Posts made by SparklesTheClown

@Ganymede

I don't necessarily disagree with these points, so I'll keep it all in mind.

@WTFE

While I don't doubt that this is likely true, once I do manage to get it setup, I think I'll benefit a lot from using Evennia and learning Python rather than doing MUSHCode. Primarily because a part of my motivation for this project is to dive super deep into code as a sort of trial by fire, since my plan is to do it professionally and building this MU is incredibly motivating.

If nothing else, I figure Volund will help me parse the documentation if I don't understand it, since Volund has been trying to get me to do Evennia stuff for a few years.

@Lithium I used to get that occasionally due to the way I ran a Naruto theme on MCM sometimes (mostly from one player). Primarily because I tried very hard to be consistent with Naruto's theme. Unlike most anime, that theme has all their dumb anime shit down to Star Trek level science detail, so I just tried to maintain that consistency because I thought it was cool.

That said, I honestly do enjoy some theme coherency, I feel like it creates some limitations to give the world a solid flavor. And when those limitations are broken, it's cool and special. A part of why I'm limiting my MU to four areas of theme inspiration to start, and only veeeery selectively adding anything after those four in a way that doesn't impact the established world too hard.

So yeah, don't be afraid to stick to theme! Also, if anyone knows Yakuza, it's definitely Chet >_>.

@WTFE Oh, I've 100% been on MUDs like that. Especially with eating and drinking code.

Eat/drink code is the bane of my existence and I pretty much started to leave a place as soon as I realized they had it, because "YOU ARE HUNGRY", "YOU ARE STARVING" prompts got annoying as shit, especially on places where you don't even die and it's just there for no reason.

But you likely do have a point with the resources. I guess this is why Evennia exists now. I'm making my game with Evennia.

@faraday I don't think I've actually seen/heard of AresMUSH yet, haven't checked the ads in a bit. But I'd certainly be interested in looking at it some time.

That said, my intent wasn't to say that all games and all coders are doing horribly in this area, and I am glad that a lot of people are open to simplifying things.

This thread is certainly educational to me for a number of reasons though, as I'm getting to see the general perspective of why certain design decisions are made.

@Lithium Well, code certainly can't RP for you, but outside of that? Yes, I do believe that code should be able to do everything as simply as possible. I wholeheartedly believe that.

And why should someone have to type all of that? Why can't they just type what they're using and type the target and you have a two word attack? Why can't the person defending get a prompt of the available options and a prompt for the modifiers of those options after that?

You say it wouldn't be faster, but how much time would be saved not spending like 20 minutes trying to figure out the options that are available to you?

The one thing I'd see a lot of trouble with are Mage type things, but there have even been MUDs that coded things as complex as open-ended magic, that were far more complicated than just shooting a fireball, so I know it's not impossible.

With enough abstraction, all that time figuring out numbers, what goes together, if you can use one thing right now or not, could be spent just doing what you wanna do.

Now, an argument could be made for if this, in the context of WoD, breaks the spirit of the game. Like, if working out the numbers and all of that are an inherent part of the WoD experience that shouldn't be removed. But I'm not, like, super invested in WoD or anything, it's mostly an example because that's what people around here are most invested in.

@Lithium

There have definitely been MUDs where the depth of the actual things you could do far exceeded something like if you fully coded a WoD book, this is primarily the reason I used MUDs as an example. Sure, your basic MUD might be simple attacking and fireballs and such, but a more advanced MUD that approaches or exceeds the complexity of something like D&D or WoD takes those simple concepts and expands on them intuitively.

I don't see any particular reason why the most simple concepts of something like WoD can't be coded and then expanded from there to create an intuitive system that has all of the depth that you'd expect from one of the books.

When I finally have my game up and running, I think I'll just straight up do that myself. I have no interest in actually running a WoD game, but I have nothing against demonstrating what I mean by abstracting the complex systems involved (other than legal issues that won't be my problem since I'm not running such a game).

At the end of the day, I think that's the only way I'll convince most people of my point. Plus it's something to toss into Github.

@Chet Holy shit you're alive.

I don't think it's impossible to code these things, I just think it'd take time.

If that time is worth it or not is ultimately up to the coder.

Someone also brought up the legality of too many layers of abstraction in WoD/D&D (MUDs get around this by filing the numbers off, much like how D&D and WoD get around what they do by filing the numbers off all the literature they copy).

Dragon Ball Super compared to Dragon Ball Z is like joining a ten year old MUSH where everyone's stopped giving a fuck and now anything goes.

Keep in mind that DBZ was an anime with a pink indestructible magic construct created by an alien wizard that turned people into chocolate.

Super is its sequel that gives even less fucks than that.

@Ganymede

I don't really understand how I'm coming at it from a position of relative privilege. Considering that for most of my MUing life, I've been a non-coder, which is why it never occurred to me that things could be better.

