@krmbm said in Wheel of Time mechanics:
I love AresMUSH, but it would take someone that could code a whole different stat system to pull it together.
I agree, but you can do that. I mean, you're going to have to code up a whole different stat system whether you pick TinyMUX, Evennia or Ares. I don't think the effort to do so is going to be orders of magnitude different no matter which one you pick.
@arkandel said in Heroic Sacrifice:
Fair enough, but many do.
Yeah, I wasn't meaning to downplay the impact of XP loss when it happens, merely to illustrate that you can take advancement completely out of the equation and a lot of people still won't want to start over purely for social reasons. As you say, it's not a systems problem, which is why I don't think it's going to be solved through systems/incentives.
@Wavert said in Posting Ads on Games:
@TNP Yeah, I totally get reciprocal stuff. I was just a bit surprised to find "Nah we don't do ads, period" coming from staff on several reasonably healthy games I visited and was trying to figure out what possible reason there could be for it.
Well when you think about it - it would almost be like a TV network showing a commercial for a show on another network. Why encourage a loss in ratings?
Personally, I welcome ads on my games coming from our own players as a way to help them recruit for other things they enjoy. It's nothing they couldn't do by word of mouth anyway. But it does always feel a bit weird when some Guest logs on to do a drive-by ad.
@HelloProject said in Identifying Major Issues:
Lack of outside advertising is also a problem, I feel. People usually only advertise within the hobby, and this is a huge mistake.
I agree, but that segues into my biggest problem with the hobby: It's intimidating as heck to someone who isn't already immersed in it. Command-line text prompts. No graphics. Bizarre and unspoken social conventions. The huge difference in experience between one game and another. The general impatience shown towards newbies. Even if you posted an ad on some other RPG forum - I shudder to think what it would be like for someone from one of those worlds to try and play here without a mentor really holding their hand for the first few months.
@Arkandel said in Identifying Major Issues:
I think it'd need to start with coders. Most of the time that's the main roadblock; there are damn few available, but unless you have some guys to at least mentor new ones games die on the conceptional stage. Either a potential game-runner is already networked or they are not, and in the latter case things are very tricky.
It's only a roadblock though if you let it be. If your vision exceeds your ability, there are three potential solutions: Expect a coder to drop from the sky and help you, change your ability, or change your vision.
Games die on the vine when people refuse to do the latter two. There are several game frameworks out there that come with most of the basic globals and stuff. You just have to be willing to play with what comes in the box or learn enough to modify them. There are plenty of MUCode tutorials out there.
New frameworks like Evennia and Ares are trying to make it easier to learn to code for MU*s and (in Ares' case) setup/configure it more easily, but the learning curve will always be there. It doesn't really seem fair (or practical) to expect a limited cadre of MUCoders to support and mentor everyone who wants to run a game.
@ThatGuyThere said in Identifying Major Issues:
And I fully agree that MU*s are a lot like showing up at a con to play, just not sure how that means I should trust folks on games since i wouldn't at a con either.
It's quite possible we're talking about different levels of trust here. I'm just talking about giving the players and GM the benefit of the doubt. I go into a con game expecting to have fun. I trust everyone to follow the rules and to not be jerks unless they give me reason not to. If the GM says: "You're allowed to do X to drive the story" I take them at their word.
Now yes, sometimes it doesn't work out. Players can be jerks, GMs can suck. It's hard not to be gunshy when you've been burned. I get that. But if you approach every new game expecting to be burned again, not trusting staff to not screw you over... how are you ever going to have fun?
@Ganymede said in Identifying Major Issues:
Any staff member who thinks requiring an e-mail address will be a shield against harassment is naïve.
Where did anyone say requiring an email was a shield against harassment? There are a variety of concretely useful things you can do with an email - idle notifications, password resets, automatic alt tracking, roster claiming, etc. And for a game with a wiki/website, as @surreality described, or a forum -
email verification is the single biggest widely-accepted mechanism for guarding against bots and spammers. It is foolproof? Certainly not. Is it necessary? Clearly not - games have been muddling through without it for years. That doesn't mean it's not a good idea though.
@Ganymede said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:
The combat code is unforgiving. And we all had a blast, even though one of us nearly died a horrible death.
I'll emerge from lurking briefly to point out for those who don't play the game that you can't die unless you choose to. Worst that happens is you get taken out of action for a week or so.
@Tez said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:
How do those smaller plots run within the shell of the -- umm, I'll call it a plot arc -- really impact the word?
