Posts made by Reason

Any opinions and/or experience with FFG's L5R?

EDIT: Point of clarification -- the RPG, not the CCG.

-r

Flirting with the idea of picking this project back up, though somewhat disheartened that we're almost a year out with no major releases for Cyberpunk Red.

Honestly considering revisiting Shadowrun 5th Edition. Why 5th? Because 6th is a hot mess, 5th is fully supported with all the supplemental rules, and the original issues w/ the Matrix got some love in 2018.

-r

So, the unfortunate reality is that I had two AWESOME weeks over Christmas break to get deep on coding followed by... a good solid quarter of being personally oversubscribed to way too many commitments. My hope at the time had been to wrap the game up into a functional state and sort of get enough momentum that it could sustain itself while I periodically maintained a few bits or added some features as needed.

Boy that looks naive based on the last 3 months!!

That said, instead of just letting this die, I'll find some time to clean up the repo where my work was hosted and post that out for anyone that wants to either continue it, use it for inspiration, or purely just laugh at how duct-tape-and-bailing-wire-hacktastic the code I threw together is (but it works!). Sorry folks! Maybe next December I'll catch another break.

Until then, something something for all the fish.

-r

@alice said in Interest in Cyberpunk MU*?:

@reason Hope I'm not late to the party, but would definitely be interested in something like this.

Please hit me up too if you need an alpha tester/help building/whatever.

Not too late to the party! Will keep that in mind.

Meanwhile, I'd like to say I've been heads down knocking out those last few miles of Chargen, but the reality is that work has been kicking my ass and my free time has been sunk into finally playing Red Dead Redemption 2.

I'll see if March is a little kinder to my schedule. If not, I may just release all the code (or whatever hacky string of python syntax I've cobbled together that passes for code) I've written to date out into the wild and can pass the torch to someone else to finish.

-r

Zero progress over last two weeks. Welcome to FY21Q1, where life comes at you a million miles an hour.

Sometimes no update is an update.

Chargen still waiting on a good inventory system to manage individual pieces of gear. Everything else is done.

-r

@nessa

Great thoughts. If/when I launch a game, I may co-opt a few. Particularly the idea of creating systems which incentivize role play, and crowdsourcing game-support from the player-base itself, with making staff objectives primarily code + policy.

My own sense here is that the less managing a game feels like "work" the more likely staff will continue to do it. The more likely role-play with other players is directly coupled to "progress" through a system, the more often it will occur organically based on players incentivized to seek it out.

Wonderful post, wonderful thoughts, thank you for sharing.

@thebigd said in Interest in Cyberpunk MU*?:

@reason Well, I'm no coder, but I've been breaking things in games since 2000, if you want alpha/beta players?

I may take you up on that. My feelings is that without automated Chargen, +sheet Code, and +dice there isn't a game, so still need to finish that -- as it stands today, +Sheet/+dice are done and integrated w/ each other, and Automated Chargen can fully create characters without gear. CP: Red is fiddly enough with armor, firearms, etc., that I realize I need to create an inventory system that goes a little bit beyond the stock system that ships w/ the MU* platform I'm building in.

Until those three things are done, I don't want to waste people's time. Once they're done, getting a few testers in to run through character builds and find bugs for me to fix would be super useful (and welcome!) -- I'll probably put an official post in the Advertisements subforum if (when?) I get to that point.

@Nessa said in Interest in Cyberpunk MU*?:

This sounds amazing. CP Red is a super simplification of the old CP rulesets. I'm glad someone is making something for it.

The system looks clean and playable. I've always enjoyed cyberpunk as a genre. And building a MU* is a bucket list item that I'd like to do before I die (not that I think there's any risk of that in the immediate term, though I hear it eventually happens to all of us!). So, here we are.

And in all seriousness, I appreciate those thoughts about grid/neighborhood/etc for a modern game -- I'm leaning towards a "less is more" approach, though won't be entirely free of a navigable grid + standing, permanent rooms. Given that coding a dynamic room system up may add another barrier to kicking off the game (with effort that could be invested in, say, automated queue handling for well defined player requests to reduce the likelihood that staff is a bottleneck) I may save that idea for down the road, and just retire unused grid.

But yes, great thoughts.

Out of curiosity, how large of a grid is "sprawling" and how small of a grid is "too small"?

@krmbm said in How to launch a MU*:

@wizz Just on the flipside of this: Some people (hi!) actively avoid the "sim" games.

Which brings us back to: build what you would enjoy. Not what you think other MUSHers will. We can't agree on a goddamn thing around here.

I think that's generally sound advice!

I also fully admit that I haven't played on a MUSH for 10+ years, so my instincts on how the genre has evolved aren't as finely tuned as they once were, and building on top of the innovations of the present rather than strictly recalling my preferences of the past is something I'd like to be sensitive to.

