Posts made by Thenomain

@Griatch

I'm on my iPad, so this will be choppy with no quotation, but I feel a timely response is warranted.

• Being able to jump right in

There is a common document written very long ago that teaches you the four base objects you need to make a Mush. It helps you find the resources you need if you want to do more intermediate things. It explains the passed variables (%0, etc., which I know aren't called variables). It eventually tells you how to make a user defined command.

This is all you need to build a Mush. If you want to be more modern, TinyMUX allows you to have a pre configured database with something called the "Sandbox Globals Project". I make fun of the SGP for being horrible code, but it is clear and simple and is a fantastic learning aid. (I know the other Mushlikes have similar, but not the point.)

Mushes also have built-in help organized in several ways: By command and by topic. You may not remember that the function "iter()" is the functional "for each", but you can see it under "list functions" in help, and that mental trigger is invaluable. The Oracle web site does the same thing. The PHP web site does the same thing.

Sure, you get a little bit of that with Python, but we're not dealing with just Python here, we're dealing with to some of us an entirely new framework that just happens to use Python. Mind you, there are a ton of Python coding sites, which brings me to my conclusion to this part:

You have to learn Python to have any chance with Evennia. You don't have to learn Mushcode to have any chance with Mush.

• Time to Project

Both Oracle and PHP are insanely detailed to make it easy to set up. (I mean, that doesn't help in Oracle's case, but you take what you can get.) You can experiment within the environment and immediately see your results. Same with Python. Same with Mush. Install, run prompt, play.

I have no idea what's going on with Django or Virtualenv. Now that you mention the word, this was what I meant with "what do I do now?" I didn't see instructions on how to re-start the game. Yes, Mushcode involves a lot of word-of-mouth learning, but I'll tell you that everything I knew about Mushes were learned by reading. I now know things I never thought I would, and the non-Euclidean world of Mushcode has made my mind a breeding ground for the Elder Ones, but that's the problem with becoming a specialist in any field.

Those Elder Ones aren't helping when I run into the issues caused by the two of three frameworks that Evennia uses. Mush uses: one.

Making Mushes--sorry, an online multiplayer game--is simple. Evennia can have that middle ground. Here's how: Hire @Volund to write your installation and initial help documents. I don't know if he has the temperament(I don't!), but he's self-taught and taking off with the hobby possibilities and I keep hearing his name come up in the sentence "Volund helped me set up..."

If you're going for just the professional set, fine, but MySQL manages fine with the middle ground PHP manages fine, there's no reason Evennia can't except that the current project lead designer pushes back every time it's mentioned. That's fine, your project and all, but do accept that some of us are going to point out that it's not a hobby tool.

@TwoGunBob

This is an awesome nativity. A+

@Ashen-Shugar said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:

like any good mechanic, I can say we still have quite a bit to squeeze out of this baby.

Or electrical engineers.

Or, well, programmers.

I still don't know Django. Installing Evennia, more than just getting the raw code on my computer, is still daunting as hell. I strongly support @faraday's notion that it's a rough toolkit, maybe a framework, and little else.

Compare to, e.g., the Mushlikes, where once installed you can log in, and roll up your sleeves and get immediately to work. Look at nearly every web-based service that you can try for free, too. Sure, none of these may do much, but you can monkey around and build monstrosities on your way to build more complex monstrosities.

They also try to keep the metaphors simple. Here are CONTACTS. You can MESSAGE one. You can MESSAGE many; we call this a CHAT. Here's a PLAYER, here's a ROOM, here's a THING, these are all OBJECTS. You link rooms using EXITS. Before you know it, you have learned some basic hierarchical object-lists.

I'll strongly agree with @WTFE (since he's finally singing my "it's stupid but at least it's easy" tune about Mush) that this might make a programmer grit her teeth, but it's relatable. The way Python and other moderately high level languages are taught is similar.

The Mudlike mentality went the other way. "Oh, you know C and C++, just mess around with the server until it does what you want." Evennia is very much like this. "You don't need to know Django, but run it and do this and this to set it up." Okay, what do I do once it's set up? "The same thing but don't install it." Um, what?

I've seen many "um, what?" moments for people in Mush softcode, and it's the PHP of our hobby. Anyone can code a shitty web board in PHP; it's practically what PHP is for. Hopefully it's a gateway drug to more structured languages which opens things even further.

What I'm getting at here is Evennia has no middle ground. There's no playground for it, no toys, and while it's easier to follow than Mush server code it's still not terribly, oh, what I'd call simple. It's an end-point, by design.

What I'm also getting at here is that Mushlikes have no higher ground. They're getting there; Muck started it, Penn dabbled, Rhost is making a stronger push, but building a web-side interface is... okay, Muck has been able to do that for a decade, but I'm not learning Fortran.

There is no bridge between "just want to do this thing" and "professional-level goals". It seems much more likely that Evennia becomes more accessible to hobby coders, but they haven't reached strongly in that direction yet. Both Mudlikes and Mushlikes are learn-by-word-of-mouth creation platforms. Pick whichever one you want to learn.

That's the complex answer, to the original poster.

