Posts made by faraday

@Rook said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

Try coding a combat system in a MUSH that takes THOSE things into account. I dare you.

Uh.... FS3? Cover, movement stances... okay it doesn't do acid directly but it does factor in armor.

@Sparks said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

I really think something developers writing games nowadays should do where possible is make a standardized, generic UI library. A standardized method of headers, of footers, etc.

I dunno... in my experience the headers/footers are one of the first things people want to customize when they take my stock codebase and make their own game with it. I don't really see how this will help - especially when dealing with such vastly different codebases.

@HelloProject said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

I've seen way too many games that don't go all the way to abstraction, but pile a ton of complexity on top of what is basically a simple roll command.

I guess I just haven't seen that, personally. I think it might help to narrow down what it is you're actually bothered by. I mean, if you agree that things like mail can't be simplified, and rolls make sense, and some things are just an artifact of the way hardcode/softcode works (like needing +who separate from who)... what exactly is it that you see as "horribly crappy" UX?

@HelloProject said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

I also think a lot of stuff like needing equals and plus signs and other complex strings could be done away with.

Umm... how? You kinda need the plus in roll First Aid+Wits to tell when one skill leaves off and the next begins. You need the slash and equals in mail HelloProject Rook=Some Subject/This is a message. in order to tell the difference between the recipients, subject and body of the message. Do MUDs just not have these things?

@Rook said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

Legacy code stacked on legacy code. Hack after hack. Until a complete rewrite happens, the codebases will have these inconsistencies. Then of course everyone will bitch that shit got moved/updated on them and their stuff doesn't work.

Oh I agree. That's why Ares is a complete rewrite. We can't go back and undo 20+ years worth of code drift, but we can learn from it. Platforms like Evennia and Ares provide an opportunity to do better the next time around. The question is: What does "better" look like, in way that won't have everyone up in arms because ZOMG it's different.

@Rook There are other commands without prefixes that don't work on the login screen, like page, follow, move, etc. I heard once that @ was for commands that alter the database, but that "rule" isn't consistent either (@emit).

'+' came about because you needed a way to distinguish softcode from hardcode commands. If the hardcoded describe command was "@desc" and you needed to make a softcoded one... what were you supposed to call it? You needed a new prefix. '+' is arbitrary, but if you weren't going to muck with the hardcode, it had to be something.

@Derp said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

So what exactly are you looking for when you say 'things could be simpler'? Because at the end of the day, I tend to go with "It really can't be."

A few concrete things that I've done with Ares, just to further the discussion:

• Sensible Command Names - Why is the OOC profile command named +finger? Or the build command 'dig'? Or the private chat command 'page'?

• Consistency - The mixed up mash of coded systems on most MUs often leads to bizarre inconsistencies - like one command uses subject=message and another uses subject/message.

• Redundancy - +help versus help or +desc versus @desc anyone? MU systems overlay on the base hardcode implementation, so you end up with multiple ways to do similar things. Which is sort of related to...

• Command Prefixes - Why is it @desc versus +where versus quit?

Now I personally know that a lot of this stuff has historical roots. +finger from the unix command, @/+ prefixes for softcode vs hardcode. But when you look at it as an outsider it's un-intuitive, needlessly complex, and just plain goofy.

Ares is an attempt to make these things better while still preserving backwards compatibility for the syntax people were used to.

@Derp said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

If you have a system that needs to do five things (not necessarily at the same time), then you end up with either five commands, or one command that can do between 1 and 5 things depending on its syntax, which makes it complicated. (And either way, those five things require documentation).

Yeah there I agree with you completely. I'm not convinced that remembering 5 commands is easier than 1. But I do agree with @HelloProject that you can make at least the basic versions simple. For example, in Ares the basic attack command is just combat/attack Bob and the basic roll command is just roll Alertness. But both of those commands have more advanced options that you can provide only if you need to.

@HelloProject said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

I highly doubt you or anyone else would go "Well, shit, I miss when my syntax had needless complications".

Actually in my experience that is exactly what people say. Because you have people who have been playing this hobby for 20 years who know that syntax and are used to it the way it is. In a world where people avoid playing on MUX or Penn because the channel system is different, this is not an effect you can discount and expect to be successful.

@Roz said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

For the record, even the +combat commands in FS3 can be simplified. I know because on X-Factor where I used to staff, we aliased simplified versions of them. (Such as adding an "attack" command to alias to +combat/attack and whatnot.)

That comes down to UX style though. Consistency versus simplicity. When everything is +combat/foo it's easier to remember IMHO, as opposed to when some things are +combat/foo and other things are just foo. If having aliases works for you, great. But I would not call it a universal preference.

@HelloProject said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

don't make it a complete mess that needs 5 help files to explain how to use something.

You seem to be fixating on the number of help files. If there are a lot of features to document, and you do a good job explaining not only the syntax but when and why to use them, you're going to get more help files. That's not a bad thing.

FS3 Combat is involved. But there are levels to the documentation: an Interactive Intro Tutorial, a Quick Reference Guide, and then the full Documentation for those who really want to dive into the details.

It's the quality of documentation and the ease of use that matters, not the number of pages. (Btw, I'm sure the documentation can be improved. Just using it as an example.)

