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Amante
Jan 3, 2007

...


OtspIII posted:

To be fair, the Gilmore version sounds pretty decent as long as you find PvP and griefing abhorrent.
The Gilmore version is "decent", as long as you don't mind the absence of everything unique, interesting, or funny from the old Hell. But if you want to sit around and talk about food, music, or deviant furry sex, boy have you found the right place!

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Sheep
Jul 24, 2003
Pressure sounds like a MOO version of Ground Zero with a bit of focus on doing things other than killing everyone and trying to press the nuke button. In other words, it sounds awesome. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

Quornes
Jun 23, 2011

Amante posted:

The Gilmore version is "decent", as long as you don't mind the absence of everything unique, interesting, or funny from the old Hell. But if you want to sit around and talk about food, music, or deviant furry sex, boy have you found the right place!

I went on to Gilmore MOO to see how it was, went through the *ideas. Found one about a strapon you could put cum in and then use the cum during sex. Posted it on chatnet, expecting ridicule for the person. Chatnet began instead discussing the topic, pros, and cons. :suicide:

RIP


OldMOO was great, sad to see it all went...to hell.

Amante
Jan 3, 2007

...


Say what you will about MadaMOO (it certainly was terrible in its final months), but at least it went out in the most appropriately Hellesque manner: lots of PKing, drama, and admin meltdowns. Now it's essentially dead, as it should be.

On the other hand, watching the bloated corpse of GilMOO shamble around pretending to be alive is just plain sad. When the new player-base consists almost exclusively of PvP-phobic erotic furry roleplayers (the same kind of person that would have gotten relentlessly mocked and griefed before), it's time to call it a day. The funny thing is that you can tell the remaining admins absolutely loathe the current player-base, but keeping the MOO around as a place to talk about food is apparently so important that they'll make whatever dumb changes are necessary if it'll placate players (like neutering PvP and removing player robbery), rather than just putting the MOO out of its misery. Even if it means making changes that're so bad, even the babies that currently play hate them (sup, implant degradation).

May you die a proper death and rest in peace, HellMOO.

Amante fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Sep 19, 2012

ugh its Troika
May 2, 2009

by FactsAreUseless
The only way I would ever respect the old guard again is if Gilmoo was made full PVP again without warning.

Slagwag
Oct 27, 2010

"I am not a nugget!"
I still hop into my favorite LPMud from Denmark I played since 1994.
Deeper Trouble
http://www.deepertrouble.org/
irc: deepertrouble.org
port: 4242

This really got me into MMOs and I do still play, more then just nostalgic reasons. I highly recommended others into LPMuds to check it out. You create your race and then have to join a guild in game. There are a number of them and all very unique with Wizards (the coders) still advancing the game. All guilds seem to function very different then others. For instance:

Sorcerer guild is the main caster / nuker guild to join. Pretty traditional but when you buy spells and use them, you also skill up the spell based on use.

Runemasters guild are essentialls warriors to etch runes into their weapons. You pretty much buff your weapon before battles and go into fight and runes shoot off (lightning, meteors, etc) lots of combos and you usually want to focus on vulnerabilities monsters have to runes you use.

Priests are evil priests worshipping their own God. They focus on wielding blunt weapons and cast spells such as rotting, blisters, and other disgusting spells that cause wounds to open up on the person they are fighting. Combos here involve wounds bursting open and then casting spells like rot to inflict bonus damage on an exposed wound.

In this mud you do not keep your equipment when you log off. You just have your characters level and powers then you have to get gear. They have an auction house system so when someone is done playing they auction their gear off and you start bidding on it.

Lots more to post but I will leave it at that for now in case anyone is interested.

CheechLizard
Jul 1, 2000

It stays at 50%, goy!
aph created dubstep drug :psyduck:

dug fin
Oct 14, 2004
The boil on the ass of your happiness
It's been said before, but ZombieMUD is still a pretty incredible place, and still going (fairly) strong, with 50-60 on during peak times. It's a finnish mud, but the entire thing is in English.

There's a staggering amount of content on there, with a very MMO approach to equipment. I've got area code on there with monsters / loot that still haven't been found years after I put it in.

Funkmaster General
Sep 13, 2008

Hey, man, I distinctly remember this being an episode of Spongebob. :colbert:

Pressure is now once again looking for progs (for real this time, I promise!). If you know MOOcode, and especially if you worked on Hell in one or more of its iterations, hit me up on irc.synirc.org #pressure. The channel isn't active as a discussion channel but I'll check it every now and then and work with people to get progs going.

