Posts made by faraday

+1 for Digital Ocean. If you use my referral link, you get a month free (and I get a referral bonus). The only thing with DO (or any VM) is that you need to be responsible for security updates yourself.

Rhost, Evennia and Ares are all good codebase options, but they offer different things.

• Rhost offers a more traditional MUSH environment, including the full softcode experience.
• Evennia is a great building kit for building exactly what you want with a modern codebase (Python+Django for web).
• Ares is a MUSH in a box with an integrated website/wiki. It gets you going quickly, but may be more work if you want something very different than what comes in the box. Also, Ares is still in beta. It's very stable, but be prepared for some bug-related updates.

I have a more detailed server comparison here.

@krmbm said in Hosting and codebase recs:

If you don't want to use FS3, you can take it out and replace it. This may not be easy, but it is doable. Or you can just turn it off if you're going stat-free.

You can turn off FS3 with a mouse click. Plugins for Fate, FFG, Cortex and a simple Traits system are easy to install. If you want something else, you'll have to develop it from scratch, but that's true no matter which codebase you use.

@Arkandel said in A fully OC supers MU:

I personally haven't seen this problem being solved.

Stepping outside supers for a second, I think that we have seen this problem being solved across RPGs in general (TT, MMO, MU). Some options include:

• Everybody stays with a comparable level/skill bracket so you don't have that disparity in the first place.
• GM 'pulls punches' for underpowered players to make it fair. Like on TV where the wimpy good guy gets matched up with the wimpy bad guy in the final fight.
• Sidekick system where lower-powered players get artificially "leveled-up" in some capacity to hang with their higher-powered pals.

I don't see why you couldn't also apply this to a superhero game. I mean, just call it the "Black Widow/Hawkeye Hero Halo" or something

@Ghost said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

I've often heard "The Walking Dead" referred to as misery porn, and I think it's accurate for the zombie/apocalypse genre. Shit. Is. Miserable. Bands of terminally ill WarBoys kidnap people for fresh organs while their boss collects pretty women as his concubines.

Well, I was talking about the broader post-apoc genre and not zombies specifically. I'm not interested in zombie settings.

What appeals to me about post-apoc settings are the ones that aren't "misery porn". Battlestar. Falling Skies. 100 (kinda). Revolution. Last Ship. Jericho. Sure there are times when everyone's miserable and life is harder than it is today, but most of these have over-arching themes of hope and people banding together, struggling with difficult moral choices, etc. Notably, there's not a lot of "PC death" in these series. Some, sure, but it's not the meat grinder that it sounds like Walking Dead is.

@Auspice said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Apocalypse settings in general are tough because people gravitate towards making things easy/normal and a lot of people hate playing 'shortage' plots (food shortage, water contamination, illness with no medicine) which are almost necessary to Apocalypse settings.

I see this as being more of an issue than the lack of character death. I think at the end of the day most players don't really want to play the apocalypse. And I don't quite get that, because to me it's like logging onto a Vampire WoD game and being all: "Yeah, I don't want anything to do with Vampires. They're a drag." Like... you're entitled to that opinion, sure, but WTF are you doing there, then?!

The majority of players seem to want to either "fix" the apocalypse (which is okay, to a point, since improving quality of life is a legit plotline, but mostly these folks seem to want the Easy Mode version) or ignore it altogether. Frankly I don't think killing people off is going to help with that fundamental behavior. But if somebody wants to try it - I wish them luck.

@Ghost said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Was the whole "young adult" thing handled pretty well on the 100 game?

PCs had to be 18 or older, so it wasn't really an issue.

There've been various Harry Potter/Buffy/high school type settings around. Maybe someone can comment on how that worked out.

@Auspice said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Mmmm. A10s in Terminator setting....

Oh it was cool, don't get me wrong. But, "The world has been nuked to hell and overrun by killer robots and there are just a handful of humans left living underground and.... oh did I mention we have a functional airfield with jets and fuel and..." It was harder for me to swallow than all the time travel paradoxes

@Ghost said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

@faraday here's an idea

BSG may have run its course, but the same methods/FS3 could be applied to an Apocalypse-Era Terminator game based out of a safe zone while rebels are fighting Skynet.

