Posts made by Kestrel

@Kanye-Qwest said in The Shame Game:

@Kestrel said in The Shame Game:

Striving to think rationally is admirable for all the reasons discussed above. And it is, on the whole, better than thinking emotionally

lol what
People who aren't caught up in bullshit are aware that both logic and emotion are pretty important in dealing with life. One without the other is bad, no matter which way you skew.

Yeah, that was bad phrasing on my part; I'll stand corrected on this point.

I was primarily referring to personal bias, but I suppose I should say that thinking rationally is better than thinking emotionally circumstantially, when it comes to decision-making for matters that aren't personal or ethics-related. (Although, here, have more books! Morality should be approached scientifically, too.)

I don't advocate being a robot when making decisions pertaining to your career or your relationships. But it is quite useless to be emotionally invested in internet discussions with people you don't know, discussing/judging/upvoting/shaming matters of little consequence.

Throwing my two cents in, because why not? I think @Ganymede and @Lithium are both wrong.

Striving to think rationally is admirable for all the reasons discussed above. And it is, on the whole, better than thinking emotionally, especially when people put their hearts on a pedestal as @Vorpal describes: the culture that dictates logic is not sexy.

But one should also, at the same time, recognise the fact of personal biases and that no one is immune to them. Rational purity in humans does not exist. If it did, judges — to reference the example @Ganymede gave — would not be susceptible to the halo effect, would not so often fail to issue rape convictions, and would not sentence people of colour more harshly and more frequently. I would argue that, quite often, judges do simply make judgements based on what they feel, as all of us do; they just back it up with a lot more rationalisation further down the line.

This is why critical thinkers trust in peer-reviewed empirical data and meta-analyses, not personal anecdotes. One person's experience and judgement, no matter how rationally they think they've processed it, is never sufficient.

@Lithium is right to recognise that no one is rational. @Ganymede is right to recognise they should be. This is basically a debate between rational idealism and empathetic realism. Here's to the fence. You're both right, and you're both wrong.

Also, I know it's not cool to reference books and stuff, but you guys should read Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. He won a Nobel prize and stuff, so must be somewhat important. Or watch this fun animated video.

@Apu said in The Shame Game:

Shaming is a dual-edged sword. In most cases it is a horrible thing - like shaming a woman who happens to enjoy having sex and is happy with having more than one partner - but, on the flip side of the coin, it can also be a very powerful tool. While it might fall upon deaf ears (or blind eyes, if it's done on a forum such as this) it just might get someone's attention and make them realize their behavior is unacceptable and help them to decide to try and change it. I don't condone using it except in the most extreme of cases and only if you're sure that the shaming won't cause more harm than it might cause possible good.

Shaming can be said to be a powerful tool in that it helps enforce social norms, some of which are pretty useful to have around — like don't molest children and don't talk at the theatre.

The problem is, who decides social norms? In some (too many) settings for example, sexual purity as a desirable feminine trait is a social norm. People can be shamed for deviating from the norm in anything from skin colour to their eating preferences.

In essence, shaming is the worst sum result of mob mentality, and even where the mob's anger is justified, it's a poor tool for the job.

If there's one thing everyone should know it's that sometimes they're wrong and make bad judgement calls — individually, let alone as part of a mob or adherence to social norms.

So employing the worst sum result with the conviction that you may be right isn't the best idea. It leads to bad things.

I think shame is only worth using (and risking) when applied independently and internally, not commanded externally.

@surreality said in The Shame Game:

I would recommend that 'self-awareness' post or three that describe some of the problems that arise when someone doesn't have it.

Ditto.

@Pandora said in The Shame Game:

Show me an asshole that honestly doesn't know they're an asshole and I'll show you someone that probably has a few indicators of a personality disorder.

This is a pretty meaningless statement. 'Anti-social personality disorder' is also a personality disorder. Besides, the bolded part (and especially the italic part) could apply to literally every person on earth.

@Cupcake: unpopular opinion, but I think your thread sparked some poignant debate. I'm not sure why anyone thinks citing a source is pretentious. No one's saying you can't disagree with an argument just because a cited source supports it. Thanks for providing food for thought.

I also think it's funny that someone got shamed for trying to bring up the shame game. I guess the first rule of Fight Club is that you do not talk about the Fight Club?

I think it's rather dismal to make sport of one's grievances. I won't pretend that I'm above it all, but if anything, I think that's something worth a good deal of self-shame when indulged in.

