ghost
staff puppet account
Posts: 47 
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Post by ghost on Jan 18, 2015 3:47:19 GMT -5
I understand that there are some coders here, and good writers and bunch of folks with good ideas. How come there is no mud that will fill all the missing points of Arm, such as dynamic world, players having direct effect on the outcome etc?
EDIT: Before you get lazy because of the immense work of writing an entire mud world: a mud world does not have to be huge. It is good to start small, where players will have to interact with each other. And you can have builders add sections later as the mud grows.
Here is my old post on Armageddon's facebook page
If the entire game world was the labyrinth, the east side being Tuluki-like and the west side being the Allanaki-like, if the outside world was so dangerous that random NPC encounters (some of them even mages) could seriously threaten any single PC or even groups of 2... Imagine the conflict then. Make each the food/drink sellers only sell at the set price for 10-20 pieces and anything more than that increasing the item price each time. This, causing the PCs to brave the dangers of the outside world to bring in supplies if their side is overcrowded, and the underpopulated side having easier time to balance. Imagine if there were only 3 coded clans on each side, one clan being "like templarate", meaning the limited number of NPCs favoring them and the other 2 just have a hideout for a building. Imagine someone creative like Shalooonsh to actually implement new hidden passages randomly every month and deleting some of the older ones and thus the game map changing soon to force people to update their terrain knowledge. Also, outside rooms containing plants and other goods randomly changing locations, forcing players to explore often and find the new resource locations every 2 weeks or every month. In a small city like place (labyrinth), the PCs would have to secure their streets and their homes. Because if 70+ people are cramped in a small section, you can have PCs patrol and guard places instead of NPCs. No crimecode. Crime is caught and punished by PCs only.
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Kronibas 2.0
Displaced Tuluki
this account will go inactive once I hit 420 posts
Posts: 389
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Post by Kronibas 2.0 on Jan 18, 2015 9:53:59 GMT -5
Because we're humans with different ideas and opinions
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Jeshin
GDB Superstar
Posts: 1,516
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 18, 2015 10:04:38 GMT -5
It is exactly because we have some competent coders / writers / former staff around that a MUD hasn't been made. New MUDs are extremely risky in terms of time investment to payoff. Breaking my back advertising and running multiple event RPs at once on TSOSmud we still only hit 30 people once. It was great and I loved it but as I'm now getting into my late 20's I just need more of a payoff from that kind of time sink. If the MUD had 50+ avg sure I'd be willing to give it 4 hours a day regularly. 100+ sure I'd be willing to give it 6 hours a day regularly... Also yeah we all have different ideas and MUDs cannot be deisnged by committee they need a singular individual with a clear vision of what the game is and where it is going.
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Post by lyse on Jan 18, 2015 10:49:57 GMT -5
I think it's fear of failure and fear of something new. That guy that did Black Sands, really gave it a try and got shit on a lot on here: It's a wannabe Arm, It's too small, I don't like the movement speed, I don't like the health bar thing, etc. Like the song goes They say that everything sounds the same, but then they go buy them...let's push things forward.
The truth is anything with a decent code and a staff that is allowed to tell stories and support even a small group of players would spread like wildfire.
Let's not forget Arm is 20 something years in the making and the groundwork was laid by a no life 12 year old that just enjoyed coding shit. You'd be hard pressed to find someone like that today. Most of us are in the late 20-40 year old range with jobs and lives.
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Post by firekank on Jan 18, 2015 12:43:05 GMT -5
the fact of the matter is, it's easy to criticize arm but hard to make something like it. that is why this forum exists with no mud to compliment it except arm itself.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2015 12:51:13 GMT -5
How far along a development arc would you want to get before beating the drum?
