Controversial posts made by Jeshin

Hey,

It is worth noting that half of the articles on Optional Realities are not written by OR Staff but by people who volunteer to write on a topic. We then give them a platform for publishing the topic and hope discussion comes from it.

The Staff Ethics article was written by a contributor.

EDIT - Also we took the comments out and put in a big Join Discussion button because we wanted all discussions to be easily accessible on the forums instead of tied specifically to the bottom of each article. We felt it provided quicker navigation and better access. From an SEO standpoint we should enable comments because it'd help push the articles higher for search results.

http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?board=11.0 <--- Subforum with a thread dedicated to each article we've ever published.

Hey

@il-volpe

http://optionalrealities.com/contact-us/

Our website since the 1st week has had the request to contribute an article on our contact us page.

Hey,

For the articles specifically we're working on something to try and promote more discussion, like I said in the previous post. If it is of interest I can certainly post up what we end up doing with that portion of the website.

You could take a look and know for sure!

Hey,

You can listen to your audience without agreeing with everything they want. This is something we can change and are willing too. So perhaps listen to your audience, when you feel comfortable doing so?

Additionally: If you don't want to advertise on OR because of an issue with our approach that's fine. This website right here is a new listing service which puts text-based games alongside other genres to try and heighten exposure. I would suggest giving them a try, they could certainly use the additional listings.

Would you prefer Creator of FutureMUD? Coder of FutureMUD? Dude behind FutureMUD?

@BetterJudgment

• I would say you're looking at more 60 - 90 minute and eating once during that time span. For Armageddon at least. Otherwise you are correct.

• The grind associated with the current RPI offerings is also that bad yes. This has to do with no real economy in their games or a broken one and what I believe is a simplistic approach to character code progression.

• say (reaches up and scratches the side of his cheek whilst listening to his companion. Afterwards he politely folds his hands in his lap before replying) No that is true, though SOI: Laketown has emote/pose which allow " " within it just like free posing on MUSHes. Armageddon has emotes and poses as well but you cannot speak within them because they haven't implemented " " code that identifies your spoken language.

• I am not familiar with what munchkins are. Do you mean that SOI supports pregnancy and everything? Do you mean they allow kid characters?

As to RPI marketing tactics they are just that. Advertisement and marketing. While I personally haven't done the whole we're the best way to experience roleplay banner ad or anything. I would also argue that all of our respective approaches to text-based gaming have billed themselves as the best approach at one time or another. So yeah they've said it and they probably believe it too!

For my part as an RPI developer, I will say a lot of your concerns will hopefully be less applicable to Project Redshift because we are developing on Evennia and do not have legacy DIKU issues because of it. Also we're billing our game as a "Professional RPI" because the staff is paid. In our marketing phase I will try and restrain myself from implying Redshift is the Jesus of text-based gaming, but people love what they love and they can get carried away.

Also Tempest is correct. Coded support would be things like being able to use a track command that checks your +sheet stats and produces an appropriate output message like. Jane's tracks lead to the north! Crafting code support would be another where there are a lot of tiers of crafting but on a most basic level crafting code support would just be the ability to produce an item that is derived from your +sheet statistics and skills in such an art.

So instead of putting in a +job to have a vase made. I could make a vase and its quality/value would be determined by some algorithm which is derived from my characters attributed abilities or +roll results.

That might be my MUD centric perspective affecting my terminology. By coded support we mean the following:

1. If I do a dice roll and you do a dice roll, the damage is applied automatically or the affect is applied automatically. So for an example let us use Kushiel's Debut.

+roll/willpower Presence+Socialize (to distract you with body language and conversation)

I roll with Exceptional Success and you perhaps counter-roll and lose. You then receive a message like: You are distracted by <target>

^ That right there is what I would consider the bare minimum definition of "coded support" or "automation". A system which applies the results of actions to the players without allowing them to ignore it or requiring a judge to tell them what happened. Now could they ignore it? Sure but the fact that the system exists and informs them of their current state is "coded support"

2. An example of combat "coded support" would be...

+roll/specialty strength+dexterity (longsword specialty to strike you)

You do an opposing roll and I win out. Apply the damage automatically and allow the participants to narrate how things are playing out.

So when I am discussing "coded support" I don't mean the tools and systems which allow people to roll and stuff. I am basically alluding to automation because the code is supporting the results of the tools you are using. Please note I only used Kushiel's Debut as an example. Their code does not auto send messages or auto-apply damage to my knowledge.

Hey,

This question has been raised on our own community forum and it is certainly a valid one. After all roleplay focused games are traditionally more MUX/MOO/MUSH oriented and requiring automated or coded support excludes the lions share of them. So why do it? The honest answer is that we believed that coded support in some form is beneficial to the final product of the game and since we cannot be all things to all people we had to provide a qualifier so we don't list every single MUX/MOO/MUSH in existence. Just like perma-death is often difficult for MUDs that aren't RPIs to achieve. Thus we do not list every single MUD in existence with an emote/pose function. We will let TMC/TMS and broader communities handle such things.

That being said there is a difference between being listed on Optional Realities and being a user or contributor to the website. While I won't list a MUSH that lacks any coded support what so ever, I will engage in discussion about that game until my hands lose feeling in them. I believe that the development discussions and general cultural discussions across genres on the community forums are still valuable and there is no requirement for the users to be MUDers or believe in coded systems or even believe in perma-death!

So while the listings are exclusive to an extent, the community is open to all, and I think this thread alone is a good example of the kind of discussions we'd want on the OR Community boards. To wit I provide 3 links, because I like the number 3.

http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=25.0 --- Someone asking about why Optional Realities and why the restrictive requirements.

http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=113.0 --- A thread about why create a MUD (or text-based game) in 2015 considering all the competition. I believe this would benefit from contributions from more MUSH centric players.

http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=29.0 --- A thread discussing roleplay cultures and their effect on game design and also how to incentivize them with game design or discourage them with the same.