Posts made by Sparks

@Auspice said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

@Sparks

Ohhh yeah. I forgot the SJ element.

That'd be a tricky aspect.

Dot's right. Und any plan vere hyu lose hyu hat iz?

@friarzen said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

On an semi-related note, has anyone ever created a Girl Genius inspired game (does anyone know if Studio Foglio has an official position on such works?)

I don't, but if you're genuinely curious, I can certainly ask and report back. (I'm the 'RB "Sparks"' mentioned in the website footer who glues the website back together for Phil and Kaja if it breaks.)

They do have guidelines for general fan sites, though, and I'm fairly sure at least one of those fansites has forum roleplay. And they turn a generally blind eye to fanfic (provided, for legal reasons, no one sends them copies) or people using the setting in private online tabletop campaigns. And I've been part of an audio play adaptation of one of the Buck Godot stories that was done with their blessing.

So I wouldn't be surprised if they said yes, but my gut feeling is honestly that Kaja's reply would be along the lines of "uhm, let me just ask our lawyer first to make sure".

I'd be more worried about Steve Jackson Games, honestly, because despite the immense delay in publication they do still own the RPG rights to Girl Genius, and they're not exactly known for "reasoned and measured response" when it comes to anyone even brushing up against their licenses. They might well consider running a publicly open MUSH to be "publishing an RPG" and descend like rabid wolverines.

Oh no kidding, MUCK was pretty interesting. NeonMuck forked off of Fuzzball, then introduced a built-in webserver which could use in-game programs (written in Forth) as the source for pages, so you could have a completely dynamic web portal. It even had a built-in web based MU client. And this was in 1995-1996. The authors were certifiably nuts. And GlowMuck and ProtoMUCK and fb6 all introduced really neat stuff of their own.

That's leaving out interesting stuff inherited from even older MUCK variants, like attribute trees.

@Griatch said in Hosting and codebase recs:

I just want to point out that while Evennia is indeed a Mu* creation toolkit of sorts, and the core is deliberately 'bare', there are a lot of contribs to play with and build on these days.

I mean, yes, but most of the contribs are also for a very specific type of game; most seem built very much for MUD-like fantasy setups, which is also true of Ainneve somewhat. And while Arx's codebase is less MUD, more MUSH-plus-8-zillion-things, it's also very, very Arx; if you don't want to build an Arx-like game with discoverable lore and coded organizations and a very specific dice system, the Arx codebase is prooobably not a good starting point.

If you want something more like a modern urban fantasy game with simple sheets and a basic dice mechanic for resolving disputes, none of the contribs will be particularly useful to you.

@Lotherio said in Hosting and codebase recs:

Penn supports web socket, can do web client at least (not fully integrated portal as with Ares).

I will note that since Penn supports SQL integration, it is actually possible to do an 'integrated' web portal if you are creative. I've done it with TinyMUX's integration before, where there were locked pages on a mediawiki installation controlled solely by the game. When things were changed on the game, it would literally just manually add a new revision of a given locked page directly in SQL (which, hey, the lock is only valid from the web side of Mediawiki, since it's in the Mediawiki codebase; nothing stops you from rewriting the page when you control the database...) and thus update the wiki. It was horrible because of the indisputable formula MUSHcode + SQL + mediawiki templating = hell, but it worked, and had character pages on a mediawiki that live-updated from the game. Did the same thing with other integrations; a calendar system that was backed by SQL, the Invision Powerboard forum software, etc.

It is not how I would recommend building a live-updating MU* website, but it's doable in Penn or TinyMUX. It is sheer hell to code, but it is doable.

@Atomic - The mention of "rescue entertainment" makes me almost want to see a game based on—or at least inspired by—Sleepless Domain.

It's a magical girl comic which takes place in a city sealed off from the world; once it's dark out, monsters can emerge through the barrier and roam through the city. Girls will sometimes awaken as magical girls and be sent to train, after which point they're the ones allowed out after dark to try and stop all the monsters. And if you have a 'theme' to your power, you find the other folks with the same theme and team up.

But the various teams get their exploits filmed and aired, there's merchandise of them and everything, and people rank their favorites and stuff as the powers that be make it into a spectacle for the public rather than this sort of eldritch "the world outside is full of monsters and none of us understand them or what they want when they come in here, but it never ends well" existence. But if you send teenage girls out to fight monsters every night, sure, sometimes it's all fun and games and quippery as they kick ass, but sometimes Bad Things happen, and not every magical girl is even close to free of PTSD-induced nightmares when they do to get sleep. And not every magical girl makes it out alive, either...

Really, two of my favorite 'magical girl' stories that are webcomics that toy with the trope: the aforementioned Sleepless Domain and Shattered Starlight (comic tagline: "Sucks to be you, magical girl.") which is about what happens after you're doing being a magical girl (in Toronto), but can't really get away from the world you were pulled into.

And a magical girl game that played with the tropes in ways like that could be a lot of fun.

