Posts made by Rook

I believe that those are holdouts/leftovers from TinyMUD, which is where MUSH derivatives come from (mostly). @Ashen-Shugar could speak to this much more succinctly.

I'm agreeing with you. I, once, spent a week going through the help.txt file, cleaning up inconsistent formatting, fixing typos, and adding some stuff that I thought should be in there. There is a lot of gap, if you go looking. But now? Softcode is written, egads, tons of it. While you could add aliases to the commands to clean things up, without a fresh install and coding your own... you'd run into issues.

Legacy code stacked on legacy code. Hack after hack. Until a complete rewrite happens, the codebases will have these inconsistencies.

Then of course everyone will bitch that shit got moved/updated on them and their stuff doesn't work.

I had a softcoded +grid system that allowed DMs on a D&D game do all of this. But yes, the same lessons learned. It was overhead. Nice to have, but soon people didn't use it as much. A web-based one would be sooooo much better, and not cluttering the MU screen where the RP is happening.

I have no idea who started the whole +-prefix shenanigans, and I know @Ashen-Shugar and I have had long bitch-rants about some things like this, too. There is nothing saying that the softcode has to start with +, anywhere. Why people do it? Convention.

The commands without the @ symbol were intended, I believe, to be non-logged-in commands, so that you can run those from the Connect screen. WHO, QUIT, VERSION, INFO, etc.

@Derp
+1 because you said booboos in a coding discussion. Well done!

God, @WTFE, I can't agree more, and I want to love it.

I for one am open and happy to hear how I can simplify things within the scope of what the system is designed to deliver, and what it has to take into account to do so. I am even more open to having someone suggest edits/rewrites of help files! I know for a fact that mine suck, but I have to write something for someone to be able to come along and say "Let's say it this way instead" or to ask questions that lead me to fill in gaps that I myself couldn't see. That goes doubly for theme files, etc.

Coding something "right" isn't easy. Especially large systems. Try coding a threaded BBoard system from scratch, taking into account a base-level @groups system for managing rights and factions. It is complex, hard to navigate through to find a 'good way', and in a lot of cases requires rewriting as epiphanies and breakthroughs happen. To me, it is rewarding. By the time I'm done and it's working, however, writing a +help file on it is daunting so I've gotten myself into the habit of writing the +help files first, then writing the code. I was surprised how much easier and more focused it made me.

IRRELEVANT.

I'm stealing @Auspice for my project. BACK OFF, SHE'S MINE!

@Paris said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

@Rook A lot of F&L's mushers are completely new to MUX, though many of them are MUDders. We try to help folks get over the learning curve, and have been really happy with what they bring to the game-- several have gone on to staff and it's been great.

But then again, @Paris, you've demonstrated in a few ways that your game is not like other games. So I haven't, myself, lumped you into that same-ole-same-ole pile.

@HelloProject
MUSH and MUX were both written by coders, it is true. C/C++ coders who wanted to create games, and make them better. I daresay, gasp that so did TinyMUD, AberMUD, Diku and all the other flavors. Writers didn't sit down and suddenly come up with a game.

A huge portion of the MUSH and MUX help files are code commands. That is why +HELP exists, traditionally, on these games. Most players barely read the help for @mail, ANSI and Channels. Past that, they are baffled by the help files.

Any conversation around here will tell you that coders are rare, when compared to number of Game Owners, Storytellers, Sphere Wizzen, and the like (simplified: non-coders). In a lot of cases, coders are told by Game Owners what they want, how they want it, and that is what coders are expected to deliver.

When it comes to my code, I simplify as much as possible, not just the commands and help files, but the code itself so that bug-hunting can be done relatively easily by a new coder. My code files are heavily commented with logic explanations, function call help and so on, so if I get hit by a bus, someone else can take up the mantle and not feel stranded on an island.

