Ah, Telltale Games, I missed you. Thank you for fucking Clementine up but good; TWD Season 3 is wonderfully much better than Michonne.
Posts made by Thenomain
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RE: General Video Game Thread
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RE: MU Things I Love
You know, I could play a dry but effective Treasurer. How cooked would you like your books?
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RE: Random links posted in Tastes Less Game'y
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RE: House Rules vs Rules as Written
@Ganymede said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
@Warma-Sheen said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
I understand getting rid of the merit or lowering the cost or whatever. But my point since the beginning is that I think that it is much more personal choice of whoever makes those decisions than necessity.
You could call it personal choice; I would call it "setting an interpretation based on experience."
And, as @Sunny points out, that change would be a House Rule, in my books.
I don't really like House Rules much, but I know when to apply them. And, yes, I do so with some explanation beyond "I don't like the Winged Merit because flying pixie faeries are so lame."
Admit it: You took it.
Bonus points if you took it as a Sidhe.
More bonus points if you took it as an Unseelie and they were bat wings.
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
So passive conditions can't trigger command assignment? Leading to a third answer: The coder creates a system that loads all the possible "bob" commands, via a walk thru of the directory looking for 'bob-Werewolf.py', etc., maintaining add-on flexibility. Even that leaves my mouth dry, but I can envision too many scenarios where waiting even one minute for a command to become available is a downfall.
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
@Griatch said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
Allow me to update @Thenomain's list of "things". The list of things you need to know to be a beginner Evennia user is, IMO, as follows:
[...]
- You need to know how to use a text editor and how to switch between windows in your OS. For seeing the results in-game you need a web browser or telnet client of your choice.
This is such a strange addition to the list, and I at first thought you were being a bit sarcastic and/or bitter. I'm pretty sure you're not, but, well, this is Soapbox. I never know.
I did have one question: How easy is it to remove @ from some of the global commands? The more I purge '+' from my own code, the stranger it seems. I'm guessing "bloody easy".
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
@Griatch said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
The db is thankfully set up in the main install. Faraday and I looked briefly at the web template interface, though, and both said "aw hell naw!"
Could you elaborate more on what you refer to by the "web template interface" here?
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GriatchWhen I'm not late for out the door having an Important Internet Argument, sure.
@Roz said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
So the idea that Evennia can only be handled by professional programmers is demonstrably untrue.
Can you find someone saying that Evennia can only be handled by professional programmers? I think I know what you're referring to, but it has a look of hyperbole to it and I don't want to respond until I know.
That is, I don't think anyone said it was "for professional programmers only".
edit:
@WTFE said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
@AntiZero said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
@WTFE Ha! I love the Internet. It's so easy to say things that would get you beat in person.
Can someone refresh my memory: is this a "finish your drink" or "finish the bottle" move?
It's a "flag for moderation" moment. I think character attacks with no other substance is only allowed in the Hog Pit. Otherwise, posting for one's own amusement is a single drink.
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
Another dooble poost. Sorry.
@AntiZero said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
@WTFE Wow, you are kind of a prick.
I'm not a fan of WTFE. Never have been, probably never will, but that doesn't mean I ignore what he says because he's being a jerk about it. It makes it harder to take him seriously, or want to try and engage with those points, but that's partially on me as well. Mostly on him, mind you, but I could be better at not taking everything personally, too.
In other words:
Sometimes
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@AntiZero said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
@WTFE heh. I can't wait to see the awesome alternative you will unleash on the world. I'm sure we will all flock to it and create our virtual worlds with only you to thank for your tireless efforts.
Oh, wait...
Okay, this is a bullshit argument. Not fixing the problem is not the same as not identifying the problem and certainly not the same as feedback. People don't have to "do things" to contribute.
Now I know you two are going to continue feeding on each other, WTFE trolling you and you acting indignant about it, but I wanted to get this out there first, for the sake of a call for reason.
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
Stop it, Canink. Stop making me agree with you.
@WTFE said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
You must learn Python. You must learn the Python ecosystem with its myriad of tools to rein in its chaos. (Virtual environments, PIP, etc.) You have to set up a database IIRC. (I may be misremembering here; it's been ages since I looked at Evennia.) And now, apparently, you have to know Git (or Mercurial because, you know, Python).
