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Post by moofassa on Apr 1, 2014 0:31:20 GMT -5
Arm is the best RPI out there, but it also gets a lot of stuff wrong.
Permadeath: Because people have to cycle who's on the top. Pkilling is a source of good dramas. Arm gets an A for this, almost benchmark for a good RPI.
A lot of games are a little too tight on the permadeath or end up being lame deathmatch games. There was one game I played which was a deathmatch kind of game but you can put in a staff complaint if the other party attacks without emoting. So in wars, we would pre-copy some emotes and paste it before ambushes.
Agency: Game development jargon, meaning that what the player does affects the world. Arm gets a C- for this. I've said it before, it's literally easier to build a wall in real life with no wallbuilding skill than it is to build a wall in the game as a noble. IRL I could learn to craft bone arrows with enough bones, a teacher, and time. In Arm, it takes years in game (months IRL) and I'd be severely capped in the skill.
To keep things fresh again, there should be whatever staff related disasters and wars tearing down those things. I ran a game like this on Byond, and we had a ton of cool player generated lore. We kinda messed up in that the wars were too common and annoyed players who wanted to just build stuff, but I'd like to have something like player generated dungeons.
Transparent game mechanics: FOIC is fecking lame. Every online game these days uses wikis.
Arm gets a F+ for this. My benchmark would be something like Die2Nite. Even though the information is right out in the open and everyone tells you to fucking read everything, nobody does. So a lot of the game is devoted to training people to know and manipulate the game mechanics. If the game mechanics are broken, fix it, don't keep it hidden just so people can't
It's completely fucking stupid that my character can live in a city for months, I can play for hundreds of hours in a city, and have no fucking idea where there fucking spatulas and pans are, and am not allowed to ask about it OOC. Arm just fails so much in that aspect, in that a novice crafter can know more recipes than an experienced crafter working for a merchant house.
Minimize skill grades and Grinding: I hate grinding in most games. I don't have time for that shit. Arm does a good job of minimizing grinding but the concept of "20 day warrior" is insane - 480 hours on a single character?
My proposal.. characters are defined by Perks. Right now, you sign up for the Byn, you grind for hours before you can go out and do something decent. Instead, have the players just get a "Byn Runner" perk if they've logged 20 hours within the Byn compound, and get in game bonuses to fighting, cleaning latrines, and cooking stew. Indie hunters get a "Novice Hunter" perk if they've killed like 10 scrab-level creatures, whether or not they're in a group. Someone with multiple combat perks only picks the highest. So like someone with a Byn Runner, Novice Hunter, Militia Training, 'Rinth Rat perks will only have a low combat skill level, minor skill in skinning and backstabbing but still lose on a toe-to-toe battle against a Veteran Militia.
Someone who purposely stays a 'Runner' for years and avoids promotion still clocks in 200 hours in the Byn compound may get a Byn Advanced Training perk. They still lose out against people with actual war experience until they get in a real war.
People shouldn't be prevented from running around backstabbing people if that's what they do in their home territory. But they shouldn't feel compelled to do it just because it's the only way to raise their skill. The characters want to raise their skill so it's perfectly fine roleplaying.
Hopefully this gets people in more on roleplaying fights and stuff, instead of spending their time roleplaying combat emotes. But the system has to be tweaked to allow for training accidents and stuff. If they want to spend all that time idling, that's up to them, but they're missing out on actually enjoying the game.
Combat: Arm does poorly on combat. Screen floods with text, especially in a decent war. I'm thinking you just type quick commands and be given a 30-90 second window to act. Something like
'attack guy' (focuses all your attacks on guy)
'1 swing' (swings your primary weapon at guy)
'2 stab dick' (stabs guy's dick with secondary weapon)
'1' (random attack with primary weapon)
The window should be large enough to bore people if they don't emote, but not too large that it becomes tedious. If they don't attack within that time window, the game automatically picks an attack for them. And you can even do rock-paper-scissors level of strategy with something like this.
Thematically, no limits: I'm thinking something along the lines of HellMOO. Maybe not to that level of depravity, but let the players get as depraved as they like. They'll be bored of the random sex and rape after a week. The in game world functions as the moral police and not the staff.