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Post by jcarter on Jan 18, 2015 13:08:56 GMT -5
the fact of the matter is, it's easy to criticize arm but hard to make something like it. that is why this forum exists with no mud to compliment it except arm itself. huh? there's been a diverse view of opinions on RPI muds here. you have people like me who really enjoyed black sands. others enjoyed sindome until a bunch of fuckery went down. @anaiah was big on EoE for a time. there's been cross-chatter and differing opinions on SoI. i know it's hard for some people to wrap their mind around, but sometimes a board full of 100+ people manages to have different opinion on a topic and isn't always a circle jerk. heresy, I know. if you don't like the culture of the board (which it seems you don't considering how much you seem to moan about the status of it) how about you shut the fuck up and start your own or try to shift it into another direction using discussion that isn't snarky one-liners? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2015 14:31:20 GMT -5
ghost I like the premise, somewhat, but frankly I want a world that is all game, or all realism as far as the physics go. And the Labyrinth, in fact pretty much ALL of arm but the Mantis Valley, comes down on the game side rather than the realism side. And I don't think I would enjoy a world where you have to be part of a group to go do any exploring, I'm 77% explorer according to Bartle testing, and I think it's pointless to create a vast world that people can't go enjoy because it's too dangerous to take 5 steps/rooms outside a city area. I disagree with a lot of things put forth by a lot of people on here, and think it would have to be me at the helm both building and coding for there to be a world close enough to my own vision of how things should/could/would ideally be for me to want to invest in the huge timesink that is building a mud that isn't prefab areas and shitty lack of items and unique npcs. Probably the one I most closely agree with philosophy of staffing/building/coding on on here would be BitterFlashback but the mud he wants to work on involves a very small world (at least initially) and that's kind of the opposite of what I'd personally like.
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Post by BitterFlashback on Jan 18, 2015 15:36:46 GMT -5
That guy that did Black Sands, really gave it a try and got shit on a lot on here: It's a wannabe Arm, It's too small, I don't like the movement speed, I don't like the health bar thing, etc. He also got a lot of support on hre. the fact of the matter is, it's easy to criticize arm but hard to make something like it. that is why this forum exists with no mud to compliment it except arm itself. adorable. I can totally picture you at a restaurant, gettng shamed by the waiter for complaining about the dog shit on your plate because you dont own your own restaurant. Where's your shadow forum, hypocrite? Because it's easy for your to crticize, but... I disagree with a lot of things put forth by a lot of people on here, and think it would have to be me at the helm both building and coding for there to be a world close enough to my own vision of how things should/could/would ideally be for me to want to invest in the huge timesink that is building a mud that isn't prefab areas and shitty lack of items and unique npcs. Probably the one I most closely agree with philosophy of staffing/building/coding on on here would be BitterFlashback but the mud he wants to work on involves a very small world (at least initially) and that's kind of the opposite of what I'd personally like. it wouldnt start as a large world, but it would be an extremely detailed world wth lots of things to find, so as not to put off you explorer folks.
ghost: In my case, the main thng holding me back from making a mud is social commtment. i have so little faith in people to staff a game, my aim would be to minimiz staff support as much as possible. (EDIT: the consequenc being i would have to staff it, likely alone.) To do this my goal as a coder would be to make as much as possible available to players to do themselves or carried out by automation. Evn with those steps i'd still have to have a forum, which would require moderation. and some staff for doing light adminstration. As a lesser problem i would be creating a codebase from scratch. and integrating it with a website, because it's absurd people arent doing that. it's not beyond my abilities but it is a huge time sink leadng up to a social commitmnt i'm not sure Id want. because if the MUD were popular itd be a very long term commitment. It'd also be nice to get paid while maintaining my privacy, and neithr is especially likely with a mud. |
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ghost
staff puppet account
Posts: 47
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Post by ghost on Jan 18, 2015 16:27:52 GMT -5
Okay, I understand the time constraints.
Anaiah: The point is, as bitterflash said, the detail. Plus, if you are smart and live long and if you do develop good stealth skills, you probably can explore alone. You just can not defend alone. On the other hand, if all the players are really clattered in a region, finding others to explore should not be a problem in my opinion. Also, you could have rooftops and sewer regions, where the only danger from exploring is other details (if you or your clan has enemies). Imagine the importance of such a PC to established clans.
Bitterflash: I understand. But even the staff support could be majorly automated. For example, randomly changing the outside world (plants, water/food locations, random NPC from a table of NPCs whenever an NPC spawns, or just random NPC spawn due to random seasons, again all prepared in a table, the game just rolls dice).
And every month or two months, you could add a special PC. This does not have to be a mage/psi. It could be a merchant who can branch or branched wagon/cart making or a merchant PC who figured out to get seeds from an edible plant to start a farm. Every clans would try to hire such people.
Anyway... Mine is all dream, I too am short in time but if such a game existed, I think we would all love it and contribute to it. So, if there are those of you who can put the time in, you should get together and start building.