Naming and shaming people does serve a purpose, and a good one at that. I'm a firm believer that if something or someone is bothering you, you should not keep it quiet, but shout it out. Preferably politely and constructively, but beating around the bush is just as unhelpful as flinging shit.

The 'culture of bitching' that's been explained to me as an integral part of these boards, while perhaps cathartic for some, is really not something I consider healthy or productive for anyone involved. Why bitch for the sake of bitching? Why get angry for the sake of being angry? Say and feel things because you actually feel and care about them. That, I think, is worth a lot more respect, and will make you feel better to boot.

Ultimately this is the internet and I don't expect people to use it as an outlet for their humanity. Lawrd knows I've occasionally been known to troll. But I think it pays, when you feel the need to shame someone, to try and connect with them as a person, first.

@Monogram said in The 100: The Mush:

@Cupcake said in The 100: The Mush:
Even if I played a character that was like that(and to some extent, my character is)/I/, being me the player, wouldn't allow my character to go in that direction because when it comes to what I want as a player, I'm willing to sacrafice that desire as a player to make sure that the game keeps operating smoothly and everyone is integrated in what plot development or RP that's out there. Splitting up limits this, regardless of the IC justifications for it. It's small price to pay. For me, at least.

Why are you assuming, if you are assuming, that this is what anti-Ark players actually OOCly intend? (And @Cupcake for that matter.)

Also, hi, @Ghost. (And @Kanye-Qwest.) Since you asked: I'm the one who downvoted that post about how staff should encourage splinter-factions. I think it's a terrible idea that will do the game no good, for all the reasons @Monogram and @GirlCalledBlu stated.

I want to say that I play one of the three most vocal Rebel characters in-game. She's frequently made her anti-Ark stance clear, and has voiced support both privately and publicly for the idea of a splinter-faction that will go off and do their own thing. Despite this, let me make it clear that I have no intention of actually doing so, OOC.

And here's the rub, and is what really grates my cheese the most about this thread. IC conflict is important. It provides challenges and obstacles for characters (and their society as a whole) to deal with. It provides opportunities for character growth. When my character ends up doing something nice, changing her mind about something or slowly warming up to people, I like to think that they find it surprising, refreshing and rewarding, but they wouldn't get that if she was nice all the time. But instead of dealing with these things IC — or just ignoring it and finding someone else to play with, YMMV — people insist on taking it OOC and making it a big issue where it actually might not be. This is exactly what is meant by WrongFun attitude. Moreover, we are burning bridges before they have been crossed through fear-mongering. No one has actually tried to seriously PvP anyone, even if they've said 'I will cut you, bro.' No one has actually tried to go off to form a splinter-faction and divide the playerbase. These players are standing right in front of you, willing to engage. It is your choice not to engage them because you're nervous about imagined OOC intentions. When shit actually hits the fan? Panic then rather than flinging shit at it yourself.

There has been more antagonism in this thread than I have experienced in-game. I do not find a character falsely accusing mine of murder and trying to sic a mob-justice execution on her OOCly stressful. That was some of the most fun I've had in game. I am not even stressed that my character recently cracked her skull. But this attitude, these tea-cup storms, this drama — legitimately, so far, this has been the only thing about this game that has made me want to quit, along with a few conversations in pages about the subject by people who insist on foreseeing doom and gloom. A lot of the posters in this thread are being plain nasty. I doubt some are more than trolls sour over whatever happened over in 5W, a game I did not play. I respect your right to feel the things you're feeling and voice your criticisms of the game, but less so when you use your personal preferences as an excuse to lambast those who differ and are having fun.

To those of you who think I'm an arsehole for the fact that I enjoy playing an antagonist who starts IC conflict, I say this: I think you're arseholes for your snap-judgements and needless OOC aggression towards players and dedicated staff who do their very best to try and make everyone happy providing this kind of fun for others, in their spare time. We're even. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

@surreality said in The 100: The Mush:

@faraday Pretty much, yes. No one should be forced to play baseball if they only like basketball.

They shouldn't, however, turn every game on the playground into a basketball game, or anyone not keen on playing basketball is apt to leave the playground, and rightly so.

But this goes both ways.

If I tell you that I'm an antagonistic player — or if you just look at my character wiki/+finger and you see a big red flashing neon sign that says, 'antagonistic character' in the form of roleplay hooks like 'edgy' and 'broody', please don't, as an avid basketball player / warm-fuzzy TSer, come over to my baseball pitch to accuse me of being a horrible person for not wanting to come play basketball. Which by the way, happens all the time.

