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,

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!

Crayon & myself (Jeshin) are the only 2 Optional Realities folks running around this community to my knowledge. If there are any others I'm not aware of them. I think Tempest found OR through here, so you could count them maybe?

Hey,

I would like to point out that regardless of all my responses in this entire thread you have said yourself that you have refused to so much as look at Optional Realities. Now it's different strokes for different folks and perhaps a different tact would have netted you into at least trying us out. But I can't please all of the people and I certainly didn't satisfy you in my advertising attempts. Nor will I satisfy everyone who ever reads this thread or individual post.

If the connection isn't there, then it isn't there but the "bluntness" isn't exactly the way to go about convincing someone short on time to invest more time in trying to connect with you. If you want to tell me you don't like me because of X, Y, Z you could just say that. It's alright not to like me.

Hey,

That is incorrect. I am saying that I have limited time and that when typing up a post I am more likely to keep it self-contained on other websites because I cannot be freely debating over 10+ forums. If you'll go back and read this thread you can see I dedicated a lot of time to debates, questions, and researching things I wasn't familiar with. I no longer have the free time now that I did a few months ago.

So if it's between coming off as a little "just so" and leaving a productive debate unfinished because of the hours in a day. I opt for the "just so" approach. I'm about 90% (which is just a way of saying pretty sure) that outside of this thread I haven't pushed the Optional Realities community on this board. I may have mentioned games from it as appropriate but I did get a chance to participate in this community for a short time and it was enjoyable.

When my time (or Crayon's time) frees up I expect we'll be a lot more open to discussions where the turnaround times on our posts aren't measured in weeks >_>.

EDIT - I actually personally dedicated more time to this community than any other community we advertised on and you guys answered with the most views and most back and forth out of any of the other 3 combined. So you're currently our favourite in that regard.

Hey,

There is some truth to feeling you're on the right side of a debate and trying to lay out your points in a less open manner and more A to B to C so you are less open to nitpicking. Truthfully I think the primary gap to bridge is that we're much more likely to discuss topics freely and with less "this is how it is" style writing on Optional Realities itself. Discussions are content and that content we take time to create we try to keep on the website.

I'm not saying we don't debate off the website (since there's more pages of debate and me admitting I'm wrong in this thread than promotional material) just that the best place to debate us would be on Optional Realities.

EDIT - To clarify because we have had an influx of users on the forum and are in the middle of finishing up some game system documentation and thus our time is spread thin. Thus why I assigned a new community lead and why I've not been posting as much anywhere in general.

Hey,

http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=221.0

This is a good example. I was discussing the article with another developer and he expressed a differing opinion and I encouraged him to post it. We then had a discussion on the forum and points were clarified. We are exploring other ways to encourage more discussion such as asking followup questions and more actively soliciting feedback from users that read the forums or click the JOIN DISCUSSION button at the bottom of the articles.

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?

Hey,

The thread will probably remain alive until someone kicks us out for being to persistent =( but otherwise for discussion of the articles some of them get discussion and some don't. The text-based RPG genre one I wrote had a pretty good discussion with clarifications and changes of opinion crop up around it. The Player-killing one from Orpheus on Burning Post II has the most discussion (I believe) around it.

It does seem that most people just read the article and either agree or disagree though. As to the quality of the articles, we're looking at changing up how we present them to allow for more editorial pieces and less design oriented ones so we can try and increase the quality and usefulness of the design articles by not having to release them every week.

Also people like to read opinion pieces (it would seem) so listen to your audience and all.

Hey,

Thanks for drawing my attention to this. It's been put into my look into further pile.

Hey,

Been in kind of a funk. I concede to your traditional RPG comment. I probably should have phrased it as single-player RPGs. If you're really saying the article is worth reading (considering some of your other feedback on articles) than yeay I appreciate it.

Hey,

Yeah I dropped the ball on some of my correspondence last week, very painful headaches. I will get back to you in the next 24 hours. Sorry about that. I didn't read anything else you posted after that because as stated, terrible headaches.

@Tyche

Actually... There is a game which had rape codified.

HavenRPG has a coded sex command and as part of that command there is a rape function. There is a lengthy explanation which is on their forums and I am not fully understanding of for why these exist but they are part of the game for a reason. I just don't feel comfortable stating why because I probably wouldn't do it justice.

Cannibals are easy though! Kill them with coded combat then cook them with a skill check and type eat "leg of man" and enjoy!

You would be very surprised. In a thread on the specific topic of rape roleplay, some claimed they'd rather RP out rape than torture or death because to them they were more bothered about being killed than the sexual assault.