In case you need some motivation, here's what we've gotten done in the last couple of days:

* Wordfilters, both global and personal, replace every instance of a given word with something else. Practical applications include an optional censorship filter which replaces curse words with sillier alternatives, but in reality this functionality was built as a saner and more flexible version of Hell's limited filtering stuff.

* Senses; messages the player receives check for their working senses, so that blind characters don't get visual information, deaf characters don't get aural information, and so on.

* Power, sort of like Hell's powered/unpowered room system, but more intricate. Rooms are granted a certain amount of power by whatever generator they are connected to, and if too many powered objects drain from the room the power will start to dip or even cut out in the room or other places connected to the same source.

* Along with this, darkness, limiting players' visual reception in darker areas, and noise levels, doing the same for aural information in noisy rooms. 100x cleaner and less buggy than hell's darkness, mainly because I didn't touch it with my greasy fingers.

Funkmaster General fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Sep 28, 2012

Aafter
Apr 14, 2009

A is for After.
If I were more than a first year CS student, I would totally help!

OtspIII
Sep 22, 2002

Aafter posted:

If I were more than a first year CS student, I would totally help!

I'm an English major, and it took very little time for me to go from absolutely no programming experience to semi-comfortable code-writing. The MOO language is pretty easy to work with.

(I'm the other person working on Pressure at the moment. I'd be glad to help you get familiar with the language if you log on some time I'm around.)

Aafter
Apr 14, 2009

A is for After.
I dunno. I don't really want to be more trouble than I'm worth.

OtspIII
Sep 22, 2002

Aafter posted:

I dunno. I don't really want to be more trouble than I'm worth.

The mere fact that you think that way means you'll be less trouble than 90% of all MOO progs (and probably be worth more too).

Dex
May 26, 2006

Quintuple x!!!

Would not escrow again.

VERY MISLEADING!
Free milkmaids.

Smarmy Coworker
May 10, 2008

by XyloJW

Aafter posted:

If I were more than a first year CS student, I would totally help!

the MOO language is extremely high-level and if you're not completely braindead it's simple to work with. Python is harder than MOO. hell, I started in HellMOO when I didn't know anything other than basic HTML.

tarepanda
Mar 26, 2011

Living the Dream
How close is MOO to ROM? The last time I coded was around ROM 2.4b4 or b6. I've never actually seen code for a MOO or played a MOO before.

Aafter
Apr 14, 2009

A is for After.

ARACHNOTRON posted:

the MOO language is extremely high-level and if you're not completely braindead it's simple to work with. Python is harder than MOO. hell, I started in HellMOO when I didn't know anything other than basic HTML.

Yeah. I've been toying around with things. Doing the Lambda tut, made a pet rock. Just trying to get the object, verb, property stuff down.

CheechLizard
Jul 1, 2000

It stays at 50%, goy!
[chatzone] Aphteroid says, "oh for gently caress's sake i'm writing a god drat verb"
[chatzone] wwubbwobblewobwobwobblewobblewubwwubwub
[chatzone] wubbwwwwubwobble
[chatzone] wobblewobwubbwobblewwobblewobwobwob
[chatzone] Aphteroid says, "have you any idea how difficult it is to program when all the verb code is filtered into dubstep"

piL
Sep 20, 2007
(__|\\\\)
Taco Defender

Funkmaster General posted:

irc.synirc.org #pressure.

I think I'd like to help out with this stuff. Did a lot of MUSH coding in a long-ago era. Probably would want to start with small tasks instead of great big projects. I'll see you in channel.

Funkmaster General
Sep 13, 2008

Hey, man, I distinctly remember this being an episode of Spongebob. :colbert:

BaronHead
May 27, 2007
Allow me to fetch my rapier.

quote:

* Senses; messages the player receives check for their working senses, so that blind characters don't get visual information, deaf characters don't get aural information, and so on.

* Power, sort of like Hell's powered/unpowered room system, but more intricate. Rooms are granted a certain amount of power by whatever generator they are connected to, and if too many powered objects drain from the room the power will start to dip or even cut out in the room or other places connected to the same source.

