Best posts made by Sparks

@rook said in Alternative Formats to MU:

But at face value, it is just text being sent back and forth. The channel in which it is process doesn't matter to the end-user.

The point is that it doesn't have to be just text being sent back and forth.

Evennia's model is that you have a Portal (which accepts incoming connections, be they telnet, ssh, or the web client) and a Server (which does all the actual work). All the text sent from the Server to the Portal can support out-of-band metadata. For telnet/ssh, this metadata is just stripped off, but why not do things like show a typing indicator in the web client?

You could also do things like make a map in the web client that supports receiving your current location from the server and putting a little pin on the graphical map showing 'you are here'. You could send a list of people in the room as people enter and exit. You could include things like 'this blob of text is a page associated with conversation 1' and make the web client pop the page conversation out into its own window, a'la instant messenger.

A list of people presently online on the game, where you can click on one and have it open a private messaging conversation to them, is arguably a lot more intuitive to everyone who uses the internet than knowing you need to 'page <blah>=<foo>'. Everyone's used to being able to do that on Discord servers already, or Battle.net, or Steam, or Skype, or IRC, or whatever.

And that's without getting into a complete rewrite from scratch where Telnet isn't even part of it, and the web client isn't just some 'richer' way to access it that can use extra metadata.

@egg said in General Video Game Thread:

I am incredibly excited about the FF7 remake, despite all of the sour grapes FFVI fanboys and girls who come out of the woodwork every time a new thing related to FF7 comes along...something something opera...something something Kefka...you know, FF7 has musical themes for every playable character, too.

waves FF6 banner anyway, albeit sullenly

Look, I'm just saying we've had a pre-smartphone phone game, a PSP game, the original PS game, two movies, a PS2 game, a smartphone game, AND now a remake of the original game. I'm a little Shinra'd-out, and I'm feeling the urge for some Magitek.

(Also, FF6 has better music, no matter how much a whoooole bunch of people want to say that One-Winged Angel is the definitive FF song. Terra's Theme is better, fight me.)

@Wizz said in High Fantasy:

@Ganymede said in High Fantasy:

@Wizz said in High Fantasy:

I'd kinda like to see a MU* that is run more like a public OTT. Players can have bits that multiple characters are attached to and these characters are part of limited campaigns (as in, will end, characters get sent to that giant tavern in the sky) with scheduled scenes. "Downtime" rp is an option, but not incentivized or rewarded in any way - no weekly XP, no cookies or votes or whatever.

I mean...I'm not gonna do it but. XD

So, kind of like what @faraday's doing with BSG:U?

Kinda! Only I'd even wonder about having a unifying setting or theme at all. You could just have randomized, anonymous sign-ups for campaigns or something, and these could be anything from one-shots to month-or-year-long sagas, basically just give people the tools to scratch whatever itch with a given RPG system.

So... like Roll20?

@griatch oh, interesting! You're coming at it from the angle of forum software that can be accessed from the game; I came at it from the angle of at least replicating MUSH +bboard functionality and then making it accessible on the web. This is why you can write posts with Evennia ANSI colors on game, but not have italics and bold and embedded images on the web. (And why I honestly never considered avatars.)

I wonder, in hindsight, if taking an existing minimalist Django forum and trying to add some basic access on-game would've been the better approach, if folks expect the feature-set driven by the web side. (Though I suspect it would have been a less useful learning experience.)

I do think, to get us back to the other part of the thread topic, that it might be useful to write a single self-contained system, something like Paxboards, and write up a tutorial that goes over writing that system, so people can follow along. Something with commands, models, and views, which will give you experience with pretty much all the major stuff not really covered right now. Doing that whole system as my first project really helped me learn Evennia as a developer.

@apos said in Alternative Formats to MU:

@sparks said in Alternative Formats to MU:

A list of people presently online on the game, where you can click on one and have it open a private messaging conversation to them, is arguably a lot more intuitive to everyone who uses the internet than knowing you need to 'page <blah>=<foo>'. Everyone's used to being able to do that on Discord servers already, or Battle.net, or Steam, or Skype, or IRC, or whatever.

I am 99% sure that that feature alone would make these games immediately accessible to a wider audience. Clickable tool bar to bring up a collapsible who list/friends (watch) list, clickable conversations, and so on.

Heck, I think (as I'm sure everyone on this board is painfully aware by now) that even just putting your bboards on the website is a huge leap forward in usability; you can then read boards without logging in, you can read them without cluttering up your scene / logfile, etc. That's a UI change which immediately benefits even existing, experienced MU* users.

It's why the first thing I wrote for my Evennia game-in-a-box kit was a web-enabled forum system.

@Ghost - D-d-d-danger lurks behind me?

@Kanye-Qwest said in How much plot do people want?:

@Roz Yes. Of course it's too much to keep up with if you are trying to be on top of all the plot. It's a game with well over 100 players, and any and every one of them is able to open investigations and generate clues and plot threads.

The best Arx advice is to focus on what is interesting to both you and your character, and don't feel slighted when other people are digging into the things that interest THEM and their characters.

I would say that having a concrete goal for your character is also key.

My primary Arx alt does not, at least not one that can be easily worked towards right now; her goal has thus been "find the information to help others however you can" which is not terribly concrete. That worked great in the first season, and helped spur RP for others, but so much is going on now it's difficult to track (and she's actually had some people annoyed or dismayed at her that she doesn't have info to give on their particular plot).