Basketball players and I have no beef. I might invite them over for a game or throw a baseball at them one time, and if they don't hit back, I'll shrug and go find someone else to play with. But I have encountered really entitled goody-type players who seem to get really offended by the fact that I don't want to change my character to cater to their fantasy. I come with a warning label, OK? Don't be the guy who orders a pizza from Dominos and then complains that the crust had gluten in it.

tl;dr: Everyone needs to learn to just be more accepting and find their niche because no style is better than the other, it's all just preferences. Live and let live.

Also, know what the theme of the game you're getting into is.

@mietze

Huh.

The problem you're describing is one which, in almost every instance, I have encountered exclusively on the opposite end of the spectrum. Rarely do I ever meet antagonistic characters whose motivation is me-me-me. Far more often I find this to be a 'protagonist' trait.

There are some people who just cannot seem to handle the idea that other characters will think ill of their characters, even when it's abundantly clear that this is character-to-character and not player-to-player or even player-to-character. These are players who seem to play with the goal of wish-fulfillment rather than storytelling, and will go on the OOC offensive when anyone rains on their IC/OOC-bleed parade rather than just retaliating in a way that makes IC sense and moving the story forward.

I play an antagonist because it's a role that allows me to draw other characters out. It invites them to showcase the deepest layers of the personality they've designed and test their character with challenges and circumstance they would not normally face. To me, this is one of the biggest draws of a survival/new-civilisation-building setting and it's the kind of thing I enjoy. I have 0 desire to interact with anyone who doesn't enjoy it, though I won't be an OOC dick to them for it, either. It just means we have different tastes and would be better off playing with other people who suit our interests better. If it was about me-me-me though, I would play the most perfect and wonderful princess who gets along with everyone, so that I can live vicariously through how much everyone adores and exalts my character. And I wouldn't, as I do, back off the second I sense my partner isn't having fun.

@Admiral: I don't know anyone else who plays this game. I barely even know anyone who posts on MSB. I have no contact with anyone there, and I make it a point to try and have at least one small scene with every player in the game, especially if they're new. So it doesn't seem plausible that I could be part of any kind of clique, let alone the right one, and yet I manage to enjoy playing an antagonistic character just fine.

I honestly do see what you're saying, @GangOfDolls, and I play a totally terrible person. There has to be give and take. Playing a bad guy is not just about playing a bad guy, but about engaging the people you're 'bad' to, making them feel special, relevant, and offering them the chance for a solution, not just a problem.

If Harry Potter were a roleplaying game, for example, everyone would love to have a Voldemort. Voldemort is the villain who decries you for being the thorn in his side because you're the Chosen One, the one arch-rival whom he just can't seem to get past, who genuinely threatens him. Voldemort doesn't just antagonise Harry — he cares about him. Antagonists should always care about their 'victims' for scenes to be enjoyable.

Speaking personally, I like to think that I go out of my way to be nice to people OOC and to make it clear through both IC and OOC interactions that I value their RP and their character. But of course, I can't actually read minds and we all have blind spots, so it's equally likely that I lack self-awareness and come across worse than I believe.

I do wish people felt they could more freely and openly communicate any concerns they have about other people's RP and offer constructive criticism — but as someone who's been burned before (many times) trying to do just that, I understand why people rarely feel comfortable doing so.

My candid advice would be to avoid people you don't like dealing with. You should find your niche soon enough. I didn't roll in with anyone and the only person I talk to OOC who used to play is now inactive. Despite this, there are a large number of people whom I now interact with on a regular basis and feel very comfortable around. They were welcoming and helpful, it just took a scene or two to get there.

Do also bear in mind the theme of the show, which is survival and, as you say, a bunch of rough, post-apocalyptic post-pubescent criminals enjoying their first taste of freedom. I love the show and I love this theme, or I would not play.

What I want most in a combat system is the freedom and flexibility to showcase my character.

Many systems reward player skill and ingenuity, but very few of them reward a character for being a character, or even allow them to be one. By this I mean, if I OOCly know that my +4 dex knife is the most powerful weapon in my arsenal against a guy with a certain type of armour, I don't want to feel forced or even motivated to use it for that reason. I don't want a system where combat consists of a series of attacks with the goal of each to be as powerful as possible, and as a result essentially identical with really minor variations... like punch-punch-punch-punch-win.