@Auspice — One thing is that sponsored locations—i.e. companies/chains that have paid to have a presence in the game—will always be inns, and those inns will seemingly consistently drop extra energy compared to most. Out here that's AT&T stores and (I think) Starbucks.

@Auspice — Yeah, algorithmic generation of game resources is great, but it is not inherently balanced well for all locations. On the other hand, anything other than algorithmic generation of game resources (out of their POI database, I mean) is not even close to feasible for a game with a literally global reach, so...

ETA: I should screenshot downtown Seattle tomorrow to show you. The algorithm is very favorable here; it's just a sea of different types of inns, with usually a greenhouse every other block or so, and pretty much anywhere you stand there's almost always at least one fortress only a block away. Anyone who's in downtown Seattle will not need to buy energy because you could just walk around for like ten minutes and refill. To be fair, though, back in the Ingress days people basically carpeted downtown Seattle with POI entries, and the benefits of that have carried on into PoGo and Wizards Unite.

Another +1 for Digital Ocean. When I want a test environment for MU* and I don't want to have to actually load it onto one of my real servers (which sort of creak under the load of hosting things a bit), spinning up a DO droplet is the simple solution I usually turn to.

As for codebase, yes, it entirely depends on what you want to do. If you just want the classic old MUSH/MUX experience, and will load on an existing WoD codebase? Go with TinyMUX or RhostMUSH. If you want Rhost's particular codebase features, Theno's right that Rhost is not a bad choice; it's also more actively maintained than TinyMUX is these days. However, if you want Unicode support, last I checked Rhost did not have proper Unicode support (mind you, last I checked was years ago, so this may have changed). PennMUSH is adding Unicode, but TinyMUX is—so far as I know—the only classic flavor codebase with comprehensive Unicode support.

If you want something newer—with integrated website, etc.—then I'd recommend either Ares or Evennia.

Ares is a full-featured (and really quite awesome) codebase out-of-box that gives you a basic MUSH-like experience, with mail and forums already built in, wiki-style character pages automatically provided by the game, and a really spectacular scene-management system. However, the tradeoff is that Ares is a fully-coded game, and while it's not terribly difficult to add to it, it is—with a few exceptions—far, far harder to rip out and replace chunks of it. And the bits you can rip out and replace do come with trade-offs; last I checked, if you pulled out FS3.3 to replace it with a custom dice system, you lose a lot of the web integration (web-based character creation, web-based combat management, etc.). It seemed to be for solid technical reasons, mind you, but it's still a tradeoff. (@faraday can answer better than I can whether that's still the case; the only Ares games I've ever been on as a player use FS3, and I have let my own Ares coding fall sadly by the wayside of late. I'm like... ugh. Six or seven point releases behind current.)

Evennia, conversely, is flexible as hell; if it's possible in Python, you can do it in Evennia. You can link TensorFlow into Evennia and use machine learning to control NPCs if you want! It would be insane, but you can do it! And Evennia is built atop Django (an ORM and web applications framework), which means you can design all kinds of really interesting things in it and can (with some limitations) use most Django plugins and extensions too. However, the tradeoff—and it's a big one—is that Evennia has basically zero functionality out of box. It is not a MU* itself, but rather a MU* construction kit; it's much more in the line of classic LPMUD type servers, where you have a very basic server and then it loads a game-specific custom codebase.

For next generation servers, if you want to do something really out there, really mechanically creative and unlike any other game, and you have a good Python coder (or three) to work with you? You want Evennia. If you don't really code but you still want next-generation functionality and you're okay with sticking with FS3.3 for a dice mechanic? Set up Ares and start building; it will do right by you.

@Auspice said in General Video Game Thread:

In general, Wizards Unite is a better game than I expected (Pokémon Go with a HP skin did not appeal to me at all originally), but this energy thing is a huge problem.

There's no passive energy regen. You can only get more by buying it or visiting Inns. But not all locations are Inns. Some are fortresses or greenhouses. And those don't give energy.

My work has a bunch of locations around it....not one is an inn.
My apartment has nothing nearby.

And I live in an urban area. I feel bad for people who live in more remote areas. I can't/don't play while driving and I work second shift (meaning my ability to just go somewhere and hang out is v limited).

There's just no point to me playing. As intriguing as the game is.

So, not an official thing or anything, but a friend at Niantic who works on the project mentioned they are examining whether they need to rebalance to add at least some passive energy regen.

From what I gather, the fact that the algorithm for which POIs are handled as greenhouses combined with the one to pick which are fortresses (or gyms in PoGo) could result in areas with only those and no inns to speak of apparently did not come up until after release; the places where their external playtesters tended to be did have a lot of inns. So I gather they figured people would only need to buy energy if they were in a rush to do something; buying energy is evidently meant to be an expediting mechanic, not one that's required to play. Hence a bit of, "hm, do we need to change the algorithm so some of the greenhouses are still inns and thus encourage folks to still get out and walk around, but maybe lose greenhouses in areas that don't have a lot, or do we need to just add passive energy regen?"

