old sounds unintentionally derogatory. Softcode-based? First-gen? Anyway.)
@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:
But how many know that they know, how many would know how to set up and manage multiple accounts with their email client, or know how to find a better client that would do this? How many would give up before getting that far?
But let's back up a step. How many Millennials would even care in the first place? Look at the state of the internet today. Look at how well gmail and most other email clients filter spam. Look at how freely people share things related to their real identity in the most silly and trivial of ways.
Either you don't have the degree of internet paranoia that many of us dinos grew up with, or you do but you've already figured out the burner thing because you've come across this problem before. The only people it's really a barrier to entry for are the people who are worried enough to care but for some reason this is the first time it's come up for them.
Personally I think that's a significant minority.
@Thenomain said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
Actually, here, let me suggest this:
- Pre-MUD (Adventure, etc.)
<snip>
I think we have a fundamental disconnect on what makes a MUSH a MUSH. Is it a style of game or a style of server? Both? Neither? Kinda? I have a feeling there was a thread about this once upon a time. But depending on your definition then it's either completely possible to make a MUSH in a server like Ares/Evennia or it's completely impossible. AresMUSH is a MUSH server by my definition. And since I'm the one naming it, well...
And that's what I see in this discussion. "Well you can do THIS," says server advocate A. "But you can't do THAT," says other server advocate B. "But THAT is different than THIS," says server advocate A. "But THIS is different than THAT," says other server advocate B.
Evennia is different than TinyMUX. We know this. Look up. No, more up. Look at the first post. Look at the question posed:
Isn't that kind of the essence of the OP's question though? What makes each server different/special and why we like them?
Obviously we shouldn't be starting holy wars or being overly defensive, but well-reasoned explanations of the pros/cons of A vs B seem to be on-topic?
@surreality said in Historical settings:
It is somewhat camouflaged by the fact that it gets classified as 'avoiding hot-button political issues' rather than 'avoiding unpleasant historical realities', but it is ultimately the very same animal in practice
It's definitely similar, for sure. But I do think there's a pretty big difference between, for example, "Women in the military are sometimes mistreated" and "Women can't serve in the military, period." The differences are even starker for the treatment of minorities. The underlying theme, of course, is the same, but skirting around it is far less problematic IMHO on a modern game than a historical one.
@Griatch said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
... But that said, I agree that the API doc section of our wiki is, while complete, not necessarily aimed at someone just diving in: it lists also systems that a normal user would most likely not be concerned about ever, or at least not until at an advanced level of understanding or when contributing to Evennia itself.
API docs and tutorials have a completely different purpose and ideal design. One is not a good substitute for another. Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays!
Edit to add: That was always MUSHCode's problem IMHO. There was plenty of "this function does X, that function does y" type documentation, but it took the community ages before they produced useful docs of how to string those functions together into something useful. Which is why I find the comparison to MUSHcode as a pillar of good documentationto be a bit baffling.
@three-eyed-crow said in Historical settings:
I also probably wouldn't run a pure historical game at this point in my life.
For me it comes down to respecting your fellow players. This is why I prefer cooperative/consent-ish games. There's a world of difference between someone throwing their character's IC ignorance around obnoxiously and someone leveraging that in a cooperative way to make an interesting story for all involved.
It's the difference between asking someone "Hey, is it going to bother you if my character responds badly to your female doctor? If so, I can bow out or take a different approach..." or - even better - working that into a story of how maybe you guys can learn to work together - versus just getting all up in someone's face under the banner of "But it's IC!"
@egg said in Are there any active sci-fi MU*s these days?:
@faraday Nifty. About how many folks play on a daily basis?
More war-themed is probably not my first choice, but not necessarily a turnoff, either. Active players who don't suck and staff who care are more important.
We're small. Our who list generally runs around 10-15 at peak times (late evenings EST). But the players we have are pretty active, and there are regular missions to participate in. I like to think we're friendly and don't suck, but that's really for others to say I am the only staffer and I care, FWIW.
Also since you mentioned sheets - we use FS3 which is super simple to go through. I'm happy to help with mechanics and there are roster chars to take if that's your thing.
I've heard good things about Fires of Hope too, so that's another good one to check out. I don't play there though.
@mietze said in When Staff No Longer Cares:
Sometimes if your primary interest is in more personal stories (that are unlikely to be affected by staffers anyway) and you've got a good group going who also don't care too much about absent (or incompetent) staff, then it's worth staying until the environment bugs you too much.
This. Also it depends on the game and how much autonomy they ceded to players and how much the coded systems support you. It's hard to make grand, sweeping generalizations.
@Ghost said in Searching for Star Wars RPI:
Take the number of truly active non-sexMu mushers. Ballpark? Let's say less than 100.
There are currently 1080 AresMUSH player handles. Just saying.
I do agree with your general point, though, that there is a massive investment involved in creating and running a game (even with a ready-out-of-the-box server like Ares), and the number of people willing to take that on is a vanishingly small percentage.
@tinuviel said in When Staff No Longer Cares:
And that is literally what I'm talking about.
Yeah I think it was just a misunderstanding.
What I (and I think others) read: "Having a game that can't run without you if you decide you don't want to do it any more is doing it wrong."
What I think you were actually saying is more like: "Having all everyday decisions on a game funneling through a single person to the point where nobody can do anything meaningful without that person is a terrible idea." Which I agree with.