For example, I'm still trying to fully grok SceneSys and it's implications -- that's new and novel (at least by my standards).

@pyrephox @bear_necessities @Seraphim73 Thanks for those thoughts! What's the expectation for web-based and/or asynchronous gameplay and your opinion on the degree to which that is table-stakes in the present day and age of the MUSH?

@bear_necessities said in How to launch a MU*:

@reason I would never open a MUSH that is not substantially complete. By susbtantially complete, I mean:

<...SNIP...>

Really appreciate that thoughtful reply, @bear_necessities. What's your thoughts on the value of opening in an Alpha/Beta context to learning some early lessons/fail-fast prior to a wider opening?

-reason

For those of you that have successfully launched a game (or feel you've been close enough to launch to have gotten good instincts on the topic):

What are the essential pieces that must be in place to launch successfully? Is there a critical mass of initial staffers? Critical mass of initial players? An existing metaplot ready for day 1? Some game systems which aren't just nice to have, they're absolutely essential? Clear guidance on theme? Clear standards/policies of MU* conduct?

Assume that the bare essentials are already in place -- full-time code support + automated chargen + sheet + roll code.

Would love some opinions on this.

Thanks!

-reason

@thebigd Well. Should probably level-set expectations as "no promises". I'll probably start ripping apart and reimplementing chargen to further separate data + logic + view concerns and maybe make the code a little cleaner to manage and maintain in the next few days.

When that's done, I'll have chargen + sheet + dice code. Then there's the matter of a grid, and looking at any additional systems (like... how necessary is in-game mail in this day and age?) required for a "minimal viable product" alpha launch.

Currently I think I'll set the game in Night City give its the best defined in the CP:Red time period.

And even setting aside code, there's the matter of sourcing a crew of reasonable alpha players and some RP Admins to keep things lively -- I won't be able to carry this thing entirely on my back.

I had wanted to have that bare-necessities code in place by Jan 1. Probably pushing that back a little bit just based on the need to maintain a sustainable pace.

-reason

@prototart said in Interest in Cyberpunk MU*?:

i didn’t read any of this and im drunk but can i play judy

You'd have to settle for a PC roughly inspired by Judy, as CP:Red doesn't take place in 2077 -- it takes place about 30 years earlier.

Also:

+sheet code and +roll code are probably good enough to launch with. Going to refactor chargen a little, based on the way +sheets finally landed. Then it's time to build a grid...

-reason

@clarion Client-side word wrap. That looks promising. Might fiddle around w/ that.

Any suggestions? Having a hard time getting one that feels good.

Client-side word wrap would be phenomenal.

-r

Okay. Finished +sheet schema tonight, need to code a view up to it w/ a +sheet command, then finish CG and wire it up to build out finished +sheets, and wire up the +roll commands so you can roll skills vs. just dice.

Will see how much progress can be made between now and the new year.

Might be close enough to put a post in the Advertisements board.

-r

@reason said in Interest in Cyberpunk MU*?:

Then have to decide if I host this somewhere and attempt to collaborate with a crew on running a game, or just release this code into the wild to exhibit a life of its own.

Which to be clear doesn't actually have to be an either/or, and could in fact be both -- there's something appealingly true to the subject material to release code into the wild to take on a life of its own.

-re: 50n

I'm a creature of habit, so using + as a prefix to instructions intended to invoke game commands is just the syntax I've chosen. +chargen, +roll, +sheet, etc., etc.

...which I find myself chuckling about, rereading the above, given I haven't actually played on a MUSH in 10+ years. But hey, let's go with them being formative years.

Look on the bright side -- by being explicit that you want to interact w/ the system to execute some code on your behalf with a plus sign, you won't accidentally kick off a command when your pose inadvertently starts with a command keyword when you forgot to use 'emit/pose'.

As far as progress -- haven't done much with it since Thanksgiving. Looking to knock some more of this out over the Holidays.

Then have to decide if I host this somewhere and attempt to collaborate with a crew on running a game, or just release this code into the wild to exhibit a life of its own.

Let's see...

CharGen update: Roles, Attributes, and Skills are done. Weapons and Armor are done. Wasn't able to finish it up over Thanksgiving, maybe will find some time over the Holiday break.

Cyber / Gear are next -- really, the barrier to progress is that the process of building the data for all of that is such a manual process of cutting/pasting, it sucks the life out of your soul.

+Dice code is always trivial. +Sheet code can probably be iteratively improved as long as it shows the bare essentials in a usable form.

The more I read the core rules the more I think some automated +lifestyle code and +hustle code for side jobs is probably worth implementing as well.

Anyway, all for now.

-r

@popes I mean, yeah. The time is now. Wu-Tang is for the children and Python is for everybody.