As @Ganymede and @Seraphim73 have mentioned, with Ares I've made a concerted effort toward UX while preserving the user experience of Penn/MUX as much as practical. People generally seem to be pleased, but there's always room for improvement. The help files for AresMUSH are all online. You can find them here. Pick a system. Tell me how to make it simpler without sacrificing functionality. (Of course if you ditch features you can simplify the syntax.)

Doesn't need to be (and probably shouldn't be) done in this thread, but I'm completely serious. I'm open to feedback here. Good UX on a MUSH is not some rainbow unicorn.

@SG said in Lords of the Expanse:

@Lotherio I had a little line battle just now. If I statted things correctly, british majors driving Regular Line Infantry are much better than French lieutenants driving Green line infantry. I don't think I had the hit locations right, it was returning blank spaces.

You'd need to set up a hit location table for "Company" . There are some instructions here.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure the system doesn't handle a weapon skill like "Command-1". It's just expecting that to be an ability name.

ETA: The way to make the different vehicles superior/inferior to one another is to adjust their toughness and dodge ratings. You can also give them different armor types.

Oh....also 'Armor' in the vehicle stat needs to be an armor type. Right now you have it looking for armor type '1', which doesn't exist.

@Sparks That wouldn't work too well for me personally given the way I've gotten used to using the app (spacially oriented depending on which windows happen to be open), but thanks for the heads up. @EMDA's suggestion is neat too. I'd be curious to try out having a chat window at the bottom with poses at the top. Not sure if I'd like it so not a big deal or anything though. Random kudos: I love Atlantis!

@Sparks For me it would be super awesome if there was an option to make the CMD-# "switch window" shortcuts ignore spawns. So that way CMD-1 would be world 1, CMD-2 world 2, etc. The main thing keeping me from using more spawns is my reliance on those hotkeys and the awkwardness of having to do CMD-8 and whatnot to switch windows. I just use one for channel chat on my OOC alt.

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

Find some and ask, and a very mild shame on you for thinking this is about Millennials. This is about barrier to entry and, apparently, being a single person to answer any other person's moving the goalpost. I'm being talked down by a lot of people, but so far nobody else has attempted even a tacit nod toward information gathering. How can we identify issues without escaping--to put it crudely for effect--this echo chamber?

Uh, I didn't bring up Millennials? I was replying to your poll. I did do a lot of info gathering when building Ares about player accounts, registration, etc, which is why I told @HelloProject that the number of MU*ers hyper-concerned about privacy is not a minority at all. (You can basically see the distribution in the thread here.) But as for the internet at large? I stand by my point. But hey, I only do this stuff for a living - what do I know about login best practices?

I'm out. Y'all have fun. Feel free to start a betting pool about how long I can stay away this time.

@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 Identifying Major Issues:

Yeah. I know. That's why I went with MMOs. Dork.

And to counter: Every MMO requires a very special app to download and its interface must be taught. This describes every computer game, even.

More seriously though... I think that comes down to whether you think of MU*s as a video game. I really don't, because it's text, not graphics. It's already got a heavy slant toward being a web app, as evidenced by how heavily MU*s these days rely on wikis.

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

And yet, in the complaints of using telnet, I don't recall anyone really explaining how we are going to get out of this cycle.

Well, I pitched a way out of the cycle but it wasn't well received. The only way out of the cycle is for the majority of players to want out of the cycle.

@Thenomain And MMOs require an email address to register. Sorry, couldn't resist.

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

It is not a little ironic when people are also complaining that a game based on telnet is a barrier to entry. I believe that we are projecting our own capabilities and understanding, and ignoring others as they are convenient or not convenient to us.

I have to respectfully disagree there. Using an email to register for a site is ubiquitous. It's something any entry-level internet user in the modern era is familiar with. Either they don't care about their privacy, or they've learned to create a dummy email they use for untrusworthy sites.

That's very different from a barrier that involves downloading a special app with a non-intuitive GUI that you use to connect to a game with no GUI and command-line text prompts.

@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.

@HelloProject said in Identifying Major Issues:

While I'm not saying that you can't have a preference for not giving out or just having an extra email that you use for unimportant shit, the strong resistance to simply giving an email is still one that's very strange to me. It's one that I've literally only encountered here and WORA, like, even outside of the hobby it's not a thing I've really heard before.

Yeah I don't quite get @Thenomain's concern here. You'd be hard-pressed to register for anything without an email address these days. I seriously don't understand why people get up in arms at the idea of a MU* doing it.

If they spam you? Report it as spam in your email client and block them. If they send you a LinkedIn request, ignore it. If you really don't want to have the games tied to your RL identity, use a burner email. Even my mom has a burner email, for goodness sake. And if it's a dealbreaker, then that's totally your choice, but I don't think it's cool to act like staff are insane for doing what almost every other site on the internet considers a best practice.

But @HelloProject -- I think the number of people objecting is less of a minority than you might think.

@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?

@Thenomain The context of my phone number question was in regards to @ThatGuyThere giving reasons not to trust people on a new game. By "to each their own" I meant that if the concern over people knowing who you are is reason enough to approach each game with deflector shields at maximum... okay? I mean that's a personal choice, I can't really fault anyone for it. But I confess that degree of defense baffles me more than a little.