@Warma-Sheen said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:

I think the issue with places that have "excessive" HRs (and maybe HRs in general) is that people just want to change the game to fit them rather than playing it the way it was presented, but don't want to own up to that.

Changing rules to alter the play style is not only acceptable, but White Wolf's "Rule Zero" was explicitly to do just this.

There are systems where house ruling changes the underlying system, where you have to be super careful and know about game balance and pinpoint identify what you are trying to accomplish. World/Chronicles of Darkness is not one of them.

Misattributing the reasons is a peeve already covered by @Coin.

@Hexagon

You assume that our code projects aren't three week cast-off projects. Just the way we planned.

Everything is a Remix.

@Kanye-Qwest said in The Apology Thread:

@Thenomain said in The Apology Thread:

@Kanye-Qwest said in The Apology Thread:

Live and let live, for fox sake.

<.<

...

(KIDDING!)

You get really upset when we argue, man, so why are you even doing this? Seriously.

Because I thought you'd think it was funny, and wouldn't think that you'd take a light ribbing into a serious argument. Live and let live.

@Kanye-Qwest said in The Apology Thread:

Live and let live, for fox sake.

<.<

...

(KIDDING!)

@faraday

Yup, that's how it works. But you can log in via alias. connect Smithy password

If you want server consistency, you're going to have to code a lpmatch() that honors it. Good luck. Please share.

@faraday said in What is your preferred method of function creation?:

It's just a PITA for the players to have to put junk in quotes or separate it with commas all the time, and double PITA to parse a quote-encapsulated list versus a space-separated one.

Hm. Good question.

iter( %0, pmatch( %i0 ), if( strmatch( %0, \,* ), \,, %b )

I bet you could make this "lpmatch()" and use that.

Still annoying, but much more possible than parsing "...", and it only parses when the player enters it that way so it doesn't have to be "all the time".

I'm sure it's easier in Penn than Mux to do "..." parsing as well and throw that into this new lpmatch() global, but as I've not done much token-based processing I don't know just how hard it would be. I'd probably stick to the code I have above, because I'm lazy.

@Bobotron said in What is your preferred method of function creation?:

@Hexagon
Multi-word names aren't typically a difficult thing, unless your code doesn't use pmatch() to verify. Or at least in my experience.

Yeah, this. Any code that wants a list of names, e.g. "page", is going to be more difficult to parse multi-word names, but since we have grammar tokens like quote-marks and commas, it's not hard to code for.

The only reason why The Reach/Fallcoast won't accept multi-word names is because one code system wasn't set up this way, and the only times I wasn't on burnout I couldn't remember what it was to fix it.

@Lisse24

Now you're getting snippy. I also mentioned @mail, which is a perfect targeting system, and ajobs, which is a perfect targeting system with feedback and history.

I'm not attacking you. I'm not even attacking your idea. I'm exploring it, which I feel is critical and sure as hell think is worthwhile. Do what you want, but you can let go of that gift horse's mouth. Sheesh,

@gasket said in +wantrp Command Suggestion:

[If] you give everyone a hammer, but all they ever do is bash their thumbs bloody with it, maybe the solution is to stop trying to re-engineer the hammer and give them something else to use.

Bboards have always felt the very opposite of responsive to me. Maybe I've just had much poorer luck with them on games than you have.

Yet here we are, on a board, having a civil conversation about tools. I can still use email for useful conversation even though it's mostly filled with cruft. I couldn't possibly use a Mu* bboard nowadays, I wouldn't ever go back to my old email client. The tools have changed, the applications evolved, but they are fundamentally the same.

The path I've been down before is working to create an awesome new system that would help resolve a common complaint...and it's never used. The culture has to want to use it. This very much starts with one person saying, "Hey, can I have this?" And for all my navel-gazing, that's enough to code it.

But that navel-gazing can also be "requirements gathering". What do we have? How is it failing? What do we want? Do we have the tools? I do think that what's being asked for is a threaded bboard system, or a public jobs listing. As it's entirely possible to create a 100% public jobs bucket with aJobs, time out those jobs, maybe add some code where the job creator is @mailed when that happens, and they can close the job when they're done, most of the work has been done.

Though the aJobs system has been stretched well beyond what it was meant to do already, which is why invoked Slack. Not as a suggestion to use it (god, can you imagine one of us paying for anything for the game that we didn't have to?), but as a comparison as to what I think is being asked for.

Maybe if someone re-created the aJobs system from scratch with a focus on scale and UX.

It's way easier to add more functions to the '+wantrp' command, so that's probably what will happen, and that's alright. At least this way I can be sure that my navel is very clean.

@Hexagon said in What is your preferred method of function creation?:

@Thenomain What method was your intended case for Stat Functions Prototype in GMCCG?

The SGP method of putting all functions on a single object. I am not convinced that was a good idea.

@Lisse24 said in +wantrp Command Suggestion:

@Thenomain I think those are good points, and I'm not generally someone to suggest commands for commands sake, but someone sends me an @mail and within a few days its lost in a sucking void of job spam.

This is a problem of using a hammer as a crowbar. The jobs system was meant to make things easier, not to replace Slack.

As @skew says, I think there might be something to be said for having a separate system to manage and track personal requests.