My ideal roleplay fight works something like this:

A heated argument at a bar turns into a shove, which turns into someone grabbing a bottle and smashing it over the other's head. Someone swings a punch and misses because they're drunk, a bottle is hurled and someone lifts up a chair to shield themselves, the chair is then smashed to smithereens and the chair-leg becomes an improvised club. By getting smashed in the face with a chair leg, someone is sent slamming into the bar-top, and that hard surface is what injures their jaw. A dazed opponent fails to make a move (as a player choice, not a coded repercussion), someone grabs them and sends them flying through a window. The fight moves from the bar to the lawn, then the pool, and eventually someone grabs a knife.

Things like this would never happen if the person with the knife knew from the very beginning that a knife is the best weapon for the job, or that staying stationary at the bar is advantageous as it doesn't consume a move action, or that in the pool they have to take a movement debuff. The person slammed into the bar would not choose to skip their chance to attack, even if it makes sense for them to, as they wouldn't want to sacrifice their turn and increase their chances of losing overall.

A system that decides the outcome in general terms without tactical mechanics sounds just fine to me, if it would encourage more creativity throughout the fight by causing less pressure turn-by-turn.

I don't really care about a chance to use the powers I've bought with my hard-earned XP if it means sacrificing the character. As @Seraphim73 mentioned, I want representation of my hard work, but for me that hard work should be things like creativity, teamwork and good sportsmanship, less about things like min/maxing.

When rolling, I want a good chance to fail, otherwise there's no point in rolling and you may as well just go by constant stat values. Suspense and uncertainty are something I enjoy in roleplaying games.

I will always prefer to wait forever for really good writing than watch someone pump-and-dump something mediocre. Well, maybe not forever — ten minutes between emotes is the max I like to wait, though I'll wait longer for someone special. I find that the speed of my own writing is inversely correlated with how engaged I am, funnily enough. If the scene really grabs my attention, I will take longer, because I want to put more thought into what I'm writing. Quick banter with a writing partner who doesn't challenge me has never been, well, challenging for me. This improves over time as roleplay chemistry and familiarity develop, but there are writers out there who are so damn interesting that anything they write means I have to stop, stare, digest, and really care about what I offer up in response.

The content of the emote matters. I like a good paragraph, on average, but I also like variety. A sentence or two is fine, from time to time, as is the occasional two, three, or in recent memory, even four paragraph response. There are times when a short one-liner is more apt, and I don't like it when people needlessly pad in these instances.

I have a personal preference which I think makes me pretty weird, and is the opposite of how most MU*ers think: I dislike emotes containing too much dialogue. Spare me your character waxing poetics and serving up all their philosophical and political views on a platter; rants and rambles feel inorganic and unrealistic to me. I would so much rather read a paragraph detailing your character's body-language, the way they move, the way they meet my character's eyes, the tone of their voice, and for this to breathe life into their one-sentence, even one word verbal retort. I wish more people loved writing body-language and actions as much as I do, as it's so much more immersive than reading a screenplay. C'est la vie.

@Thenomain said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

I think 'a successful MU*' would be a MU* that isn't a MU* at all.

Which is funny, because most of what you said you would do or that your friend would do has been done before. Play By Post integration: RP over a Jobs system (mostly complained about). Dynamic grid: Part of what we gave up years ago (still used in spaceship games). Web-Interface: Evennia and any Muck coded by Nuku. Auto-logging features: Every client ever. Player/Character profiles: Wiki and, in-game, finger.

We're already there.

@Thenomain said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

Alright, I see what you're saying. As she's stating it, tho, we've applied all of that, almost all of that on the same games, and I wouldn't have called it a success. The fact that we have regressed to the older, shittier UX of Mu*, whether Mud or Mush, is my evidence of that.

To which I say: you did not apply it well enough. I mean, just because social networks like Friendster existed long before Facebook doesn't mean they were worth their salt, or that there wasn't a better way to do things.

As a simple example, you've raised wiki and finger to my suggestion of player/character profiles, but one of these is accessible from a webpage, the other from a downloadable client, and there is no integration between the two. It's unwieldy. It's more complicated than it needs to be. And I'm not talking about the coder-side of things. Wouldn't it make sense to have everything in one place, in line with how most of these crazy kids like to do things now in 2016?

I'm not trying to shit on the hobby. I love the hobby. I just want more people to love it as much as I do, which is why I would love for more of its pioneers to think a little outside the box.

Mind you, I have to ask: How would these things make it successful? What is 'successful' here?

