Posts made by Rook

Its a Rhost MUSH. The site is up at www.umbralshards.com, the game is at game.umbralshards.com 9999.

I am going to post here that I am nearing a point where some light alpha testing of the game will be starting soon, and some people have asked to be updated when I got to this point. So, before I get deluged with WTF posts, I'm going to be very straightforward about a few things.

Umbral Shards is:

• Original Theme, Original RPG System. It won't be perfect. It will have flaws. I expect that iteration and fixes in the RPG rule stuff will be required as we find issues and problems. The RPG system is built to be fast and super-flexible for character-building and NOT to be rules-heavy. If you are looking for minute crunchy-bit details, this is not the system for you.
• A cooperative style of roleplay.
• Intended to be very different. It does not follow 'standard convention'. In fact, I openly state in several threads on this board that I have gone out of my way to turn many conventions on their ear, or have simply discarded conventional thinking.
• Intended to be a small, table-top style MUSH. I very highly doubt that this will ever be a 'large game'. It is not meant to appeal to the masses. The approach would simply break down.
• Intended to be gritty and very horror-based in the styles of modern-day occult, with Lovecraftian and Gigerian influence, etc.
• Very R-rated for violence, danger, occult themes and obviously adult language and situations. It is written to be dangerous and deadly, where characters will die, and likely in gory and horrible ways.

Umbral Shards is not:

• World of Darkness. We don't have vampires, werewolves or any of their ilk. Characters are normal people who have occult-based supernatural powers. Think "The Magicians", "Constantine", and their like.
• Not a high-powered game. Characters will never reach "superhero" levels of powers. The RPG system is designed with a logarithmic progression, each "level" of things on your sheet doubling in cost to get to the next level. Specialization will cost you.
• Designed to be PvP in any way. It is a table-top, cooperative, PvE style of game.
• Not designed for "bar RP" style of play, nor will passive player types thrive or enjoy the place. If you are not a proactive RPer who can generate activity with a handful of others, then this is not the place for you. You won't earn XP and you won't be catered to.

In addition, I am only going to be playing/running things during the daytimes, weekdays. It's my MUSHing playtime window. I won't be on in the evenings or most weekends, except on rare exceptions. So, until some other Storytellers get up to speed and we're all on the same goals/style page, it'll just be me.

I'm not going to try and sell the game to people. I expect that it MIGHT appeal to 5% of the MUSH community types out there, if that. As stated, this isn't a game made to be a popular type of game. I cannot stress that enough. If it works out, awesome. If not, it was a fun building and theoretical project.

With all that said, if you're still reading and in any way interested in poking around, I'd welcome constructive feedback and criticism. My writing sucks, but a first pass was needed in order to get anywhere. Policy files, Info files, even RPG elements could use a constructive, critical set of eyes (or five) on them.

STATUS: CharGen is 40% done, the Grid(s) are, at best, 20% done. There is still a lot of work ahead of me, but I am anticipating and looking forward to plenty of coding time over the holidays.

I won't pay for another Ubisoft game for as long as I can hold out. I just hate that company, and have for years on years. I'll pirate their shit every chance I get and hope that they go under.

Fuck cancer.

Facebook was built ON, BY, and FOR drama. Don't ever think that it is intended for any other use.

Huh.

Here, I'm thinking to myself: "Maybe when being honest, I should add on 'RELAX, THO'." But then that sounds dickish and self-important/-arrogant.

Jesus, sometimes you just want to pay someone a compliment without it causing stress and drama and hurt feelings. Those are the exact opposites of the wanted outcome.

Seriously. Sometimes you just look pretty and nice people want to pay that compliment because, you know, sharing smiles and happy.

@cobaltasaurus
Sorry, Cobalt, that was less for you and more for follow-on readers of the thread, honestly.

I thought you couldn't play WoD without bars and coffee shops? That setting clearly wouldn't work.

I am really liking HelloFresh.

@thenomain
This sounded more like initial game (all staff, all game-owned) building, sorry if incorrect.

You're likely going to want to have a non-login Wiz character on the game (I usually give them the name of the game itself) and @chown everything that the game owns to them. That way, things don't break if original builders leave, they can't @destroy stuff in a huff, whatever. Not to mention that @search becomes your friend and not an obstacle.

Just be careful with that inherit flag, as it can introduce security vulnerabilities, as Ashen mentioned. I'd strip INHERIT and the WIZ bit, instead grant the objects/Attributes Visual.

You can do other things, too. Instead of using a normally-private attribute like &BUILD, try flagging your 'Street' exits with a trash flag like NOBLEED or HTML or (if you have them compiled), the MARKER flags? The reason that this should work is because (I believe) that any player can hasflags() an object without special rights.

Might want to rename the command to +LongLingeringStare. That's a lot of information, once you start factoring in Merits and Powers, too. <jk!>

@thenomain
I am coming to you, sir, to critique and make recommendations if/when I get ready to open.

You called this down on yourself.

No less effective.

I thought that the regular Way To Do Things was to throw their shit out the windows, onto the lawn. That's what TV has taught me. Apparently, people garner praise for such acts.

@auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

"We're running late."
"Well, that's fine, so long as you can still give me a ride to work."
"We can't, we have to meet people in Plano."

"Fine, get out, and don't come back."

You missed a perfect opportunity, Auspice. SRSLY. They wouldn't even blink, would instantly know WHY, all delivered with a very concise and apropos statement void of feeling or angst. Which, I hear, is the best way to have those quaint conversations with humans.

@thenomain said in Alternative Formats to MU:

I know more than a few games who have at most 3 people on staff. I don't think this is something that WoD games can do anymore.

<off topic>
But, aren't WoD games basically just a bunch of Spheres cobbled into a single setting, several separate groups of characters who generally avoid each other for everything but TS, all playing in their own hidden sanctuary locations?

I mean, a WoD with multiple Spheres is essentially a bunch of games on one grid. So yeah, every one of them has to have those three staffers. And probably oversight staffers to make all the spheres "balance". (( Sorry, I was laughing too much there. ))

@Lithium
Well, given the era that this song was written (late 1930s), it sort of made sense. This was way back in the time in America where social welfare had just been passed. Before this, if you didn't work, you were out on your ass, a beggar, and there was zero support network for you.

It illustrates just how much culture can change, values can change, in just three generations.

</semi-serious>

You're right, but if we're honestly talking about something to replace telnet, I think that our 'core' needs to be broader than 'every game uses this'. It needs to have a full enough list of features that people go 'that looks better', and that's going to include, IMO, logging and conflict resolution.

Point of order... I am confused by the constant usage of the word 'telnet' in this conversation. Telnet is a protocol, like HTTP or SMTP or SSH. This misunderstanding has clogged a lot of this conversation from a technical perspective.

I think the better term to be using here would be 'server codebase', which is the application like PennMUSH or RhostMUSH or TinyMUX or AresMUSH that people are logging into. That is what provides the features that you are discussing.

Not picking on anyone, but please. Unless you are speaking to the specific carrier protocol that people use to log into the server, don't use the word 'telnet'.

What is being discussed here is design for the server, not the protocol.

Also? Please don't just say "Whatever Rook", because it is important when you are engaging people from a technical perspective. God help us if @Ashen-Shugar sees this.