The trick, as @DownWithOPP alluded to, is to have an open-ended plot arc. You have to be willing to let the PCs steer the course (within reason). Like the POW camp rescue he mentioned - that wasn't my idea. One of the PCs wanted his backstory to be "rescued from a POW camp" and worked with some other players to lay the groundwork. All I did was give them opportunities to have RP around that plotline through a mix of staff-run and player-run plots.
There was another little one-off event @DownWithOPP did where the Cylons pretended to be friendlies and ambushed the PCs. A week or two after that, I built on that idea by having another event where the Cylons again tried a similar trick - this time resulting in a "friendly fire" incident that spurred a lot of RP.
You don't have to let someone blow up the grid every week for them to shape the story.
@Tempest said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:
Who is going to be taking the time out to do this?
A PC running an event and posting the log is incentivized by luck points and my heartfelt gratitude. If you go the extra mile and post to the Scuttlebutt board (which is basically the "what's happened ICly" BBS), bonus. If not, I will. We have 20-some active players and I can keep up with the activity all by myself. It's work, sure, but it's not insurmountable.
I think that keeping players in the loop is critical to spurring RP beyond the event. We have levels of that:
On Babylon 5 and BSG:Pacifica we had a similar thing to the Scuttlebutt board for IC news articles. Those things help a lot with recognition ("hey I made the news!") and staying connected.
I think that the game theme helps a lot with stagnancy. On the BSG games it's pretty much set up so there is constant action - that's the whole point. On Sweetwater (my western game) we did pretty well for awhile when the Range War plot was going on and there were constant plot developments around that. Once that metaplot ended, there was nothing cohesive to spur things along and the game went off the rails.
@Arkandel said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:
We don't dictate anything or claim to speak on behalf of anyone (let alone everyone) else.
The kind of influence I'm talking about is different though. This place brings MUSHers together outside of the games we play. It's where we discuss cross-game ideas and issues, share news about games and code and stuff, and just generally chit-chat about everything from knitting to Game of Thrones.
It's the MUSH Community Center.
That necessarily has an influence on peoples' perceptions, in one way or another. Are those perceptions accurate? Not necessarily, but they can still have an impact, encouraging or discouraging.
@Ghost Yeah I am definitely not a privacy lawyer or anything, so I can't comment on potential liability. But I think that in today's tech/privacy climate, MU owners should protect themselves and their players. That means having a policy for what data is collected and how it can be used, and ensuring that other staffers follow that policy.
@Tinuviel said in Staff’s Job?:
Four if you count "the guy that actually knows what to do."
Lol, point.
Unrelated -- one way to look at the permissions/role/title angle is Ares' roles system. Instead of simple flags like WIZ/ROY/JUD, Ares lets you define custom roles, each of which is granted permissions to certain commands.
You might have a builder role that can build/desc/teleport around. You might have a wiki manager role who has permissions to manage wiki pages, or app review role who can view apps and jobs.
Which of these are roles are considered "staff" and which aren't? The game owner decides in the game configuration, but that decision doesn't actually change anything on a practical level. The only distinction between a non-staff role and a staff role is whatever the game's internal policies say there is.
@Auspice said in How to Approach (nor not) a Suspected Creep:
Now I know we think: this is just a game.
The issue is... how many people quit games because of the discomfort? How many of us witness this and then worry...what if I'm next? What if another woman is next?
That is why I began this discussion.
Not to see a flood of people go: ugh, mind your own business.
But I hear everything you say and my answer is the same: It's IC. It's not my business, as a player or staff, until it crosses OOC boundaries.
If you disagree with that - that's cool. We don't have to agree. But just because "a flood" of people think "or not" is the answer to "how to approach (or not)" in the situation you described, that doesn't mean we're engaging the discussion in bad faith.
If I'm next? I'll deal with it ICly. If they refuse to acknowledge my IC boundaries and make a pest of themselves, I'll deal with it OOCly - first by telling them "Hey knock it off" and then escalating to staff if need be. Both of which I've done in the past. If somebody complains because their behavior is somehow being disruptive OOCly (as opposed to just unlikeable ICly), then I'll deal with that too. Until then though? Not my business.
You don’t need a coded command for this. All you need is a policy that says “hey if you’re uncomfortable with something happening and can’t work it out, you can always FTB or involve staff to help mediate.” Adults just need to adult, and that includes staff when called in to help. Code isn’t going to magically stop people from being unreasonable.
@Roz said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:
which I don't think counts as a tool.
+request is a tool. page is a tool. ooc is a tool.
What I'm saying is that we don't need a different tool to enable this.
You can contrast this with the anti-harassment tools I added to Ares because for those, the existing tools were IMHO inadequate. Client logs could easily be faked. Server-side suspect logging needed to be done in advance and felt like using a nuke to kill an ant hill.