I kinda liked this in Arm, but they tightened up on the slavery and rape laws so Arm just gets B on this now.
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Post by lyse on Apr 1, 2014 7:01:26 GMT -5
Arm is the best RPI out there, but it also gets a lot of stuff wrong. Permadeath: Because people have to cycle who's on the top. Pkilling is a source of good dramas. Arm gets an A for this, almost benchmark for a good RPI. A lot of games are a little too tight on the permadeath or end up being lame deathmatch games. There was one game I played which was a deathmatch kind of game but you can put in a staff complaint if the other party attacks without emoting. So in wars, we would pre-copy some emotes and paste it before ambushes. Agency: Game development jargon, meaning that what the player does affects the world. Arm gets a C- for this. I've said it before, it's literally easier to build a wall in real life with no wallbuilding skill than it is to build a wall in the game as a noble. IRL I could learn to craft bone arrows with enough bones, a teacher, and time. In Arm, it takes years in game (months IRL) and I'd be severely capped in the skill. To keep things fresh again, there should be whatever staff related disasters and wars tearing down those things. I ran a game like this on Byond, and we had a ton of cool player generated lore. We kinda messed up in that the wars were too common and annoyed players who wanted to just build stuff, but I'd like to have something like player generated dungeons. Transparent game mechanics: FOIC is fecking lame. Every online game these days uses wikis. Arm gets a F+ for this. My benchmark would be something like Die2Nite. Even though the information is right out in the open and everyone tells you to fucking read everything, nobody does. So a lot of the game is devoted to training people to know and manipulate the game mechanics. If the game mechanics are broken, fix it, don't keep it hidden just so people can't It's completely fucking stupid that my character can live in a city for months, I can play for hundreds of hours in a city, and have no fucking idea where there fucking spatulas and pans are, and am not allowed to ask about it OOC. Arm just fails so much in that aspect, in that a novice crafter can know more recipes than an experienced crafter working for a merchant house. Minimize skill grades and Grinding: I hate grinding in most games. I don't have time for that shit. Arm does a good job of minimizing grinding but the concept of "20 day warrior" is insane - 480 hours on a single character? My proposal.. characters are defined by Perks. Right now, you sign up for the Byn, you grind for hours before you can go out and do something decent. Instead, have the players just get a "Byn Runner" perk if they've logged 20 hours within the Byn compound, and get in game bonuses to fighting, cleaning latrines, and cooking stew. Indie hunters get a "Novice Hunter" perk if they've killed like 10 scrab-level creatures, whether or not they're in a group. Someone with multiple combat perks only picks the highest. So like someone with a Byn Runner, Novice Hunter, Militia Training, 'Rinth Rat perks will only have a low combat skill level, minor skill in skinning and backstabbing but still lose on a toe-to-toe battle against a Veteran Militia. Someone who purposely stays a 'Runner' for years and avoids promotion still clocks in 200 hours in the Byn compound may get a Byn Advanced Training perk. They still lose out against people with actual war experience until they get in a real war. People shouldn't be prevented from running around backstabbing people if that's what they do in their home territory. But they shouldn't feel compelled to do it just because it's the only way to raise their skill. The characters want to raise their skill so it's perfectly fine roleplaying. Hopefully this gets people in more on roleplaying fights and stuff, instead of spending their time roleplaying combat emotes. But the system has to be tweaked to allow for training accidents and stuff. If they want to spend all that time idling, that's up to them, but they're missing out on actually enjoying the game. Combat: Arm does poorly on combat. Screen floods with text, especially in a decent war. I'm thinking you just type quick commands and be given a 30-90 second window to act. Something like 'attack guy' (focuses all your attacks on guy) '1 swing' (swings your primary weapon at guy) '2 stab dick' (stabs guy's dick with secondary weapon) '1' (random attack with primary weapon) The window should be large enough to bore people if they don't emote, but not too large that it becomes tedious. If they don't attack within that time window, the game automatically picks an attack for them. And you can even do rock-paper-scissors level of strategy with something like this. Thematically, no limits: I'm thinking something along the lines of HellMOO. Maybe not to that level of depravity, but let the players get as depraved as they like. They'll be bored of the random sex and rape after a week. The in game world functions as the moral police and not the staff. I kinda liked this in Arm, but they tightened up on the slavery and rape laws so Arm just gets B on this now. There's a couple of ideas I'm with in there. Certain craft items should be "no fail", this is my big thing with cooking because it's a life skill. You shouldn't fail cutting up a kalan (I'm being extreme) because it's something damned near everybody can do, but making a kalan custard tart should require a decent amount of skill. In other words the farther away an item is from it's original state something is, the higher up the skill range it should be. If you look at certain weapons, it's just a piece of bone with a wrap around it. Shouldn't be that hard to make, but a amber encrusted, ivory pommeled bone knife should be. Love the perk idea too, but I think it should be given through RP. The way skills work now, people kind of grind through the levels as a two dimensional cut out until they get good, then become a badass when they can sneak and steal most of the time or whatever. If staff notices a player RPing the struggle of going through from novice to journeyman the perk would set them apart from the average grinder and encourage more RP. |
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Patuk
Shartist
Posts: 553
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Post by Patuk on Apr 1, 2014 8:27:20 GMT -5
I think what Arm desperately needs is for many of its items to be less permanent.