The db is thankfully set up in the main install. Faraday and I looked briefly at the web template interface, though, and both said "aw hell naw!"
My 'four things' you'd need for complex game development were: Python. Evennia's APIs. Django. Versioning Software. Five if you want to include web interface development. Two of those are pretty handy things to know and be able to use for complex game development (Python, Versioning). One you will have to know regardless the server (Evennia APIs and structure/Mushcode).
To invoke the @faraday again, she is planning on the kind of complaints I have for "easy set-up and maintenance" for AresMUSH that I was complaining about before.
I want to be clear: I don't think that in-game editing is the be-all and end-all, but it's a strong example of what makes a game accessible to non-professional development.
Faraday, I forgot to mention in our chat: Being able to code in-game is also a very helpful real-time collaboration system. Call me when Atom allows you to collaborate on code as easily!
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
Dooblay Post.
@faraday said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
@Thenomain said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
Actually, here, let me suggest this:
- Pre-MUD (Adventure, etc.)
<snip>
I think we have a fundamental disconnect on what makes a MUSH a MUSH.
I was slightly regretting putting MUSH on Tier 4. I should have added MOO and MUCK to that, as both allow complete in-game scripting. I'm not saying that Tier 4 Multiplayer Text Games are all Mushes, but that Mushes are Tier 4 Mutliplayer Text Games. My apologies for being lax on that.
That is, it's not "what makes a Mush" but "what makes a Tier 4 server system".
AresMUSH is a MUSH server by my definition. And since I'm the one naming it, well...
AresMUSH sounds more like a Tier 3 server, Mush or not. The same way that Evennia has a MUD build philosophy behind its development, even if it's a Tier 3 server. Capisce?
Better terms more than welcome.
edit: My thanks to you and @Griatch for not taking my own blunt language as an attack. I imagine it would be easy.
- Pre-MUD (Adventure, etc.)
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
No apologies needed. When I see a discussion that seems to become all restatements of earlier comments, I do try to challenge them since usually I'm the one at fault. By challenge, I mean "is this going anywhere?"
I also saw Some Other People starting to react a little more confrontationally. Nothing horrifying or poisonous, but as I was explaining to @faraday earlier in private chat, "this is no longer an important goal" can be very easily interpreted by someone who takes it personally as "this use case is useless", or something less antagonistic but still challenging. For instance, you're getting push-back that in-game developers are dead, when I see a fairly constant rate of, mm, about two a year? This isn't bad. One advanced coder can help less advanced coders maintain I'd say about four games. Less advanced coders can do a lot.
If you can't tell, I want systems that are educational and easy to setup and maintain the server setup in order to help increase these numbers.
I don't think we're so off-topic that it's not useful. I think talking about the pros and cons and design goals fits very well into the original question. (Also: Tangents? On Soapbox? You don't say!)
It's all good.
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
@Griatch said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
People like you and I can do some amazingly complex things in Mushcode, but it takes a level of effort that oustrips Mushcode's standard use case.
This is a very important point. For all the "bridging power" of mushcode, how many can actually use it to the level of, you know, creating a new game from scratch?
Please Note: Your concept of "a game" and my concept of "a game" seem to be very different. I don't care how much code is installed. I do this because I like to in my not-at-all-humble way "do it right", but if it's done wrong, or crappy, or haphazzardly, the only important question to me is: Are people logging in and enjoying themselves?
As @WTFE noted, each barrier between concept to login is important. The barriers are not only those of code, but of concept, of education, of engagement. I'm asking "Is it easier to learn?" I'm coming up with "no".
Or to put it another way: We are looking at solving very different problems. Every project must know what they're trying to solve. This is why I'm also okay if Evennia doesn't care if you need a deeper *NIX system knowledge to run. If it does want to educate, then Mushes do it better.
(Note that I'm not talking about plugging in a pre-made system here. That is obviously a great boon of the mushcode ecosystem but has less to do with its inherent "bridging power" and more to do with a backlog of decades of people using it for a very specific set of game styles. For Evennia (or Ares) to catch up with that aspect comes down to adoption and time.)
