Posts made by faraday

@Arkandel Thanks. And yeah, I think I've changed my position on chat too since I wrote that. I looked into actually bundling Discord into the game for one stop shopping but it would be ugly since there's no easy way to 'share' users between the game and Discord.

Edit... drat, hit enter too quick. But still, when more than half of the people polled are not just disinterested but a hard 'no never', it's hard to imagine the already-fractured MU* community getting on board. I mean, people routinely boycott either MUSH or MUX just because the channel commands are different

@Arkandel said in Innovations to the form (Crowdsourcing?):

@faraday Perhaps? I'm at work now so I can't quite look at this, but what is it based on? Or is it home-grown? What are the features?

Home-grown, but based on AresMUSH. Basically it's my imagining what a MU* would look like if it were entirely web-based with no telnet connection. It's basically a game wiki and the game itself bundled into one. Chargen is online. You don't need to create wiki pages for your char because it's done automatically. RP is centered around scenes (which can be public or private). You don't need to post logs because RP is done on the site in the first place, although you can keep a scene private and then publish it when finished. It takes a lot of the friction out of MUSHing.

Aaaand the reaction from almost everyone has been: "Eeeh, yeah, it's neat but I'd never want to play that way."

Here's the blog post with some more detail if anyone cares.

@Arkandel said in Innovations to the form (Crowdsourcing?):

Look, I know it's not in the works. And I don't want to derail the thread.

But a web-based game instead of relying on telnet has got to be the largest innovation to the form we can have here.

You mean like this? Just a prototype, btw. It doesn't do anything for real.

But really, it's hard to motivate yourself to build something new when hardly anybody seems interested in changing the way things have always been done.

Are you going to do another campaign? (Chaos/Kathleen/Annabelle/Elise here.)

@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.

@Ganymede It's like everything I thought I knew is a lie!

Back on topic... @egg We try to make it accessible to folks who have not seen the show. There's a cliff notes version of the theme on the wiki. That said, it's more of a war MU* than most "sci fi games" so YMMV.

@il-volpe said in Are there any active sci-fi MU*s these days?:

The BSG Universe is somewhat realistic; it's just set in the future.

I found it weirdly distracting to see that I have an identical radio and dog-bowl to the ones used by these space people from other planets.

It's not even our future, it's a parallel version, which makes it even more nonsensical.

But then, the Star Wars movies use WWII props, so... eh... it's Hollywood.

@WTFE Electric Soup lasted for 5+ years. If you consider that to be "died on the table" that's your prerogative I guess.

@surreality Yes, you're quite right. I like your wording better: 'Use tact and do not be deliberately hurtful'. You can write a movie review that says a movie is horrible in a tactful way.

@Three-Eyed-Crow and @WTFE In yet another example of why I often feel like a visiting alien among these boards, I actually have extremely fond memories of Electric Soup. It was started by a very good friend of mine from B5MU days and I regarded it as a success while it lasted. And frankly, if a forum is going to die because people can't discuss things constructively without being jerks and belittling each other, I can live with that.

So yeah maybe some day I will do that experiment. But right now I have better things to do with my time than play forum cop.

Incidentally, I find it ironic to hear 'if you don't like it, quit whining about it and go make your own' on a forum where every other advertisement thread is filled with pages upon pages of unfettered whining about how people don't like some particular thing on a game and how that's not how they'd have done it. Heaven forbid someone suggest something as horrifying and revolutionary as to just be nice.

@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.

@Jim-Nanban said in AWS (Amazon Web Service) as MU Hosting:

@faraday See? This is why I ask, everyone seems to have a piece of the puzzle.

I use AWS at work and it's a very powerful, solid, flexible and cost-effective platform. But the array of tiers and options and services can be bewildering at times if you're not very familiar with it.

@Cheesegrater said in AWS (Amazon Web Service) as MU Hosting:

@faraday said in AWS (Amazon Web Service) as MU Hosting:

have to pay extra for disk space

The free tier includes 30 GB of storage. It is pretty cheap even after you leave the free tier - I run a MUSH server, a couple of web sites, and my HTML5 MU client for around $11.50 a month.

OK I stand corrected. I was speaking of the EC2 On Demand service and wasn't sure what the free tier entailed. But still - AWS services are highly flexible and let you mix and match what you need, so you have to be careful you know what you're getting.