Hey,

So as to not needlessly bump and clutter the OR/Project Redshift thread, I'll be posting some of my many questions here in my quest to better understand the MUSHier style of text-based gaming.

1. I notice Safe Haven is an "invite only" game. Is this common or uncommon for MUSHes? What are the normal justifications for this: Higher quality RP, intentionally small and personal playerbase, house rules?

2. http://www.byond.com/games/WritingANewOne/EterniaPrologue would you consider this to be a text-based game and/or a MUD?

3. http://store.steampowered.com/app/270170/ would you consider this to be a text-based game and/or an interactive novel? Are they the same thing or fundamentally different?

4. I was discussing MUSHes with someone who plays both MUSHes and MUDs and they were commenting that the majority of MUSHes do not use nWoD softcode but the majority of nWoD text-based games are MUSHes. Would that be accurate?

5. If nWoD softcode isn't the most common MUSH overlay than what is? PennMUSH maybe?

Sometimes even I feel self conscious I might be overstaying my welcome!

But alright, you're a mod and you said ask so I shall go forth and ask.

Hey,

Glad you read the article...

1. We do actually have an editor so I passed along those concerns to him.

2. I addressed your retro concerns right here in the first 2 paragraphs and point out retro is a style of presentation which is very popular right now and that is a good thing for us.
   @Jeshin / Optional Realities said:

What Text-Based RPGs Do Better Than Everyone Else

3. I only mentioned diku once and specified like diku. I actually had quite a bit more on this subject but as the original article was 3000+ words we tried to parse it down. I'm sorry it seems I'm obsessed with diku while only referencing it once?

As to restrictive licenses, the majority of MUSHes willingly use established tabletop RPG systems which preclude them profiting off of their games and any text-based games set in an existing IP also passes up the ability to monetize. Now you can argue (and you'd be right) that people are willingly choosing not to pursue a profitable path. You could also argue that due to the nature of our community we don't really encourage people to monetize their games. So there's no real demand or motivation for someone to risk doing something different (despite some of the successes we've had).

4. Past efforts does not affect current situations. Why is it that games with 20 players or less that want to grow and have players and staff that love them don't take any time to consistently advertise and instead do brief one-shot bumps and just hope players will someday find them by word of mouth? This portion isn't even about making money but many games would do well to have at least some kind of ad presence especially if they're looking to grow.

5. There is plenty of proof that by keeping people engaged in your community (not your game) you increase the odds of them playing your game again. For example let us say I do not play League of Legends but I enjoy watching it. Maybe while watching it I'm talking about it with a friend and whammo I'm back online playing with him because he asked. By having activities which build community and give pathways back to playing you increase your overall player retention and your chances to draw someone back to the game. Obviously I'd prefer just playing the game!

6. The article is less about saying oh you're doing it wrong but more to bring up different aspects of improving our genre. I don't think anyone can argue that the majority of players think text-based gaming is "healthy" and they have "high hopes" for it going forward. Anecdotally a lot of people think we're dying off or at least stagnating. The article is meant to encourage people to have more faith and to try. I never said there are no successful text-based games simply that they are not widely successful. None of the games I listed are on Steam for example.

I do encourage anyone interested in debating this topic (and not just my article which is far from being an authority on this) to check out http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=221.0
I could have pretty easily split this article up into a series where I preached at people for 5 weeks about this topic but wanted to start a discussion. That also means I'm not married to all the exact positions I took in the article either, it was just where I arrived after my research.

EDIT - The discussion thread has already surpassed my article in terms of value to readers and I'm not ashamed or disappointed in that at all. The article served its purpose and I think it's passable (not great).

Hey,

Ah yes it does seem to imply I was looking for a group think answer, but no I was just interested given one of the responses to my article is that text-based games are represented in gaming already but all such examples (except Sanctuary RPG) were officially tagged as "Interactive Novels" which are games that use text to convey characters, places, and events and then provide you with dialogue/choice branches. So technically it is text-based but is it similar to what multi-player text-based games do? I don't think so.

As to reading this thread, I don't want to clutter up the community with to many questions >.> but in the future I will try and split off such academic/opinion stuff into mildly constructive or something and reserve this thread for more shameless plugging that can be safely ignored if so desired.

I have to admit, the snark was much easier to read and have a chuckle at (which I think is the intent) with the Mystery Science Theno 3000 tag. You should keep it for future rundowns of our rundowns.

I do wonder if you guys think Depression Quest or other Interactive Novels qualify as Text-based games or if they're just a variant of choose your own adventure. It's a discussion we're having on OR in response to my article which assumes that text-based games are under represented on game platforms like Steam (yes I'm aware of Sanctuary RPG, it's pretty cool).