This is a problem of using a sledge hammer for a tack-hammer. The jobs system was never meant to be cloned, and doing so ('+tickets', the absolute worst name I've ever seen for a separate jobs database command ever of all time, I'm looking at you, Fallcoast) is a pain in the absolute ass.

Especially as the MUing community ages and their ability to wait around all day for someone to happen to be available wanes.

This is a problem of using a hammer as a play-by-post system. I meant Mush, not hammer. I've done play-by-jobs, and I would rather not be on a Mush if my only chance to get resolution is via passing around notes.

@gasket said in +wantrp Command Suggestion:

Because generally +bboards are a sucking chest wound of bad introduction posts, staff putting out fire long since burned through their course, and other stuff nobody really wants to read?

How in the world is this bboard's fault? The best board setup I've seen has separated out IC ("introduction") posts with OOC ("rp request") posts. If you've ever played on a game I've staffed or coded on, you'll be familiar with something like the following:

BUG: Finger and the New Map System

So the sub-system could just as easily:

RP REQ: Organized Hedge Crime

Same foundation, scanning becomes easier. Information management is the point, not adding more commands onto people's already overloaded plates. Adding more plates for the smaller portions will not necessarily help. It may, but if you don't explore efficiency and effectiveness, you could be compounding the problem.

Even more sarcastically: another +bboard full of timed-out posts and no way to tell if the person asking for the scene ever got it /except paging them to do Round Seven Million of Surreality's dance/? Sign me up!

A timeout and checklist mechanism for fulfilled requests is a good idea. Making it completely removed from our bevvy of other information management systems (bboard, @mail, jobs, tickets, and god forbid the endless silly-dilly @walls from staff) puts me on immediate edge. Probably because I know where this road can lead.

The best way to create user-side functions in Mu* is via a controlled system. The lazy way, the easy way, is to open @function access to all wizbits, and allow each object to define their own via the @startup attribute. SGP does this, and it's fine.

The more common way is to load the #1 with a @startup that is very picky about where it looks. This is only a little safer because anyone with a wizbit can add to the object and hit @restart anyway, and comes with the added drawback that you may have to call code on a different object without the function residing on that object.

My own "secure" (imply the "???" after that) method is to give a the "@startup on #1" system a list of wizard character dbrefs who are allowed to have objects with functions on them, then scan all their objects for attributes to run with @function. You can make an attribute God Only (#1) if you want to limit who's allowed to own objects that can build user-defined functions, but because there's @chown even that is limited.

You could specifically list the dbrefs/attr on #1 on an attribute that's locked God-Only, then run it via the method mentioned in paragraph two, above. This seems like the only idea that would be secure.

On the whole, expecting True Security out of Mu* is a bit of a mug's game, so pick your favorite method, or methods. I tend to take Mu* code as "you care to hack my pretendy funtime game because ... why?", knowing that I can patch most holes. I've used all but the last idea, which I just came up with now because I wasn't happy if I didn't come up with a true secure option.

I'm going to not address @WTFE's super-long reply right now, not because it's not thoughtful but because I had an idea and if I read someone else's idea then my own idea could be drowned out.

You know, you can get a similar effect by lowering the amount of XP one can earn based on total spent and allow people to drop stats. This is a more hands-on approach that people are already used to, at least on the recent WoD games.

My problem with "tax season" is that it becomes a side-game that you can't really opt out of. It's not like an economy system or crafting system, side-games that can be fun to engage with. There is absolutely no opt-in to it, so it needs to add something to the game as a whole.

Adding a layer of realism isn't enough. (Yeah yeah, my Calculus has really waned. Mind you, because I knew it, re-learning it will be easier.) Adding a layer of realism in a survival game that increases the tension is a good reason. To give people a reason to play around with glass beads is a good reason. It doesn't have to wow the judges--your players--but it does have to engage them.

Without reading @Hexagon's reply to @WTFE, it sounds like busywork. The goal may be to engage Eve Online players, which is also a good reason. Not my reason, but if you really like Eve Online then it's a good one none the less.

To mildly hijack the suggestions, I'm the kind of person who never uses or looks at want-RP flags. I rarely look at finger anymore, which is where I would be inclined at putting the output, something I didn't see mentioned. Being able to ask for very specific RP can go to @mail, jobs, board, finger, page, a lot of places.

Actually, I'd use @mail or board. We have a wanted concept board, why not a wanted RP board? But what if someone wants RP that is more secret? Maybe we need sphere-based boards to...wait, we already do, don't we.

@mail Thenomain=Can I get a scene about Hedge monster hunting?

+bbpost changeling/Hedge Hunt=Who can run me a Hedge hunt?

I suppose I'm now asking what these commands do that isn't already done by other systems?

@Mercutio

Screen scrapes are always a pain. Thank goodness for JSON and APIs

@Monogram said in I'm out:

@Thenomain said in I'm out:

Cobalt has several of us making sure she remains out, because she wants to be out. If she wants to come back, it will be because she wants to come back.

Out from MUing in general or out from this place in particular?

Out of here specifically. I don't know if she's out of Mu*ing. Those are two different conditions.