Yes, I get it, if some derp hangs out in a spot in the wilderness for a few months and he wants a place of his own, that's not going to happen because we'd end up with a world full of such hideouts. Okay, I get it, yeesh.
The solution? Make items degrade. Not all items, perhaps, but enough for adding content in the game to not require constant staff oversight.
Allow people to build things like shelter more permanent than tents, but make it fall apart and require fairly constant upkeep to ensure your shack doesn't get blown apart by a sandstorm or looted by gith; give every room a 'danger' ratio to reflect on the amount of wear and tear anything goes through for every hour spent in there or so.
Let swords break and clothes tear, if only so that merchants would not have to sell to NPC's for 90% of their income. Call in one extra staff member and make them not the staffer of the southern, unclanned, or tribal team, but make them an IRE-inspired head crafter and just have them oversee MC's/add random items to the game.
I just think it would be good if things were less final than they are now. If an item gets added, removed, if a house gets built or torn down, if ANYTHING happens, that's the way it's going to be for a while. And that's fine where it concerns, say, shopkeepers being functionally immortal, as I can get how replacing them everytime someone pulls a prank would be silly.
So yes, you can build your own little safe place out there, or a statue in the city, or a new kind of sword that doesn't happen to exist yet. Just accept that your house is going to attract delves like flies on sugarwater, that your statue is going to be all chalked and sketched up within a few days of not watching it, and that your new sword is not going to be the unbreakable instrument of death weapons are now.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2014 9:08:27 GMT -5
Re: the "head crafter" - in other games it's called head builder, and I agree 100%. In an RPI, there'd still need to be coordination with clan staff but mostly just for starting approval to create things.
So the player would send a request to have something made. If they're in a clan, it'd go to the clan staff and to the head builder. Once the clan staff tells the head builder it's approved, the head builder does the project and arranges for it to be implemented either ICly or just drops the item into the PC's inventory or opens the room if it's a room-build (depending on whether or not the head builder is up for some RP).
If it's something that really -needs- clan oversight (such as a wagon being built in the clan's wagonyard or a renovation to clan compound), then the head builder would still be responsible for building it, but they'd release the finished product to the clan staff, who would then be responsible for "making it live."
Clan staff should be responsible for handling clan issues, builders should be responsible for building. The two should coordinate (aka communicate, often missing from the equation) as needed. The head builder should be the master keeper of all lists of "stuff" in the game. So if it were Armageddon, the builder would have all the inventory info on the GMHs and liveries for clan houses and all craftable non-clan stuff, the mob database, the room database, the "extra descriptions" database, anything that has anything to do with sdescs/mdescs/item toggles and flags. Clan staff should be able to make something on the fly if it's needed, but they should still coordinate (communicate) to the head builder, who maintains the master list.