Well, to be perfectly honest with you, I really like the idea of making lots of money. This isn't my only concern, but if I were going to pour all my energy and resources into a project of this scope, it would be a concern. Having addressed the capitalist elephant in the room, allow me to salvage the remnants of my starry-eyed idealism:

I think MU*s are a dying genre. It isn't a novel thing to think — people have been saying it for years. To me, for a MU* to be considered successful, it would have to exceed the declining expectations of its genre, resuscitate and popularise it. Anything short of a total resurgence in the public eye would be a level of success for a MU* that I wouldn't be interested in wasting my time on, not because I'm really greedy, but because I think the genre is capable of that level of success, because there is a market for it, and it makes me kinda sad that no one other than IRE is tapping into it. And I don't even think IRE is doing a good job of it — their ethics aside, I just think they could be doing better, even on a commercial level.

Lots of people read fiction, participate in improv classes, or identify as aspiring writers. A very, very small percentage of these people play MU*s, but I think that a much larger percentage would be interested, and would play if they even knew what a MU* is, or if upon finding one, they didn't find the newbie experience so odd and unfriendly. It galls me that MUDs keep wasting time building hack-and-slash code to try and compete with WoW-style MMORPGs, or that MUSHes, which are aimed at exactly the right niche, are so badly publicised.

So in sum, what would I consider 'successful' for a MU*? Well, other than having fun, I suppose I would just want to make something that lives up to its potential.

@ThatOneDude: Thanks for answering. See above. Highly relatable.

@Wretched

Yeah, this isn't the exact scenario I had in mind, but I sympathise with the example you presented. Nonetheless, similarly, everyone has different expectations out of relationship RP, same as relationships IRL. If one person has the expectation of daily relationship RP and the other prefers no more than once a week, they probably aren't going to have fun together anyway.

@ThatGuyThere said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I was resentfully paged by someone asking me to if it was alright if we said that my char was teaching hers a skill. My answer was no he wouldn't teach that to anybody. Other player player said No prob and went on to find some one else to handle the IC teaching.
Yes for the MUD folks reading this, all this could have been handled ICly just as well. And honestly in this particular case I have no preference as to how it gets handled save that the OOC way was a bit quicker.

See, to me, this is a lost opportunity. I personally would so much rather have my character approach yours and say, 'Hey, can you teach me this thing?' To which yours would respond, 'No, I would not teach that to anyone.' We can then try and haggle with one another, or enter a political discussion about why your character is restricting the education of this, etc. If the goal is story, and not to just game your way to a win, isn't trying to control things first OOCly counterproductive?

On to the next topic, which I thought I'd address here rather than in the other thread:

@Thenomain said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

@Kestrel [...] you lamented the lack of secrets in Mushes in the other thread. As as I was going down the history of the Modern Mush, it felt relevant.

So, to clarify this, the kind of secrets I was referring to aren't of the 'pull lever, discover trapdoor' variety. I was referring more to, 'Everyone thinks my character's family died in a tragic accident, but in actuality, she murdered them all in cold blood.'

Like you, @Thenomain, I consider myself primarily an explorer with a side of world-builder, where the Bartle archetypes are concerned. If I can't find it, I make it, and if I can do neither, I feel my environment is lacking. This extends to character-design as well. My characters are built with layers upon layers upon layers of secrets, and I likewise delight in exploring other characters I interact with the same way. I want to peel back those layers, IC, and find out what makes them tick. In a more gamey, less story-driven environment, I will settle for an exciting grid with hidden quests to explore.

So I find it kind of sad, and I feel very cheated, if someone messages me OOCly to tell me all about their character's hidden motives. And if they ask for mine, my instinct is to just reply, 'fuck off'. @Lotherio claims that on MUSHes he plays, secrets are very much a part of the culture, but they aren't on the MUSH I'm playing on. And I think that, no matter the MUSH, when you allow for so much OOC communication, it's inevitable that people are going to want to be demanding and expect you to be more open. On most MUDs I've played, where simulationism and IC are king, 'find out IC' is a refrain held to a much higher regard than 'communication is key'. And thus, IC mysteries are much better preserved, and are more fun to unlock.

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

'Activity' is nothing but a ratio of time spent in-game and time spent off-game and the only way to not hold anyone accountable for their offline time is to have zero expectation of activity whatsoever.

This rubs me the wrong way. If someone can only get on once a week, or once a month, why should they be excluded from having the fun they want?

Sometimes, yes. As illustrated by the example @Arkandel provided here:

@Arkandel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@mietze said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I don't know why it's so hard for people to just say "oh darn, this person wasn't able to be here oocly, well, let's just assume they were prevented from acting by something unforeseen until we have a chance to talk."

