Posts made by Jeshin

I might by this for my GF, she likes tongue in cheek stuff like this.

Also yes one of the reasons for the criteria is specifically so we don't list every game ever and become TMC or TMS or any of the other general listing sites. We aren't trying to be that. As for headaches well... I really want to have the community be an open discussion about design and roleplay for text-based games and have it be a place where games an advertise (regardless of being listed or not). The only place where the criteria has been a problem is here. Thankfully any headache I have received here has been balanced by learning more about a part of the text-based community I wasn't familiar with.

Pointing being that "headache" is relative. You can't please everybody and you can't always be right. You just have to do what you think is best and not be an asshole to other people and maybe you'll come out ahead.

It hasn't been an issue thus far, but if it would help the MUSH community feel more comfortable in seeking being listed than I'll have something by next week. Right now game contacts us, we have a conversation, and we work it out via e-mails. It's been a pretty pleasant experience so far but I guess we're losing potential candidates with poor definition.

No I didn't. I provided examples of some automated systems.

For Example...

+roll/will strength + swordfighting + specialty <--- this doesn't qualify as a automated system at this time if all it does is output the result of 11 successes and then your opponent would roll and then the pair of you would figure out who won it and get a Judge involved, so on so forth.

Chargen <---- Doesn't count as a automated systems at this time

Score / +sheet <----- Doesn't count as a automated system at this time

I've had some people discuss counting +roll, +sheet, and chargen as automated systems with me but at this time I don't consider them to be automated systems or if you want to argue that they are than they are not the automated systems we mean when we say automated systems.

Oh also any inventive social / political / magic stuff that might be theme/game specific. It's hard to be comprehensive but I think the idea is getting across.

Automated Systems

This is indeed a kind of... grey area. Really I'm a big softie and I want to list as many games as I can but I also have principals and so I stick to the criteria (even though I did consider changing it). For "automated systems" I will attempt to give some examples.

Foraging - The ability for characters to "forage" and receive an item.
Combat - The ability to take an action and have the resulting damage / effect automatically determined and echoed. Even if it's Tempest strikes Jeshin for mild damage and we then determine ourselves how we want to RP that out.
Travel - Travel beyond simply moving between rooms such as space travel, dimensional travel, dream travel, teleporations, etc etc.
Territory Control - The ability for rooms, zones, territory to affect characters or be affected by characters without staff manually doing all the affecting.
Investigations / Tracking - The ability for characters to gain information via coded commands without the manual support or staffers or other players.
Crafting - The ability for characters to produce an item based on their skills or abilities.

You don't need all of them. For the most part I like a minimum of 2 in a game but if you only have 1 and it's a biggie than it's just as good to me. When accepting games that applied the automated systems have often been the thing we had to discuss a bit and I normally login or check out websites for helpfiles to better understand their implementation.

Only the sea of storms is a MUD the other is a MUSH (Otherspace) and the other is a MOO (Sindome). Also I didn't go into the level of detail you did because my point didn't require it!

That being said at first glance Requiem for Kingsmouth appears to be a MUSH that would be listed on OR if the owner wanted it to be.

Sindome

Automated Systems: Combat, Crafting, Cloning, Cybernetics, Medical, etc.

Roleplay Centric: Requires biography and staff enforces thematic roleplay by all users.

Perma-death: Supports perma-death

^ This game meets all the criteria.

Otherspace

Automated Systems: Space travel and Crafting

Roleplay Centric: Requires biography and staff enforces thematic roleplay by all users.

Perma-death: Supports perma-death

^ This game meets all the criteria

The Sea of Storms

Automated systems: combat, channeling, and crafting

Roleplay Centric: Staff enforces thematic roleplay by all users and character progression requires RP logs.

Perma-death: Supports perma-death

Now I picked these 3 games because all 3 of them have a very low or improbable chance of perma-death. Otherspace (to my knowledge) doesn't have a lot of player death running around but it can happen and has happened. Sindome as I explained has cloning but perma-death is still possible. TSOSmud (where I spent the majority of my staff experience) has a running joke that your characters new until their 2nd ooc year of existence. Perma-death exists on TSOSmud and it happened but it wasn't a common occurence.

All 3 of these games meet all the criteria to be listed so yeah any MUSH or MOO or MUD that wants to come and be like. Hey I qualify for this criteria and this is why. We definitely consider them even if they don't fulfill the MUD standard because we are not a MUD only community. So non-consent MUSHes if you have some form of automated system send me an e-mail right here: Admin@OptionalRealities.com

This thread is an advertisement thread for a MUD and a text-based game community!

^ Just so everyone can read it without their filters going off and wiping it from their memory.

Can you clarify what you mean by "coded" perma-death?

The perma-death requirement is simply that a character can be killed without the consent of the player behind it. We've never said someone has to die every day on your game or anything else. While it is almost impossible to die in Sindome, you can be killed against your will. I'm unsure why quantity is relevant? What if a game has perma-death and code but no roleplay? They'd claim the roleplay was arbitrary too.