Conversely, my second alt is laser focused on one very specific small slice of metaplot and easily can track it; she may not have the answers she's looking for yet, but she always has a specific focus and so it's far harder to feel overwhelmed on her. (Though I feel a little bad since it's not one of the main focal plots, so it feels like a distraction when we should be more focused.)

Focusing on a specific goal is always great for character motivation, but it's particularly useful on games with multiple plots running like Arx.

Okay, here's a question. Instead of trying to write a really verbose tutorial like the half-done one I linked before, would it be easier for folks if there was just a really basic Evennia-in-a-box that provided some nice basic systems, like a bboard system, a mail system, and so on? (If the systems were really well commented in the source code, I mean. Commented on the level of that last code listing in the tutorial.)

Because writing the tutorial is slow and kind of painful as I try to think what I need to explain, while just writing the code would be much faster.

You are a fantastic Alaric.

When you have a character you've invested time and energy in, and then you get some awesome artwork of it, that can feel great. It's true on MU*s, and it's true on MMOs, and I'm very happy with this artwork I got of my FFXIV alter-ego.

(Put under spoilers to avoid smacking people with big artwork.)

***=Aaaaart***

click to show

@hedgehog said in Meanest (But Funniest) Thing You've Done in a Game:

Point being? Don't take the cleric for granted, assholes.

As my D&D party's cleric, I approve of this message.

Okay, so, I don't think that tutorial worked as well as it could. I'm now slowly making a little Evennia sandbox for MUSHers, which will have commands/code they can examine and play with more easily. I'd welcome feedback on it.

Right now it just has a who, where, and finger (with customizable fields) available, along with a basic little 'Notification' class that can be used for customizable blobs of text. The idea here is that you can set notifications to have a prefix if you'd like, which you could then filter in your client to ensure bboard notifications, finger output, WHO output, etc. doesn't end up in your scene logs.

I'd be curious if people think this is more approachable.

The repo's at https://github.com/Packetdancer/evennia-sandbox

Nope. Ianthe was best. #myrindacrew4life

@Auspice - A Polish artist by the name of Aleksandra Wojcik. Her Artstation page is at https://intq.artstation.com/ — I saw her post that she was open for commissions on /r/HungryArtists over on Reddit, and commissioned her.

I highly recommend HungryArtists if you're looking to commission art.

@kanye-qwest said in Incentives for Doom:

I personally really love playing short term antagonists, or doomed whatevers. I wouldn't even need XP

This. It's so much fun when you know there's an expiration date!

@wizz I don't presently generate anything wearable, just Trinkets, Alchemical Materials, and Ancient Weapons. I could easily make trinkets that are described as bracelets, etc., but they wouldn't be wearable right now. I could certainly try to make it so certain trinkets are wearable, though.

Edit: that said, their importance to the magic system would still be in taking them apart for primum, not "you wear this and you can fly" or something.

I might be trying to make a little Changeling on Fear & Loathing, because of @Caryatid, @scar, @Meg, @saosmash, and 2 or 3 other of my friends all suddenly conglomerating there at once. And I miss my crew. (Damn you all.)

Even if I have not really played nWoD and find the chargen intimidating.

@roz said in General Video Game Thread:

DRAGON AGE 2 IS MY PERFECT BABY AND IT IS PERFECT

holds up sign saying "REMEMBER THE CAVES"

@skew said in How much Code is too much Code?:

Coming from a WoD MUSH world, I've decided more is better. Automated systems keep players engaged when the story is not actively being told. That keeps players logging in, keeps them from idling, and keeps them around to actually play when other players go looking for RP.

This. If done right, I think code facilitates storytelling. If I have options for more than bar RP, things which can influence the main storyline but don't immediately require a GM, or ways to queue up GM action that save the GM time, there is a lot I can do as a player. Combat code, exploration code, investigation code, etc.

If done wrong, though, I think it just becomes a stumbling block in players' paths, something you have to navigate in order to find RP. In trying to make a functioning economy, for instance—not necessarily a bad goal in itself—I do think Firan crossed the boundary from one to the other in several areas, like bathing and eating and so on. They came from good intentions but in hindsight became things you had to do in order to RP, rather than facilitating it.

@AeriaNyx said in Automated Adventure System:

I am STILL full of squee over the run I got to participate in. It. Was. AWESOME. I rarely have a chance to feel really useful as Rei is very much a support character. But man, the variety of skills needed for various obstacles and puzzles is so great! It really gave a lot of opportunity and encourages bringing a diverse bunch of people!

I'm so glad; that's the goal! I wanted the system to reward diversity in a party but also still be difficult to just steamroll through.

On healing, one thought I had was that you could heal more often than the limit (which I might reduce to 30 minutes in Shardhavens), but it would cost you an amount of AP equal to the minutes remaining. I.e., if there was a 30 minute timer and you heal someone and ten minutes later they desperately need healing again, you could wait for the half-hour to tick over or pay 20 AP to skip the 20 minutes remaining.

I've put aside the Shardhavens for a few to let last balance ideas percolate, though; in the meantime, I'm working on the actual underlying magic system so that the items in Shardhavens will be set up to be meaningful in that system.