There are two reasons, one better than the other.

1. Because said people are jerks.

2. Because this person is actually abusing the fact they aren't around. For instance I log on maybe once a week but please assume I've been to all the political meetings, and while your PC was at risk of dying in the Slaughthouse of Horror please assume I was also there fighting valiantly at the back. What, it's time for you to put in a spend for Glory 4? Me too! We're old war buddies, you and I.

... I guess I could have summed it up by stating 'people are jerks' and leaving it at that.

It isn't always a case of, 'omg, real life is so busy!' Some people just don't like RPing certain things. For example, conflict. If all you log on to do is TS with your boo, and you just really hate conflict and have 0 desire to ever be involved in it or to go through the hassle of RPing your involvement in a battle, in major story points, I don't think that you should be allowed to reap the benefit of story points you just aren't putting the effort into.

What you give is what you get. It sucks you can't be online 24/7, or that you can't get along with everyone well enough to play with them — I'm not even arguing that you should. But it is annoying for those players who had the time to spare and invested into the story, risking their character and giving enjoyment to other players, to watch as some apathetic schmuck rolls past them to claim all of the glory points and none of the effort.

Even on a MUSH — if a player doesn't RP with me, I'd rather our characters just not have our stories be more intricately involved than, 'Oh hey, yeah, that guy John, I've seen him around'. I don't want that player sending me a page assuring me that John has been giving my character lots of personal one-on-one time if we cannot actually RP it out. Otherwise, it's as dull as solo-killing a player who's offline on a MUD and calling that 'story'.

@Ganymede, brief mention: my earlier post wasn't in response to yours, but to the one I quoted. Apologies for the confusion.

@ThatOneDude said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

@Thenomain said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

@ThatOneDude said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

I love PK! No one else really enjoys it for the fun it can be though

One of the people I work with plays Rust for the challenge and the back-and-forth PK. And if people you know also love it? Great! If not? Well? Why is it their problem?

I've laughed my ass off about situations where I've lost, or adored the story told, but this is my angle, and my angle doesn't work for you. Visa-versa. Note in that video (you did watch the video, right?), neither Bartle nor the Extra Credits crew said who was responsible for the fun. In fact, they say what we've always known: Those who aren't having fun leave.

In fact, that's what I get out of every time someone puts the words "mush" and "successful" together: How do we stop people from leaving?

If you're secretly trying to deconstruct BitN, I can't help you. I listen to staff chat (because coder) and I hear more "hee hee that was awesome" more than "goddamn it, insert-player-name-here", so I have to believe that staff are enjoying the game. I also have to assume that anyone playing there is enjoying themselves enough to play there, or I have to wonder about their sanity. Sounds like a winner to me.

THAT SAID, I have continued playing on games I didn't enjoy, but I enjoyed the people I was with. People are looking for the key to upward positive feedback and game growth. This is it. One person, @ThatGuyThere, has it right on. Everything past that is a deconstruction about what you enjoy about a game.

There is a certain tipping point where the game can be complete and utter shit with shit staffers and shit situations and still have a high population. I put this critical mass around 20 players. In the video (you watched the video, right?), this is the social circle. Maybe all that happens is TS and IC Drama, but hey, it's popular, right? I have to believe the people there are enjoying themselves, because anything else is just sad.

Please Note: Fun is not the same as Enjoyment. I usually assume people mean the latter when they say the former, but we can all enjoy ourselves without having 'fun'.

So yeah, +1 to @ThatGuyThere for the truest answer, and +1 to everyone else for figuring out how to make that happen.

Oh don't get me wrong, I think I've come to that point in my life where I'll never be able to mu* ever again. But I think this conversation was a good one to have in the community as a whole. More so for those people talking of making their own games and hopefully running it in a way that's good for players and themselves.

Just curious, if you think you're at the point in your life where you'll never be able to MU* ever again, why make this thread? My question is 100% serious. What were you hoping to learn? And what's your conclusion about MU* success potential, etc.?

@Thenomain said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

@Kestrel, I'm drawing your attention here in case you're skimming (god knows I do): Moo used an in-game editor but a more realistic, flexible language. One of the single worst things about using Mush for coding is that it can be ten times harder to do something cool in Mush than almost any other language.