I think that there should be new ways of doing things, absolutely. Things like helping non-MUSHers learn how to MUSH, for instance, on your game is a very valuable thing that might not get used but once, but making a new MUSHer is the holy grail of our goals as game-runners... or is right up there. So I'm all for teaching someone who is excited, curious and willing to take on the slight learning curve because let's face it, the mechanics of MUSHing is miniscule once you've MUDded.

It's learning how to Roleplay that most people have the most trouble with.

Most MUSHes and MUXes are WoD, that I've seen. And they're all cookie-cutter replicas of how the game before them did it, and the game before them. They use the same systems, the same code, the same OOC grid layout, the same CharGen...

So of course hundreds of them persist the same problems!

They are mostly catering to people who have outlaid sometimes hundreds of dollars in source books to get into the culture, and can talk the talk on the channels. It's a recycled crowd and recycled MUs.

With that said, however, it seems like a decade ago MUs had rooms dedicated to learning how to MUSH. How to page, talk on channels, do the commands and so on. Some time, it became a +help file (but no help in the initial connect room on looking at +help), then it just sort of disappeared.

This was one reason why I didn't like Evennia's lack of cohesive "How do I do" screens.

@Coin Well, we haven't established whatever the "minimum acceptable pose length" is, yet, so that remains to be seen?

EDIT: That was meant to be sarcasm, to note.

Naw, just another channel.

I personally am fine with that. I suspect you are making a stab at the whole "how to verify who is who" conversation?

Why does MSB not have a MUSH/MUX to hang out on?

The forums are great, but for conversations and such, a game would be nice to hang out on, too.

Those types of players, IMNSHO, are the types that have to be handed silver invitations to Events, have to be 'asked' if they are going to be there, and otherwise ego-massaged. I got no time fo that. You want to play, get your ass to the scene.

Otherwise, you get what's coming to you for inactivity. But, I won't allow you to bitch and complain that OTHER PEOPLE are lazy or not doing things, when it is just not true.

I think all games have these types of people, and those types of people either learn to participate... or they get bored and go to other games/mediums. I have seen characters who have trouble getting involved because they are too niche, too specialized, or just have built-in personality "quirks" that the player wanted to try that simply prohibit interactivity. It sucks to have to reign in your character to work in a team, but it is a lesson that every RPer eventually has to learn - to balance cool personality that might work in a movie with a personality that can get along in a cooperative RPing environment.

Sorry, @Kanye-Qwest, but that sort of player behavior would just stir me to tell them to shut the fuck up, start citing all that Staff/other players have done to generate activity and involvement and what that player has done to skip, avoid or otherwise minimize themselves out of what is a communal effort.

GAME: Rook shouts, "Hey everyone, we're having another event in the Courtyard, and all characters are invited. Even you, Jackass, who is complaining that you get no attention."

I know, I know. I'm a dick. I accept that. But that sort of behavior is toxic and incorrect, in your example, and should be countered officially and loudly by staff and other players. Do not put up with that sort of crap on a game, it sours everyone around that bitching player.

To coattail on what @Tempest said, I think that a lot of MUers nowadays are different from where they were a decade ago, in the "Golden Age" of a lot of people's minds: They are responsible adults. A decade ago (give or take), I think that a larg(er) chunk of the MUing community was:

• in college
• working lighter-weight jobs
• didn't have families
• didn't have AAA video game titles distracting them from text-only endeavors.

So the nature of the average MUer, to me, seems to have changed.

Thus, MUs haven't adapted, or have adapted in ways that are not ideal to all players. There is opportunity here to adapt and try new things, and that is a good conversation to have, perhaps a new thread.

Oh, it's okay. Do yo' thang! I've always wondered at, tinkered with, the idea of building my own "coder's MU client" which was not just a MU client but a coding editor, all built together.

Pipe dream, believe me. I have enough on my plate. But hey, one can dream.

I, too, do not use Mac. I am going to assume that, like most Mac developers that I've met, that you eschew all other platforms and therefore won't be creating Atlantis to be cross-platform at all? It looks like a great client, and there are hints on the website that make me wonder if it will allow me to build/script/extend things in the client itself to do coder-y things.

I just won't buy a Mac.