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japheth
staff puppet account
Posts: 31
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Post by japheth on Apr 8, 2014 7:20:00 GMT -5
Someone (lyse) hasn't heard of Atonement. The 1800's New York shit would be really damn cool. Anyway, me and a good buddy made up lore for a RPI that we'll try and make if Kith and Japth(?) ever finish FutureMUD. It's a post-apocalyptic RPI with sci-fi elements and dinosaurs. The majority of the game would take place in a metro system (think Metro 2033) and the society of the one (or two) cities would be heavily inspired by the 1950s. I'm always interested in hearing from people about how they intend to use FutureMUD when it's done - particularly sci-fi, as there are fewer examples of Sci-Fi RPIs to draw inspiration for mechanics and systems from. |
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Post by lyse on Apr 8, 2014 9:43:33 GMT -5
Someone (lyse) hasn't heard of Atonement. The 1800's New York shit would be really damn cool. Anyway, me and a good buddy made up lore for a RPI that we'll try and make if Kith and Japth(?) ever finish FutureMUD. It's a post-apocalyptic RPI with sci-fi elements and dinosaurs. The majority of the game would take place in a metro system (think Metro 2033) and the society of the one (or two) cities would be heavily inspired by the 1950s. I'm always interested in hearing from people about how they intend to use FutureMUD when it's done - particularly sci-fi, as there are fewer examples of Sci-Fi RPIs to draw inspiration for mechanics and systems from. I toyed around with Alternity years ago. What we came up with for all the ranged combat was a cover system, instead of PC and Mobs just standing there shooting at each other. Not sure about how the codey bits worked on that. |
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Patuk
Shartist
Posts: 553
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Post by Patuk on Apr 8, 2014 15:11:49 GMT -5
Sci-fi sounds interesting, yes, but MUDs and ranged combat tend not to mix very well at all. The moment someone finds a way to make it work in a good manner is the moment settings where pointy sticks are not your main tool of combat become properly viable.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2014 16:42:18 GMT -5
Guns really weren't so bad on Atonement. I think it worked out really well.
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Post by Prime Minister Sinister on Apr 9, 2014 4:21:52 GMT -5
I don't want to repeat anyone. i mostly or completely agree with what I've read so far. So here are some additions. I've mentioned I love permadeath but I dislike starting over from scratch. to be clear, I mean stat and skillwise, not ally-wise. That should always be reset for a new character. The reasons for this are MUDs aren't tabletop games. If youre making an RPI you need to internalize that thinking. people playing a tabletop game know each other. Their characters are going to get together. Ditto for replacement characters. A MUD is the opposite. People aren't supposed to just run and rejoin their own allies. so unless you want to encourage people contrive OOCly to "just run into each other again by chance lol" you need to build your game around people being able to lone wolf until they find a pack. Let me try and extrapolate that thought with an example. The OOC group vs OOC individual issue is probably the main reason most MUDs can't do Shadowrun right. It's easily my favorite tabletop game out of those I've played. so it's painful for me to concede making a Shadowrun MUD that played like Shadowrun would be incredibly hard. Yeah, you can put in cyber, and maybe you can automate the Matrix. But the astral for anything but recon and combat is a wash unless you have someone GMing it. At least for pre-SR4 astral. And the reason these things are problems is Shadowrun has downtime. Between gaming sessions time leaps forward. You can do this because a gaming group is a gaming group. it's not individuals all over the world logging in at the same time in different timezones. it's not people whose 3am is someone else's midnight. So instead of downtime you have people milling about trying to find shit to do between runs. Downtime is when leveling up happens to 1) prolong suspension of disbelief 2) without being fucking boring in the process. So right off the bat you have to find something to fill all that time you now have. that or spend all your time trying to do runs. Aaaaaaaaaaand runs are dependent upon everyone you'd need being around. You can't just have runner teams like you do in tabletop. If you did, how would it work? so you have some friends but youre not all in the same time zone because you know each other through the internet. You're all over the world. And that's a big fucking deal when your decker's 3Am means your team can't do a run. Or when your shaman and mage (who are married) can't log in while your team is lost in the middle of Bug fucking City Chicago. So when you make an RPI you have to HAVE TO understand you're building for a LOOSE COMMUNITY of players. People who will start each character alone. People who can get stuck missing their "team" and viceversa. youre not building for a single group of friends. Not building for people who will start with a team. And shadowrun is not alone in this problem when made a MUD. It's