It's not that Mushes can't have mobs and things, a gigantic game called Firan proved that wrong, it's that it's not worth it. I mean, we're busy implementing a codified RPG. God, the language code we used to have was pretty damn complex too. At one point, if you knew French you could pick up smaller snippets of other Romance Languages depending on how similar or dissimilar they were from French, all the way down to "I don't know what they're saying, but I know that it's kinda Greek-like" for 'Ancient Greek'.

You want secrets? Damn did we have them. It's possible. It takes time, but the most important thing as a game is will someone use it because if not, why bother? And people started complaining about it. And we killed the general WoD secrets culture. And it faded into obscurity.

Which of my posts were you responding to with that mention? As I don't think that, personally, I would ever attempt to code any of this stuff on a MUSH with the intention of making 'a successful MU*'. As stated above, I think 'a successful MU*' would be a MU* that isn't a MU* at all. Why try to improve on something so unwieldy when its audience and function could be fulfilled by something better and more user-friendly?

This thread is exposing a lot more differences between MUDs and MUSHes than I expected. Goes to show, I think, the 'one is game-heavy, other is roleplay-heavy' distinction doesn't quite cut it. There are many more nuances to the two styles than that.

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

It is forcing a 'you were not at your post'. Player cannot be on 24/7, or even every day of the week. Their char would be, this is making a weird cross over of OOC/IC.

Yeah, this. Half the reason people burn out on these games is the implied, inflated obligation they sometimes feel like.

Got to admit, I am finding my current MUSH way, way less stressful than any MUD I've ever been on.

Maybe except when it comes to OOC communication. They're about the same, on that front. (Different, but with pros and cons to each.)

@surreality said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

@Kestrel said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

In the other, more game-related direction, I'm very fond of the Richard Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology, the author of which is the co-creator of the first MUD and I believe some kind of associate of Matt Mihaly, the founder of IRE.

How I know I'm old: I remember seeing this referenced back when it was a paper on a personal website. Wow. I am really glad to see it referenced and linked in its current form, though; I've also found it very helpful in game design. It's easier, IMHO, to hit all the bases for something like this with a MOO or MUD than a MUX, but that's based on my limited code ability and what was available back when I was still attempting it.

The code of MUX focuses strongly on the Socializer player type.

Grids have become much smaller over time, which limits the Explorer; I've looked at some ways around this for a super bizarre project I wanted to try and found some ways around it but there's no way around a somewhat larger-than-people-find-ideal-these-days grid. (That, or I am just used to people shrieking like harpies at any over all grid of more than 20-25 rooms; I'm accustomed to that being a minor side area grid from a main area that may have two or three of those springing from it from the days of MOO, by contrast.)

Ironically, I think this is where MUX could draw more people in, or provide more options than it currently does, it's just utterly counter to the current game design mindset in a number of ways and it's time intensive on the build side before the doors open -- many staffcorps are racing to open and there's simply no time for this level of detail. To me, personally, I consider this a drastic loss. We used to see more of it. It is/was a fantastic means of imbedding plot elements or story seeds in the setting that players can uncover and then explore or pursue, solo or with STs/GMs or other staff assistance.

A friend of mine is currently working on an MU* project where he's looking to really amp up the 'explorer' factor in what I think is a rather novel way — rather than having a traditional grid designed by builders, he wants to create a self-creating, dynamic player-driven grid wherein anything you can imagine wanting would be automatically generated (and then be explorable) the moment you enter a command like, 'goto bar'. If no bar exists, the system would then simply create a bar with a randomised name/description, and other players would have a chance of finding it next time someone uses 'goto bar' as opposed to looking for that bar specifically by its new name/ID. And similarly this could be used for generating and linking generic backstory town-where-I-grew-up, where you may discover that you actually grew up in the same town as another player, allowing for the opportunity to coordinate.

The idea for this came from his hatred of traditional MU* grid-style walking around and the hassle involved in building. He also said he simply didn't want to build a MUD, but something new.

Which I think brings me to another relevant point: maybe the question in the title is just inherently bad. How does a MU* become successful? MU*s aren't successful. To become successful, they would need to become something else entirely. Were I designing my own, I'd probably combine MUD & MUSH elements with play-by-post and instead design a user-friendly website with a dynamic map/chatroom application, auto-logging features accessible in a navbar, player/character profiles, etc.

@Arkandel

Indeed.

I mean, if you want to look at the epitome of objective, conventional success for a MU*, look at IRE (Iron Realms Entertainment: Achaea, Aetolia, Imperian, Lusternia, Midkemia Online). Those MUDs make a lot, a lot of money, and have a large playerbase. But I would never strive to make a MU* that is successful in that regard, any more than I would strive to publish a book that is successful in the way that Twilight is.