Belatedly... I’m sure that would work system-wise.

My experience with BSG though is that folks are generally more interested in the Top Gun aspects than the post-apoc guerilla aspects, so I wonder if there’d be traction for battling SkyNet in a ruined world. (Unless you subscribe to the Salvation timeline where they’ve got A10s for some inexplicable reason.)

In a similar vein though is Falling Skies, which is probably going to be my next project.

@ZombieGenesis said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

. There will also be a general expectation that if he uses System A than all of the various bits and pieces are supported in some way via code.

I can think of numerous games through the years that have used a system for skills and left the other bits (combat, gear, etc.) open to GM narration. For instance, there are lots of games that use a skills system but don't have coded combat or gear -- don't most of the WoD games fit that mold?

As long as you set expectations clearly in your game policies, people can self-select as to whether that's a deal-breaker for them. Because you're absolutely right about one person's deal-breaker being another person's reason for playing.

@Ganymede said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Unfortunately, the Star Wars RPGs are pretty stat extensive. A corollary would be a D&D game with elves and dwarves and gnomes, but without the actual RPG, or a RP-intensive Battletech game...

The SW RPGs may be, but SW MUSHes have not always been. There is a 'market' for the less-systemy narrative games even in the Star Wars genre. Mechwarrior, the RPG for Battletech, wasn't overly crunchy, so I could absolutely imagine a RP-intensive Battletech game. Both settings have, in fact, been used in PbPost and Storium online games without stats/systems/etc.

I'm not challenging the underlying assertion that some percentage of MUSH players want these things. Clearly that's the case. All I'm saying is that there's enough of a percentage who don't to make a game work, if that's the kind of game you want to have.

@bored said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Playing a smuggler, your ship is going to matter. It might not matter that it rolls exactly +8 for 4d8 damage, but it being a scrapyard junker jury rigged to chaotic perfection vs. a well-maintained high end craft matters a lot to the story you're telling. Somehow, you need to acknowledge that the two things are different and it matters, or you're losing something both in the story and in any sense of mechanical verisimilitude. The same goes for a bounty hunter's kit being part of their identity, or representing a lightsaber as something other than 'just a sword.'

Of course that stuff is going to matter, but the Millennium Falcon and Boba Fett's armor didn't get the story they have because there were stats and systems attached to them. They literally got that from the story and writing surrounding them. I just did a Storium game where the ship was very much a character in the story, and nary a stat in sight.

I have nothing against folks who want a RPG/simulator with an equipment list. To each their own fun! But I disagree with the notion that these things are in some way essential to the RP experience.

@Three-Eyed-Crow I don't know. I mean, I've played on quite a few sci-fi games that didn't have gear/economy systems (a couple Star Wars places, all the BSG games, Babylon 5, this one Trek game... I think Otherspace had a couple things you could buy but it wasn't an extensive equipment list). They did all right, so it doesn't seem to be a pervasive requirement. Or maybe just a new one.

@skew said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Also, people really, really, really wanted a focus on weapons, armor, gear, ships, etc. We didn't have the code (nor the desire) to focus on that, and it left a lot of people disappointed.

Sorry that it didn't work out. FWIW I've been on a couple different SW games that didn't have that kind of focus, so I hope that won't discourage someone else from trying another RP-centric SW game. (I mention this mainly because I'd like to see something like that, though maybe with a sector-wide focus like someone else suggested in this thread.)

@Apos said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Number of logins is an incredibly silly way for people to define success, since I think virtually everyone would far rather play a game of 20 people that are enthusiastic and having a wonderful time making stories for one another, than a game of 300 people where everyone hates one another and logs in only out of a grim sense of obligation and habit

I'm not saying people should necessarily use activity as a measure of success, I'm saying people do. I know this from comments on forums, comments on games, and comments I've heard first-hand.