just really easy to use for this because the class differences are so stark. So, the point? If anything I'd say abandon the guild/class/caste system wherever it's possible without hurting the setting. Thats with any RP game you make, not just a Shadowrun base. Adopt a single-player RPG mindset. Let people develop whatever skills they want, but with limits. maybe make some skills only available to a class but have a bunch of ancillaries anyone can have. You have no way of knowing what wull be available for a character to develop into. playersneed to stay busy on their own until teams/clans happen to them. And for fucks sake stop requiring that everyone start over from scratch. Word.... I mean, lemme be clear. I've never actually played tabletop Shadowrun. I just remembered playing the everloving shit out of that Shadowrun game they had for the Sega Genesis when I was a kid, and wound up googling it in hopes of a sequel or somesuch. Then BOOM, introduced to a new universe that I dig the hell out of. I mean, realistically thinking, you'd have players working in corperations, as merchants, Johnsons, criminals, as well as runners themselves, etc. Like... I dunno. If there were an RPI built like Armageddon (with staff that give a shit, of course) with Atonement's ranged combat system that was washed over with Shadowrun or even Shadowrun-esque themes, I'd be a happy guy. |
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Post by apriestswife on Apr 9, 2014 6:43:52 GMT -5
Guns really weren't so bad on Atonement. I think it worked out really well. Me too. I don't understand why people bitched about them so much that imms at one point decided to nix them. Supposedly they were twink friendly, I don't know. |
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Post by Prime Minister Sinister on Apr 9, 2014 7:20:45 GMT -5
Guns really weren't so bad on Atonement. I think it worked out really well. Me too. I don't understand why people bitched about them so much that imms at one point decided to nix them. Supposedly they were twink friendly, I don't know. It was mostly because of their Willpower stat, if I remember right. If you didn't have godly Willpower, all someone had to do was unload their gun in your direction point-blank for you to faint. They didn't even have to hit their mark or even come close to it for them to secure a kill. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2014 10:13:00 GMT -5
Guns really weren't so bad on Atonement. I think it worked out really well. Me too. I don't understand why people bitched about them so much that imms at one point decided to nix them. Supposedly they were twink friendly, I don't know. My ideal rpi would find a better way to deal with twinks than immediately retconning things they take advantage of. Assholes are going to powergame if they're going to powergame. Changing the mechanics so that you are more or less forced to powergame in order to reach some maintainable level of survivability caters to the twinks because that's what they are doing anyhow. Not the roleplayers or any other group there. Because that's not even their goal most times and is a means to an end there, but they're having to invest huge levels of time into a major timesink because, what, admin wanted twinks to skill progress more slowly? Maybe just no_gain someone for x hours after they've failed y times as a way of deterring twinks because the ways that punish people who aren't twinking are shit. |
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Post by apriestswife on Apr 9, 2014 12:06:35 GMT -5
Me too. I don't understand why people bitched about them so much that imms at one point decided to nix them. Supposedly they were twink friendly, I don't know. It was mostly because of their Willpower stat, if I remember right. If you didn't have godly Willpower, all someone had to do was unload their gun in your direction point-blank for you to faint. They didn't even have to hit their mark or even come close to it for them to secure a kill. I didn't know that. I always thought willpower stat is bullshit, it's like having two constitutions. |
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delerak
GDB Superstar
PK'ed by jcarter
"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." - Otto Von Bismarck
Posts: 1,670
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Post by delerak on Apr 10, 2014 0:42:46 GMT -5
Took me a minute to find this thing but here you go: www.topmudsites.com/forums/advanced-mud-concepts/4804-guidelines-rpi-mud.htmlThread I started over at TMS ages ago about the topic. Be prepared for 12 pages of tomfoolery from the TMS community where myself and Prof have to argue our way over the usage of the RPI acronym. Anyway as far as this thread goes.. I don't look for RPI's anymore but of course they have to have those guidelines in the thread I linked and I just want it to have strong documentation so I know how to play properly, as well as a strong setting and strong character development. Other than that everything comes with time and hard work. |
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Post by Prime Minister Sinister on Apr 10, 2014 2:52:25 GMT -5
 Ooooh boy. I remember that thread. x] It's astounding how they just... Didn't... Get it.Especially considering how low-brow the "rp" is on Threshold and New Worlds. |
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