And while my wording might have been harsh, I wasn't talking about any one specific game, since I'm not one to trash a particular game. I'm talking about a general "state of things". While my hyperbole might have been a bit extreme, I legitimately don't think that a lot of coders are in a position to think about something like UX anymore than the non-coder creator of the game generally knows what's going on with the code. This is why in video games and now increasingly even in web design, they specifically hire someone who specializes in UX (This is, of course, not practical in a MU, but I'm emphasizing that it's not easy).

So while I don't expect my thread or even my game to be some kind of grand miracle working savior of the universe, at the very least I want to raise awareness that I and other people see it as an issue. I don't like to think simply in terms of "this is what I want", or "I'll do this specifically for me and my immediate friends". I start discussions because I know that, regardless of my decade+ in the hobby, I'm still relatively new. And being relatively new, I think that it's important for me to occasionally bring up things that I've noticed or that I see as problems.

Does everyone have to agree? No. But regardless, I think that it's helpful. Even if just one person's like "Hey, I never thought about that before", I think that it was worth starting the discussion. I want to contribute to the community, and I admittedly am still trying to improve at how I present myself and my arguments, when to be professional and when to be casual, but I 100% am just trying to help anyone who finds what I say or discuss helpful.

If someone finds my threads or perspective unhelpful, that's fine, not everyone has the same needs. But I don't think that my concerns or perspective are 100% my own either. I have read plenty of things, even things that have nothing to do with this hobby or topic, where someone said something and it changed my perspective, because I never realized something was a problem or that I could do something I'd have never thought to do before.

That said, I don't disagree with the sentiment of doing what's in your power to do, or trying to lead by example. In fact, this thread was inspired by me thinking of how I'm gonna design stuff in my game, and things I've experienced and want to address.

@Auspice

This is definitely an experience I've had, multiple times. Saying something to a coder about something being confusing, particularly in my earlier days, and getting a fairly aggressive or defensive response.

@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.

Yeah, I spoke to Wildfire when he was STing a thing for me. His style was so different I was confused for a moment, then he explained that this was actually his first MU. It's interesting what new players can add to the hobby.

Though, compared to most people here, I'm still pretty new to the hobby myself, it's just that I spent a ridiculous amount of the last decade doing very little but this hobby.

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

There is an issue of Mux/Mush having hardcoded and softcoded commands, so redundancy in 'help', '+help' and '@help' comes from that. I may at some point go over help files (I am not not not a coder) and try to update along the lines of 'to get syntax, type x, to get an explanation of the function, type y, etc'.

The hardcoded commands of like MUSHCode and MUXCode and stuff are some of the most confusingly written files in the goddamned universe. Definitely written for coders by coders, not the end user.

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

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.

Yeah, that's the thing, the mechanics of MUSHing are significantly simpler than MUD, which is why it's outrageous that MUSHes often have more difficult to figure out commands than a MUD.

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

We should all be in it! Free speech! People's rights! Down with the Patriarchy!

HelloProject, are you the Patriarchy?

I do have a penis.

@Ganymede

The point of a discussion isn't to have some 100% success rate in saying "I'm right and you're wrong", the point of a discussion is to state a point of view and express why you have that point of view, or perhaps go into more detail about that point of view.

Your entire argument seems to be "We shouldn't have this discussion", which is why my argument is "Then why are you in it?"

edit: Well, that's more of a question than an argument. It's a questrument.

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

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

. They use the same systems, the same code, the same OOC grid layout, the same CharGen...

The fact that our chargen doesn't need a specific room in which to do chargen has confounded a lot of folks. Some folks like that you can just work on stuff while chilling in the ooc room; others hate it. One simple change threw a lot of people, even though folks adapted.

Personally I think it's a pretty interesting innovation that I liked, without the hassle of going back and forth through rooms to change things, even though I think a walk-in chargen is a bit more newbie friendly.

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

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

As far as I can tell, I've only been addressing coders, so what is the problem?

You don't see it? Okay.

You're not an experienced coder. I don't think you ought to lecture coders on their practices, as if they had not thought of it already. Because you're not an experienced coder.

Don't piss off the coders.

Instead, focus on what you can fix. Like policies, communication, grid design, administrative systems, wiki entries, etc.

Or, just design your own codebase and fix this whole barrier of entry thing through your own efforts.

I am, in fact, making my own game that addresses these issues, and am coding the game myself because I have my own ideas about how things should be done.

I have absolutely no qualms about pissing people off by saying unpopular things that I believe need to be said, because I'd rather be loud about what I view as detrimental stagnation, than quiet in the hopes that I don't piss people off who I might need a favor from.

If people are so vindictive that they won't work with me because I said the current state of MUSH code design is pretty much trash, then I quite honestly would not want their help to begin with, and will just figure out how to do something myself.