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ghost
staff puppet account
Posts: 47
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Post by ghost on Jan 18, 2015 16:34:07 GMT -5
Here are some from chat before they get buried among other chat messages:
MartenBroadcloak: BitterFlashback I am willing to be a slave to writing thousands of lines of descriptions if you ever make a MUD that is not more than %50 lazy-admin-ego-humping-fake-sandbox-marysue-OOC-clique-fuckerydoo
delerak: doing a mud these days takes a serious vision and a couple good coders working several hours a week to implement that vision. it's really hard because a lot of people are perfectionists about an hour ago
delerak: It wouldn';t be that hard to run a non-magic RPI with the SOI codebase that's released.
delerak: its when you implement magic/psionics that you really run itno problems because those systems need to be implemented
delerak: if someone wanted to do a historic mud based in some random medieval town, the soi codebase would work great. but there isn't really any customer for that setting
jkarr: del i think it could definitely work, that was pretty much hl with less magic. i think magic as a mystery and possibility thing could work without being gamebreaking, maybe over time player initiated plots and discoveries to lead to it becoming discovered
jkarr: but itd be a total different dynamic, more like a group pve at first because the ppl in the medieval town would be going out and exploring whats out there, etc about an hour ago
delerak: anything can "work" it all depends on what the staff push. do you want 20 players on at peak or 50?
MartenBroadcloak: I could dig that so long as it was gritty. Like actual medieval stuff. With plague and alcoholism and town lunatics screaming about the coming of the old gods and the Matron Boxthumbertons brothel... etc..
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ghost
staff puppet account
Posts: 47
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Post by ghost on Jan 18, 2015 16:35:15 GMT -5
As for the code details:
If you start no magic and wanted to add it later, would that work? Or do you have to code the magic as you start the mud?
EDIT: About the low playerbase, well if it is possible to make this happen, it will get players. You do know there are so many people interested in RPI. People will come try it out, and if you create conflict, they will stick around. If they leave, you can improve and they will most likely try again.
DOUBLE EDIT: And don't take my original post word by word. I just gave an example. Start with a small town that is divided into sections. Start with 3 coded clans and lots of buildings. The clans could claim different parts of the city and the NPCs there could favor the clan members. There could be neutral zones where only the dominant clan is favored. The dominant clan can change, it could be tied to holding the city hall and doing something... there.. whatever. I am just making it up as I go.
Outside could be divided into zones. Safe zone, not so safe but okay zone, not safe zone, you are trying hard zone, no lube zone.
And as you go farther and farther, forage could have higher chance to give you result and there could be a very small chance that something unique will show up in the dangerous places.
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Post by BitterFlashback on Jan 18, 2015 16:48:56 GMT -5
Bitterflash: I understand. But even the staff support could be majorly automated. For example, randomly changing the outside world (plants, water/food locations, random NPC from a table of NPCs whenever an NPC spawns, or just random NPC spawn due to random seasons, again all prepared in a table, the game just rolls dice). And every month or two months, you could add a special PC. This does not have to be a mage/psi. It could be a merchant who can branch or branched wagon/cart making or a merchant PC who figured out to get seeds from an edible plant to start a farm. Every clans would try to hire such people. oh, no, that stuff was already on my list. the parts that can't be automated or have players enabled to do themselves are subjective matters. But vital subjective matters. i've talked about my mud idea in a few threads. To give you an abridgd version (and only address the parts that cant be automated): - the game world will have social rules in place. these only result in IC penalties/advantages. however, someone has to judge whethr a player is actually adhering to them or breaking them. and if anyone would care and how much. This can be partially trusted to other players but someone on staff still has to mire through all this and decide what was what to apply points.
i am sick to fucking death of every "harsh" game world with "group intolerance" being 95% full of modern-world pcs who have an advantage over people role playing correctly because they have more friends and not a single penalty. And it always happens because the game has no internal mechanism to make their lives the hell they should be for being "the rare exception" in society. - Faustian bargains. My game world is (unlike every game ive seen) a horror setting. it's based around mysteries and superstitions and stumbling onto haunted locations that are likely to kill you. And turn your corpse into a puppet.
But it's also a game based around building and thriving against a backdrop of external terror. So to make sure players dont turtle away from the overall experince, one of the internal terrors are Faustian bargains. any player might get selected to be offered a deal for something they couldnt normally achieve. Or just a shortcut to it. It's somethng i plan to involve players in but that will always need staff supervsion because ther's so much room for abuse. Both the deal offred and price asked for would require a lot of work to create the desired effect: a player who isnt completly sure what they got was worth what they have to do to keep it, and a playerbase freaked out by the corruptve influence when they find examples of it.
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Post by topkekm8s on Jan 18, 2015 19:18:22 GMT -5
we're fucking working on it mate
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Post by nyrsucks on Jan 18, 2015 19:25:26 GMT -5
I've been checking out Evennia code base. Like a lot of it, hate some of it.
Setup is easy, takes like 5 minutes to create a black mud.
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