I've answered this already: It was very, very quick for TinyMUSH to start catching on and people writing tutorials and improving the learning curve. I've also put out there that Evennia could easily do this as well, suggested people, and said it was likely.
But right now...
- You can't do the old trick of testing your code in development in that bizarre but delightful way Mushes allow you to localize code. If you make a change, it's to the server. (New tactic: Lock the code until it's tested.)
This is what version control is for, but no, it doesn't work in the same way as mushcode.
I'm now increasing the number of disparate systems one must have a light understanding to build an Evennia game from three to four, though maybe I should take one of those out and reduce it back to three. I am not counting on either Evennia nor Mushes the ability to log into a shell and run a few lines of code. Mush remains at: One.
@faraday said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
first-gen MUSH servers
I would call Mush a "second-gen MUD server". In the same way that COBOL is a third-gen programming language, and Python is a fourth.
Actually, here, let me suggest this:
- Pre-MUD (Adventure, etc.)
- MUD (bare server framework for creating the game, no in-game creation tools)
- Evennia, etc. (strong server framework, in-game limited to building, maybe a light in-game interpreter)
- MUSH (strong server framework, full in-game scripting & interpreter)
I don't want to say that a 4th Gen MU* is better than a 3rd Gen MU*, any more than any ol' 4th Gen programming language (http://lolcode.org/), just that they serve different purposes.
And that's what I see in this discussion. "Well you can do THIS," says server advocate A. "But you can't do THAT," says other server advocate B. "But THAT is different than THIS," says server advocate A. "But THIS is different than THAT," says other server advocate B.
Evennia is different than TinyMUX. We know this. Look up. No, more up. Look at the first post. Look at the question posed:
@Hexagon said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
What is your favorite code base and what makes it special?
You seem to be taking it as an attack on Evennia, @Griach, at the very least defending the differences between Mushlikes and Evennia, differences that do not need defended. Explained, maybe, but you've explained them already. If other people don't think those differences are valuable, why do you care? If you do care, why don't you change them?
But me? I'm explaining my opinion and observation to anyone who wants to know them. That's 100% of my intention. What people do with them from there is up to them.
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
@faraday said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
Anyway, yeah - long ago coding was more common. But I'm not trying to get back to the MU*s of yesteryear where everyone was making Falcon Controllers. I'm addressing the use cases of the types of games I see and play on, where you've got (if you're lucky) one coder or an admin determined to learn enough to limp along.
So Ares' goal is different than Evennia's. I imagine that Ares will also present the more typical simplified installation requirements of Mushes.
We could call Ares something different. How about ... hmm ... a MULORG? MERINGUE? MIP? MUM, Multi-User Mush?
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
I've been using: Mushes, Mushlikes, Mushcode. The last was more popular long ago.
Also, long ago about half the mushers coded. Code was simpler, and the requirements to entry were lower.
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
@faraday said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
@Thenomain by actual game dev I meant simply someone with permission to be a coder on a game (in Ares this means access to either the server shell or git repository to push changes). This is in contrast with old Mu* servers where every player can do some level of development. It's a question of access not skill or elitism.
Okay, so if a "game dev" is anyone who can run code...no, that still doesn't make sense. I can log into a Penn game, run some code, and therefore make my own code more portable. I don't have permission to do so, and I'm not a game developer.
Again, I think we're not talking about the same thing.
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RE: Christmas...
@VulgarKitten said in Christmas...:
... because tis the season! What's the best geeky/game-related present you've ever received?
It wasn't to me, but one year my brother got Dark Tower. We played that thing until the motor started giving out.
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
@Hexagon said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
@Thenomain said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
However, for that bridge, Mushcode is far more capable than Evennia, at present. A huge reason is because Mush has immediate feedback tools.
The documentation available for Mush is also, although ancient, creating and building on foundations. The documentation I've seen for Evennia is instructive but my small peeve that "how to start an existing game" was missing is exactly the kind of thing that frustrates me about it.It's also been around a lot longer. You do amazing and complex things, but even having access to your Github repository still means a fair bit of sanitizing and testing before things are up and running. I do love the way you format the code, though. It's much easier to read conceptually.