@Meg said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

To be fair, MSB owners/admins do not encourage any such behavior. Nor do they discourage it. As ES said in the thread, they provide the framework, we are making MSB what it is. (With some exceptions, of course. Like trolling and the like.)

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.

@Jim-Nanban said in AWS (Amazon Web Service) as MU Hosting:

@Ashen-Shugar Hey thanks for the feedback! Great to see you're still in the hobby!

See, what got me into this line of thought is that AWS has a free tier:

• https://aws.amazon.com/s/dm/optimization/server-side-test/free-tier/free_np/
• https://aws.amazon.com/free/faqs/?ft=nf

The TL;DR: 1 Gig of RAM, "32 or 64-bit processor" and 750 hours per month (which is 31.25 days whether you're using Imperial or Metric units). I'm guessing it should be sufficient?

Check it out a little closer. AWS pricing and services are kind of wacky and sometimes you can end up with processing time but have to pay extra for disk space - so it's really not free. Also AFAIK the service you're talking about isn't up continuously like a MU* needs to be. It's designed for websites which only need to be spun up when someone's looking at them. But I could be wrong there.

Digital Ocean is a bit more user-friendly in terms of one-stop service shopping and admin utilities. (Full disclosure - I get a referral bonus if you sign up using that link. It helps to support AresMUSH. But I use their service myself.) There's a tutorial over in the How-To section to get a MU* up and running with a DO droplet.

The dedicated MU* servers are usually the easiest to get up and running with. I used GenesisMUDs for years. I've heard good things about ThirdHost. There are many others.

@Derp said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

Given that ... perhaps it's time we tried to figure out how to make it easier for the folks to make their own games when they dissent with the way certain ones are run (despite all the arguments against GOMO foo, it's still the best option for getting more options). I think that we could figure out a way, as a hobby, to make it cheaper, easier, and overall more efficient, rather than trying to find the One Gameplan to Rule Them All.

Double-post because this is a completely unrelated to my last post (and kinda off-topic if someone wants to create a new one), but that's basically the idea behind AresMUSH. When it's finished there will be a pre-configured droplet like what @surreality described to get people up and running with a game in minutes. It's not done yet, but it will be eventually.

@EmmahSue said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

The Hog Pit is a bit ugly, a lot cruel, and often for the fierce joy of that cruelty. There's nothing particularly wrong with that....

See that's where we disagree. I think there is something inherently wrong in being purposefully cruel to a person for the fun of it.

Now to what @ThatGuyThere and @surreality have said about everyone having a different measure of what constitutes 'bashing' - of course that's true. Negative feedback will always sting, especially for creative types, but it comes with the territory. You shouldn't have to be afraid of saying "I don't like this" or "I think this is a bad idea."

At the same time, I think there are some pretty universally-agreed-upon lines in the sand, and as far as I can tell MSB routinely and gleefully crosses those lines. If somebody posted something like "Are you high motherfucker?" in a bbs reply on one of my games, they'd get a stern talking-to. If they did things like that repeatedly, they'd be shown the door. Here the worst consequence might be someone else replying: "Dude you're an idiot." Or there might be no consequences at all, and even a cheering section.

But hey, this isn't my forum. I know that my opinion and my standards don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. It is absolutely MSB owners' right to tolerate and even encourage such behavior if they feel it's a good thing. But tying back to @Arkandel's original question, I don't think that has a great effect on the community as a whole. That's just my opinion.

@Ghost said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

Having said that, do you sometimes reword statements to remain diplomatic and avoid getting stuck at the bottom of the dogpile?

Thank you. And sure I have to reword things. Or find myself typing up a post and just deleting it before posting. Nobody's perfect. But I do at least try to stay constructive, just in a general "do unto others" sort of way.

I don't mind a healthy debate, truly. But 'debate' to me implies that both sides have to be at least willing to respect the other side and consider the pros and cons of each argument, even if they ultimately disagree. That's often in short supply on the internet (not just here) and it just devolves into two sides with closed minds telling each other how wrong they are.

@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.

@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.

@DownWithOPP said in BSG: Unification:

@ThatGuyThere FS3.

Yeah. It's the new edition of FS3 though, which improves various things.