Some statistics Sindome Provided on OR

If you scroll down they show their newbie death % , while it is almost impossible to die on Sindome you can still die due to bad luck or people directly and consistently targeting you. Savvy players can simply minimize their risk of perma-death the longer they live requiring a more concerted effort to perm them.

Well technically it's an advertisement thread for a MUD and a text-based game community!

As for roleplay, I made that clear too! I don't expect my girlfriend to go to actual federal prison when she slaps me for putting on sunglasses and pretending to be in the FBI and instructing her to stay sexy. Just like I don't expect perma-death to be required in all roleplay forms. Just the ones we list on OR (which is why it is a criteria).

For example lets look at Sindome which is arguably the least perma-death game with coded death on Optional Realities. It is almost impossible to actually permanently die on that game due to the setting, theme, and cloning being one of the fundamental technologies for the people of that world. I played there for a short time, wasn't my cup of tea, but their roleplay wasn't any worse than other RP muds I've tried over the last 15 years. Yet even with cloning being a fundamental part of their setting they still choose to include the ability to permanently die. Why?

EDIT - Note Sindome is a MOO, didn't mean to imply it was a mud.

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.

@Thenomain

I've been pretty clear. The criteria exist for a consistent baseline between all the games. The criteria was formed at the beginning of OR by the staff at the time. I considered changing it and opted out. We currently have several non-MUDs listed and we're happy with that and are looking to add more when they approach us or if I happen to spot them while nosing through the MUSH community.

I even updated our 1st article and made an announcement on the forum to clarify this and linked it here and I have over 6 times now invited anyone (and everyone) to advertise or discuss their specific games on our forums. No takers yet.

HavenRPG and Burning Post II both use RP heavy combat (by MUD standards).

In Haven you are placed on a grid and can move around on it. When fighting NPCs you just pick your attack and there's an action delay and stuff. When fighting PCs you emote out combat in turns (with a timer so if you take to long you pass) and the code is able to apply the combat stuff based on your inputs.

Burning Post II uses what they call threaded commands. They are also on a grid and when you emote it parses out the combat stuff to execute. I'm not as familiar with the Burning Post II approach so I can't go into more detail than that.

I may not have mentioned it but I stepped down as community lead for OR to focus on Project Redshift development. Crayon replaced me but I didn't tell him about musoapbox until yesterday because I was keeping you interesting people to myself... I guess I'll go like... do my job and stuff and let him take over.

=(

It was fun.

When I said no OOC communication for IC story arcs I meant with players themselves. Most RP muds (if not all) allow players to communicate with staff freely about those things. Also yeah that stuff happens between players off site but on the MUD itself such restrictions will sometimes exist which (in my experience) come off as weird to MUSH players trying out the game.

hmm >.> another touchstone I don't get the reference too. What is the context of "forge fight"?

Roleplay is Roleplay

If I put on sunglasses and tell my girlfriend that I am an FBI agent and she has the right to remain sexy. That is roleplay.

If I go onto a MUD and attack NPCs and collect resources from them to sell those to merchants in order to buy something for my MUD girlfriend as a gift. That is roleplay.

If I go onto a MUSH and enter a scene and talk about the weather while drinking coffee before someone robs the coffee shop. That is roleplay.

If I go to the park and find some LARPers and get a foam sword and lay siege to the jungle gym while people inside throw tennis balls at me and they shout spells. That is roleplay.

If I sit at a table with some dice and use an RPG to have a game night with my friends. That is roleplay.

Roleplay is the act of playing a role. Now people can argue which is better or which they prefer but if you are out there typing or speaking or acting in a manner which is meant to portray a character (not yourself) than you're roleplaying.

So as to the lexicon issue when discussing MUDs and MUSHes it's definitely an issue. In this thread alone I spent a good portion of my posts asking clarification questions to try and get a touchstone to proceed with the discussion.

That being said roleplay is roleplay. I certainly have my preference as to the environment for participating in roleplay but that's like saying you enjoy reading a book in a quiet room or with a soundtrack that compliments it or outside. It's just the manner in which you prefer the experience to occur. But then again I don't speak for the entire MUD community or the RPI community, only the Optional Realities community so you know... Grain of salt and all that.

I would say the 2 biggest differences between MUDs and MUSHes is our OOC policies. Some MUDs have OOC channels but they require you to have the narrative playout purely through IC events. Meaning you cannot go OOC I'd like to become a cop in the local PD. You would have to take IC steps towards letting people know you wanted to be a cop in the local PD. Meanwhile on MUSHes the collaboration (in my experience thus far) is more in the path of least resistance. I want to become a cop in the local PD. Great, lets cut out the busywork and get you right into a story arc that may or may not facilitate that. No muss, no fuss.

The second biggest difference (or the biggest big difference?) is that a lot of MUDs have coded NPCs which have coded combat abilities. MUSHes (normally) do not. This creates a pretty big experience gap between both games that can lead to one viewing the other as less serious. And brings up the "gameplay" term which is loaded.

To answer the contest question from phone so I'll get to the other topics when I get home.

The contest has a format for submissions which includes a description section. If you want to submit something outside the format or like skip portions of it than we will still judge it and host it but it probably won't place top 3