To play devil's advocate though, and I suppose rather than waffling on, 'what is success, really' which is probably not what @ThatOneDude was looking for, making an objectively successful MU* is basically about manipulating people. IRE promises 'free to play', gets people hooked, and reveals itself as 'pay to win' once people are invested in their characters and have the need to feel important in the scope of the game-world. 'Live vicariously through your character' is genuinely a sales pitch. I'm pretty sure drug dealers operate under similar principles.

So you need to understand psychology. Best get your armchair warm.

A while ago I decided that I wanted to make my own commercially-successful MUD, one which I told myself was going to appeal to the widest possible range of gamer mindsets and specifically draw in audiences that had never considered MUDing or even gaming before. I felt that, if MUDing (I specify MUDs because this is less relevant to MUSHes) is a dying genre, it's because MUDs try too hard to compete with higher categories of gaming against which they don't stand a chance: i.e., MMORPGs. People who want to grind monsters are never going to be satisfied with what MUDs offer; at best, it's a sub-par compromise for people who game from work, have poor connections (which is why I think there are so many active-duty military MU* ers), etc. MU* s are a niche market and need to focus on reaching out to audiences who will love them for exactly what they are, limited capabilities and all: readers, writers, people who just genuinely love text and love stories. MUSHes are a step in the right direction, but few of them are professional/commercial and they don't advertise. This is the only field in which MMOs can never compete with MU* s against.

In the other, more game-related direction, I'm very fond of the Richard Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology, the author of which is the co-creator of the first MUD and I believe some kind of associate of Matt Mihaly, the founder of IRE. I've borrowed from the theory extensively whenever I've been in charge of any kind of MUD-related building project and tried to see how anything I'm designing can have something in it which appeals to each category of gamer. If I was designing a MU*, even a MUSH, I would definitely lean heavily on this. Not to the exclusion of writing/story-minded members of the community, but as part and parcel with the stories they're involved in and the means by which they become involved.

@ThatGuyThere said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kestrel
It seems to me from this thread the biggest cultural difference between MUDs and MUSHes is on MUD IC has primacy, things tend to me looked at mainly though the lens of IC.
On MUSHes OOC tends to have primacy, some aspects of this I think are positive some are negative.
The feeling I am picking up from MUD folks is that the game is meant to simulate the life of the characters in a very sim like fashion.
On a MUSH there is more of a focus on creating good fiction, one example is I was in a scene a couple of nights ago. It went well story got moved forward and it reached a natural conclusion. I am sure many like this happen on a MUD on a regular basis. In case we just decided to fade there, not wrap up no how folks got home just fading to the character chatting, much like a fade out of a scene on TV or in a movie. The scene had served it's purpose nothing more need to be said. From what I gather on a MUD those of us in the scene would be expected to actually pose out good byes and navigate the grid to our residences before logging out. Instead of +ooc then logging out.
If this correct? Not judging just trying to make sure I have things straight in my head.

All accurate, and I definitely see the benefits as you describe. Often having to wrap up a scene with the minutiae can be frustrating or just dull.

In some ways MUSHes are less spontaneous, in other ways more so. You have to prearrange RP, but once you go +ic, the scene starts immediately and provides you with instant gratification, in terms of the fact that you can dive straight into the action. There is less RP, but the RP you get is better. I have often been very bored IC on MUDs, waiting for more interesting things to happen. I am often bored on a MUSH waiting for RP partners to log on or be available, but at least they usually give me their full attention when the scene begins. I can spend the rest of my time online more wisely, doing other things rather than picking up scraps from inattentive/mediocre/temporary RP partners on MUDs, tavern-sitting etc.

Regarding the simulationism though, I actually don't know whether MUDs or MUSHes are worse. Yes, MUDs are simulationist, but I feel like MUSHers tend to have less IC/OOC separation. The ability to control what kind of RP you're involved in to such a high degree allows for a lot more wish-fulfillment and, IMHO, isn't healthy. It is a lot easier to be a Mary-Sue on a MUSH, because if you don't want to, you never have to expose yourself to anyone who would rain on your parade. See also my bafflement on this thread. It weirds me out that people would strictly arrange for and only play out perfect relationships, even perfect friendships, or expect other players to alter their characters' normal behaviour to minimise conflict. But, I intend to follow the advice others have given on this thread about self-selection (ironically), so hopefully I won't have to deal with this too much.

@TNP: Sleep is for the weak.