I don't need to be an experienced coder to see with my own two eyes that things are needlessly complicated and could be less complicated, just like I don't need to be an experienced film maker to say when a movie is trash, or an experienced writer or literature expert to say that Moby Dick is a trash ass book and that Herman Melville can't write for shit.

If you're not up for opening a dialogue and your entire point is to silence when people speak out on something they have an issue with, then I would argue that you are not being constructive, but needlessly detrimental to potentially productive communication.

If you don't have anything to add except "Be quiet because people might get mad", then you don't have anything to add except attempting to silence what I believe was a fairly constructive criticism on my part. And considering that you yourself are not a coder, I don't really see why you're getting all into your feelings about something that was not even addressing you to begin with.

@Ganymede

But this is why I put this in the code part of the board, to address coders. Obviously I know that game owners who don't code can't do shit about it, but addressing coders and opening up a dialogue can.

I never once implied that anything was the fault of owners who don't code, or that it's the responsibility of MU creators to talk to their coders about anything, so I don't really know where that assumption came from. As far as I can tell, I've only been addressing coders, so what is the problem?

@Apos

Tools that add depth and complexity don't have to be insanely difficult to use.

We don't, for example, make hammers with handles covered in glass. What does the glass add to the functionality of the hammer to do complex things?

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

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

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

I'm a bit confused about your point, because my entire argument is "make shit simpler" and "things could be simpler". What is there to disagree with? I'm not saying don't add new features, don't innovate or try new things. I'm saying that if you're gonna do it, don't make it a complete mess that needs 5 help files to explain how to use something.

You're presuming that people want it simpler. This is not always the case. People may want to simplify how things are done, but this doesn't necessarily mean keeping "things simple." As an example, people on Arx seem to want to add complexity to it.

People might want complexity in the system, but that doesn't actually mean people don't want the commands to interact with the system to be as simple and intuitive as possible. The difficulty of figuring out Arx's command syntax is a regular difficulty throughout the playerbase there.

This is pretty much my entire point, yeah.

More time doing and less time thinking about how to do it.

@Ganymede

I'm aware of the mountain of complications that is WoD or any other tabletop. And I can honestly say that I have to this day not seen anyone offer anywhere near the most simple code solution that could be offered.

Going back to MUDs, again, I have seen MUDs with magic, attack, and skill rules monstrously more complicated than WoD, but it was simple to deal with because the code had layers of abstraction and didn't just dump it all onto your lap to have to figure out.

I can't see any particular reason why people would not want it to be simpler to do the things they're already doing. Unless you're talking from the perspective that I talk about rice cookers. I only hate rice cookers because I think they're lazy as shit when you can get a pot and learn to cook some freaking rice. But I don't really see where the pride is in not simplifying code syntax so that people can focus on doing things rather than how to do them.

You get literally the same result, except faster. What is the problem with this? There's no barrier, people simply choose not to code a game this way and people have been conditioned to believe that things can't be better.

And to the potential question of "who are you to say what is better", I'd say that anything that harms no one, makes doing something simpler, and gives you all of the options you had before without the mess, and most likely faster than before, is objectively better.

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

We could pull lessons from these places and work on the ideas. We haven't. That's what I'm more interested in than "how can I make +roll simpler?" or "how can I make +jobs more user friendly?".

Alright but I'm interested in lowering the barrier to entry into this hobby, and getting rid of all the nonsense people think is perfectly acceptable, which is why I made this topic and other topics. If you're not interested then what do you solve by expressing your disinterest? Why does one area of improvement infringe on another area of improvement? If you're interested in something else, make a thread for it and promote that. More than one thing can be improved simultaneously.

@Rook While there are certainly quite a few WoD MUSHes, there aren't anywhere near enough WoD MUSHes to say that most MUSHes are WoD. Out of the 200 something MUs I've played, I think only 4 of them have been WoD, five if you count Windy City as a glorified WoD MU.

@Ganymede

I'm a bit confused about your point, because my entire argument is "make shit simpler" and "things could be simpler". What is there to disagree with? I'm not saying don't add new features, don't innovate or try new things. I'm saying that if you're gonna do it, don't make it a complete mess that needs 5 help files to explain how to use something.

I would assume that if you logged into a game that you want to play, and you thought it was way simpler than previous games you've played, while having the same basic functionality, you would think it was an improvement. I highly doubt you or anyone else would go "Well, shit, I miss when my syntax had needless complications".

edit: @Tempest

Fear and Loathing is so far the best WoD game I've played, because shit actually happens that isn't just one person's explosive drama and OOC bullshit leading like every single thing. And the game isn't sectioned off like it's multiple MUs, it actually feels like a community of people who want to play together. Like, seriously, if people want a Mage game or a Vampire game or whatever, just make one. If people are gonna make a multi-sphere game and section it off, requiring mountains of untrustworthy staff members, people should just freaking stop.