And the activity thing is not entirely without basis. As @Sparks said, if you only entertain five people it can feel like the effort wasn't worth it. And as people grow more and more picky about who they're willing to RP with, it requires a wider player base to find someone whose style matches yours.

I prefer smaller games myself, but not everyone does.

@Sparks said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

If I spent a year and a half building custom bespoke systems and doing world-building, then having 7 people have fun for four months would feel like the game was a failure, to me. But if I literally just opened it as a sandbox with minimal code and had 7 people have fun for four months? Worth it.

Yeah I understand. I keep shooting down my own game ideas because I'm convinced that they won't last past six months and will feel like a failure.

But there are times when I want to smack my inner naysayer upside the head and remind them that if you have fun doing something, and you entertain other people in the process, and you maybe learn something from it that can help future endeavors... why isn't that enough?

@ZombieGenesis said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Third, sometimes I fail.

I also think that we as a MUSH Community often have a very narrow definition of success. Like the only games that have perceived value are ones with a zillion logins like Arx or that run for years and years like Elendor.

If five people showed up to a game and had fun for six months, it's okay to consider that a success. Heck, that's more than some TTRPG groups get out of a campaign. Certainly more than the longevity of your typical PbPost or Storium game.

It's okay to want more. But let's not sell ourselves short either.

@Ghost said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

You can make new games or poll for what people want to play all day long, but if those 10-15 unique IP logins aren't staying, it likely isn't because of the choice in game itself.

There are all sorts of reasons why games fail, but the biggest one in my experience is critical mass.

MUSHers basically expect RP to be available on-demand. If they can't find it, they'll leave.

There are some things staff can do to combat this, like making sure you remove obstacles to RP (like don't spread people out among factions/planets, give them reasons to interact, run plots and scenes for people to jump into), but all of that basically requires butts in seats. A recognized IP is invariably going to get more butts in seats from Day One than an original one, and thus have more chance of achieving that critical mass.

Certainly there have been original-theme settings throughout MUSH history that succeeded in spite of this. It's not impossible, but it is a challenge.

@ZombieGenesis said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

were worried that it would scare people away(it being a system at all and not having the online c-gen that some associate with Ares).

Haha - I love that a brand new feature that isn't even out of beta is now a potential dealbreaker. (that's not sarcasm; that makes me happy) Someday I'd like to do web CG for the extra plugins but y'know - priorities.

I got nothing personally but there are a few sites on the ads thread. HorrorMu, Arx, Shadowrun Denver, a couple WoD places, etc. I suppose if you're desperate you might find something on MUDConnector, if you don't mind the fact that tons of the sites listed there have been closed for a decade and most of the rest don't even have a website. (I'm picky in my old age.)

@Carex Obviously there are specialties within the field, but you can't escape the basic dictionary definition. But even that is beside the point. Their policy clearly states that no new automotive or mechanics businesses are allowed (but you can be a mechanic working for an existing shop). It doesn't matter whether I want to open a motorcycle repair shop or a lawnmower repair shop. It's restricted.

You're obviously free to think the restriction is unnecessarily tight, but it is nevertheless clearly stated in their policies IMHO. I see nothing wrong with the way they handled it.

@Carex said in Where to play?:

was rejected because on the restricted list it says they don't want any more businesses for "Automotive/mechanics"
Because repairing cars is... totally the what a place called "Biker King" ran by the son of a biker gang member would be doing.
They said I was welcome to play my concept if I wanted to work for someone at one of the existing auto-shops... which is totally the same thing as a motorcycle repair shop I guess?

I don't play on the game so I have no horse in this race, but I'm not seeing the problem here. Even if you ignore the fact that "automotive" includes motorcycles by definition, the "/mechanics" part pretty clearly restricts all forms of mechanic-related businesses.

So it sounds like you apped a concept on their restricted list, got rightfully rejected, and then they tried to offer a potential alternate concept that might work (working at one of the existing businesses). All seems perfectly reasonable to me. Where's the issue?