(Side note: greenhouses actually will give energy. Not every time, but when they do, it's usually a decent chunk in my experience. Like 6-10 energy. And if your ingredients vault is full, it seems to start giving you energy a lot more often.)

ETA: And yes, I'd hope they expected to encounter some sort of balance issue like this, given they saw something similar at PoGo's launch, where the paltry number of Pokéballs you'd get from Pokéstops meant that anyone who wasn't in an area all but carpeted with Pokéstops would run out of Pokéballs to actually catch anything with, so they upped the number of balls Pokéstops would give you to address that. Initial design rarely survives first contact with end users unscathed, and that goes double for the balance of multiplayer game mechanics.

Hitting that sweet spot in GM'ing where you can evoke genuine emotional responses from your players because they are invested in the story. It's what I always strive for, but no one hits the target height every time. It's an odd mindset where you can be so happy that you broke people's hearts, but it means the story is a good one.

@Coin said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

@Sparks said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

@Caryatid said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Adding to the list: Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Oh no, I've created a monster...

She was already a monster.

Oh, no, I've given the monster a new aspect...

@Auspice - if that's the 3 we got here (I.e. FF6), the answer is both acceptable and correct.

@Bananerz said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

• Final Fantasy

Yes, but which? (As was already established in another thread, the only possible correct answers are 6, 7, or 8. And possibly 14 or 15.)

@Caryatid said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Adding to the list: Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Oh no, I've created a monster...

@Ganymede - whines I don't have time to run a game! Stop making me want to create an HZD game! I swore an oath to myself I would never headwiz again, and I don't want to break it. Even if it's so tempting...

@secretfire - it depends on what you mean by D&D inspired, I think. If all you want is a game set in Faerun or Eberron or whatever, then that's easy to do in Ares as long as you either don't want combat to involve magic, or as long as all conflict is resolved via dice told rather than combat code.

(Magic and the FS3 combat system don't go together well; you can do it, like Tat did with Spirit Lake, but the range of what can feasibly be coded to work in FS3 combat imposed limits on Spirit Lake's magic system which are far more restrictive than any tabletop magic system I've ever used. This isn't said as a criticism, just a note that the range of magic you'd expect in a D&D setting is not possible under FS3's coded combat.)

If you mean with the same sort of feel to combat and everything, though, I don't know if anyone has made a d20 plugin for Ares, and I think if you wanted to truly include even a decent subset of spells and feats, that would be an incredibly difficult coding challenge. (Not that doing full d20 with that sort of range would work a ton better on Evennia, mind you; tackling a d20 implementation with any sort of wide variety in spells and feats will be an immense task on any platform.)

@Jennkryst said in General Video Game Thread:

I re-started Horizon: Zero Dawn because of the 'What Games would you like to see?' thread, and am trying to figure out how you would even MU-it.

Yeah, at first I was thinking just 'this is the aesthetic I want', but after the idea bouncing around in my head for a few days, I've thought of about two (and a half) ways you could do it. Depending on how many automated systems you wanted.

Man, even if it was just inspired by Horizon Zero Dawn, but...

Sigh.

I just don't have time to build a game, or I'd 1000% build something like that.

I want to see post-post-apocalyptic solarpunk or hopepunk games. The apocalypse happened, society collapsed and crumbled, and now it's much later. Humanity has rebuilt, but things are different and the ruins of the world from before the apocalypse are the relics that dot theirs.

It doesn't have to be idyllic (that would be boring), but it shouldn't just be a blasted landscape full of people trying to survive. I want to see what they built afterwards, and where society goes after that. I want immense buildings now overgrown by forests and retaken by nature. I want the world that came before to be remembered only in those ruins and in stories carried on for generations.

City of Ember. Broken Empire. Elger and the Moon. Nausicaä. Horizon Zero Dawn.

...actually, wait, forget just the "general post-post-apocalyptic setting" part. What I want is a game literally based on either Nausicaä or Horizon Zero Dawn, or with a very similar feel to one or the other. Probably the latter, as it'd be more accessible to people.

@Roz said in Good TV:

@Sparks said in Good TV:

@Roz said in Good TV:

@Auspice You can still watched it subbed on Netflix.

Does the subtitled version still have Fly Me to the Moon?

Nope. Apparently the Netflix Japan version has it, but not the subtitled version in the US. It's clearly a licensing/copyright issue.

(Also, the sub is best anyway. And the Japanese version of the opening theme is something I will still remember when I am old and senile and cannot even recall my own name; it got that deeply ingrained in my brain.)

There's no English version of the opening theme!

It's a modern creation from a few years back, so far as I know, but I did sort of half expect Netflix to license it for a new dubbed version. And while I prefer the original Japanese version, I am very impressed with how much of the original lyrics' meaning was preserved in this.

Like an angel with cruel and merciless intent / Go forth, young boy / And you'll become a legend! [instrumental opening] In time, this blue of the sky Will reach out to knock on the door to your heart...