Yeah, my Github is NOT drag-n-drop ready. My WoD sections, however, are pretty damn close, starting with deep explanations about how and how not to. The weather system install (linked in my post, above) is me trying to get better.
The weather system directions came after helping someone with absolutely no Unix experience set it up. This level of coding really forces you to think about your users.
Mush is almost that level of "plug and play", but I do want to note: It's always been that way. Lydia and Brazil and all the rest have focused on that since very early on. It is the exact opposite of Muds, which demand that you be a C/C++ coder to make any changes.
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
@faraday said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
@Thenomain I'm curious how you define "immediate feedback tools". Is changing code in a text editor in the server shell and typing @reload in the game not immediate?
I've had to think about this a bit, and here's what I think.
- You can't do the old trick of testing your code in development in that bizarre but delightful way Mushes allow you to localize code. If you make a change, it's to the server. (New tactic: Lock the code until it's tested.)
- You have to have server access to test code. You can't test concepts on someone else's server ("how does Penn do this, again?"), and you can't do it without your own complete server installation.
The problem with my communications here is that I'm talking in what sounds like absolutes, but is a matter of degrees. I don't have the language to explain what I'm thinking of, only examples. As you and @Griatch are taking those examples as specific issues and/or complaints, cross-purposes are being attained.
Let me give one more example.
Yes, I have to install the entirety of Python to play around with it (let's ignore online tools for a moment), but I can get into a limited development shell to, well, I could create a whole Python program in it, but it's not designed for that. It's designed to "play".
This is not about toys, this is about exploration, about learning, and about accessibility.
This is the specific part I was talking about earlier that I think needs help to make Evennia more accessible. (does not say to run vitualenv first, nor how)
This is my idea about what "accessibility" is about.
But for actual game devs [...]
What is an "Actual Game Dev"? A Cobalt who wants to build a quick, loose game about supernatural life in Forks, Washington and knows how to build but little else? Castle D'Image, which had no code systems to speak of? I know you don't mean this term negatively, and don't even imagine you would use it that way if you did, but this is a limiting statement. "Evennia and Ares are only for Actual Game Devs."
I do feel bad about stating it that way, but couldn't think of another way to get across that point. My inner editor is a jerk.
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RE: What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.
@faraday said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
Sorry for the double post, but I did the first one on my phone and missed @Thenomain's reply. I agree that having a low "time to project" / "time to playing around" threshold is important. I think @WTFE brought up a great point earlier about bridging the gap from player to MUSH developer.
But I don't think that having the ability to edit code 'live' from inside the game itself is essential for either of these things.
In spite of my meandering thoughts, I was trying to, as you say and @WTFE says, talk about bridging the gap between player and developer. People like you and I can do some amazingly complex things in Mushcode, but it takes a level of effort that oustrips Mushcode's standard use case.
However, for that bridge, Mushcode is far more capable than Evennia, at present. A huge reason is because Mush has immediate feedback tools.
The documentation available for Mush is also, although ancient, creating and building on foundations. The documentation I've seen for Evennia is instructive but my small peeve that "how to start an existing game" was missing is exactly the kind of thing that frustrates me about it.
I also started by talking about things like Slack. I do not expect anyone to code in or for Slack, but if you want to set up a small to medium business communications mesh, Slack has a really good set of tools to do that with. They're not the first, not by a long shot, but they're one of the few that focuses on the user and not the product, which makes the product more usable.
@Griatch said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:
@Volund is a great guy. He is also very knowledgeable about Evennia. And he originally learned to use Evennia from zero Python knowledge (he only knew mushcode) by reading our documentation and by asking questions in the community.
Emphasis mine. He's one of two people I know who've gone this route, but I see a difference between training coders (Evennia) and enabling end-users (Mush). The start of Mush's history was a game system that you could code your own Zork or Adventure; by coders for coders. But also for the college friends of coders. It colors everything done in the platform.
(See, I am trying to keep it somewhat on-topic. Unlike that @faraday person who is easily distracted by a shiny bit of -- oo, code!)