If you think the existing tools are inadequate for saying "Hey I'm uncomfortable with this" then by all means make a tool for your game(s). I'm just saying that - for me - it's got no more weight than ooc Hey I'm uncomfortable with this. backed by a policy and enforcement of said policy that says it's okay to do that.
I think the "no high-level characters" effect is just an extension of what you see in fiction in general. It's very difficult to make compelling stories for supremely powerful characters, especially ensembles. Sure, you can have a story about a king's political struggles, but what do you do with a whole pack of kings and queens? DCU/MCU shows the kind of world-ending insanity you constantly have to cook up to challenge epic level superheroes.
Yet with people of the low-to-mid power range, there are tons of stories to tell. These characters have room to grow, the challenges are reasonable to write, etc.
As for mechanics, anyone who's played FS3 knows my take on it. I despite being forced to make a low-level/low-power character. It's only mildly frustrating in a MMO or video game, but on a story game it logically means you need to be playing somebody who's just starting out, unskilled, inexperienced, probably young. I don't like being shoved into that corner.
FS3 lets you start out as an ace fighter pilot, and acknowledges that if you start out amazing, you don't really have a lot of room to grow from there mechanically-speaking. You could expand horizontally to some extent, but not vertically.
That doesn't mean you can't still tell stories. Starbuck in the revised BSG was pretty kick-ass from the get-go and yet still had an interesting character arc. Skill advancement isn't the be-all-end-all. Many (most?) MU players are perfectly okay with that as long as they know what they're getting into.
@Ominous said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:
So, yes, the grizzled veteran is going to be more skilled, but his/her dexterity isn't what it used to be.
That's one possibility, sure. My point was that being old does not necessarily equate to being a "grizzled veteran with loads of experience". You could be old and crappy at your job too.
@Ominous said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:
Attributes are nature; skills are nurture. Attirbutes are the natural talent; skills are the acquired wisdom of life experience.
Sure, there are a lot of systems that work that way. But there are also a lot of systems that don't, because the line between attribute and skill is often very blurry.
Where's the line between Strength and Weightlifting? Clearly there is skill involved in learning to lift weights, but isn't it also building muscle mass in a way that could probably aid you in other strength-related activities?
Does special forces training give you a skill in "Torture Resistance" or does it hone your underlying Willpower in a way that also helps you slog through all-night hikes, push past injuries, etc.? Or does it do both?
You can make arguments either way. There is no perfect skill system, just as there's no perfect power range. Everything is a balancing act of pros and cons, and it comes down to what system fits your goals for your game. If you want to reward people for making older characters, go for it. I'm just not a fan personally.
@Ghost said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:
I may be opinionated, but IMO IC PVP/PK is a tool/lost art that never should have been completely taken off of the table.
Who exactly took it off the table?
it's no secret that I don't favor PVP (I get enough drama with people's egos and undue investment in their chars on PVE games, thanks) but even my games don't have a prohibition against it. Heck, one of the plots on BSP (inadvertently) pitted mutineers against loyalists.
It may have fallen out of favor, but there's nothing stopping anybody from making a game that features it.
@Browncoat said in Firefly - Still Flyin':
hasn't been aware of the SUSPECT flag. This is our first rodeo with FS3.
Just to clarify... SUSPECT is a flag built into PennMUSH. It has nothing to do with FS3, which is just a skills system that runs on Penn and AresMUSH. Most servers have some sort of toolset for abuse management, and it’s an unfortunate necessity that staff be intimately familiar with those tools. I think there’s a thread around here about that somewhere, detailing the tools available on the various servers.
@surreality said in Well, this sums up why I RP:
There's overlap, but there's overlap in watercolor painting and oil painting, too, but we'd never consider them the same thing.
I'm not trying to be argumentative here, honest. But I'm genuinely confused.
Watercolor painting and oil painting are both, literally, painting. Putting a brush to a medium to contain the color to make a picture.
I don't see anybody saying that MU writing is the same as novel writing, or that MU writers are anywhere close to being in the same league as James Patterson and Mercedes Lackey. What exactly is the argument here? That we're not writing? That it should be called something else? I really don't get it.
@Wizz said in Interest in Cyberpunk MU*?:
If you can otherwise turn yourself into an unstoppable cyborg with the options the game provides, a balancing mechanic that punishes the player for picking what's available feels weird to me. Why not just make cyborgs more stoppable instead?
I don't really get the argument. It's like saying: "Why punish players by not letting them take every skill and attribute at max level". It's just a game balance limit with a bit of in-universe fiction to justify/explain it.