Now players can be blind iRL and on the moo! :v:

I actually like the bit about power, but it just seems like something that would become really annoying once a ton of things are plugged in and suddenly people are shooting each other for plugging in a coffee machine or somethin'. You could go the route for making it a meaningful thing in gameplay like better generators being more valued, I suppose. Then people will break into each other's digs to steal their generators.

Damiya
Jul 3, 2012

Pochoclo posted:

In my webdev work, I use nodeJS and some comet/push notification servers, like getty/meteor/etc, so today I searched for "nodejs mud" and lo and behold:

That's pretty savvy. What a cool idea, and it's definitely preferable to writing OLC. SMAUG was the poo poo back in the day but as an adult I want adult tools, so that node.js implementation is pretty fab.

Unfortunately (turning towards the rest of your post), I think the problem you're gonna ultimately run into is the concept of what makes a M* a M* is the text; it's a declining market.

At the end of the day you can do dress up with graphical presentations of things and gauges and all that stuff (IRE's games have gotten good about that, check out http://www.achaea.com/ to see their Java Client) but you're still working with a concept that's fundamentally rooted in sending text to a command parser.

When you get to the point where you're defining icons for each object and stuff to provide drag and drop functionality, you're adding in that huge artistic burden and really getting away from the genre you set out to work with. I think there's a lot of room to incorporate elements that provide visual feedback but anything really detailed or pervasive gets you into this grey zone between a "Real Game" and a "Text Game" and you lose both markets.

Larry Parrish
Jul 9, 2012

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Shouldn't it say 'Dagon in a mask' or something if you were there when they put it on, or otherwise witnessed it?

Funkmaster General
Sep 13, 2008

Hey, man, I distinctly remember this being an episode of Spongebob. :colbert:

Haephastus posted:

Shouldn't it say 'Dagon in a mask' or something if you were there when they put it on, or otherwise witnessed it?

I'm sure how I would accomplish that. Right now :name is checking for face coverings in order to make masking work.

Also, get back in here, baldr.

OtspIII
Sep 22, 2002

Funkmaster General posted:

I'm sure how I would accomplish that. Right now :name is checking for face coverings in order to make masking work.

Also, get back in here, baldr.

I wrote a stealth system back in the day for Inferno that I should port over here eventually that would do this. I think I can get it to cover disguises without too much trouble.

Krabkolash
Dec 7, 2006

With this hand I rolled 8d20



AND GOT 160.

OtspIII posted:

I wrote a stealth system back in the day for Inferno that I should port over here eventually that would do this. I think I can get it to cover disguises without too much trouble.

When you said Inferno, do you mean Ice9's Inferno? If so, I only ever played a short amount of time, but it was awesome. Okay, I feel better now.

OtspIII
Sep 22, 2002

Krabkolash posted:

When you said Inferno, do you mean Ice9's Inferno? If so, I only ever played a short amount of time, but it was awesome. Okay, I feel better now.

I mean the HellCore spinoff that I worked on for a bit solo until I realized that I don't hate players enough to enjoy being a MUD admin.

Geezabiscuit
Mar 7, 2009
So where are all the old HellMOO players these days? Any particular MUD? I've been giving Wayfar a go over the last couple of days. Seems interesting, but still light on players and there doesn't seem to be a lot of content yet. I do like the idea of playing a game in it's early stages and seeing it evolve over time though.

Freakus
Oct 21, 2000

Pochoclo posted:

It's obviously super green, but I always thought that most of the current MOO/MUDs are running on ancient engines, and I wonder when we'll see some new pseudo-MUDs that more easily integrate with a web UI come up. I mean, the allure of nice HTML5/CSS3/JS UIs is hard to deny, I'd love having drag & drop inventories, and possible right clicking shortcuts - right click on "furnace" in the list of things in the room and then "start", to give an example. Also, with clever use of media queries, making it work well with a mobile is easy.
It could certainly help bring in new people who don't know what a telnet client is, but then again it's such a large shitload of work that would be likely better spent making a nice UI for a facebook app that lets people pay money to dress up gerbils in hats.
I remember reading about a MUD that developed some flash code and javascript that enabled them to embed the game on a webpage, including Facebook.

From their experiment they got several new players per day but most quit shortly after character creation. The main issue they found was that the standard way to teach someone to play a MUD was just too slow. You need something that will hold a new player's attention and get them playing the game right away, not after 10 minutes of reading helpfiles and/or mudschool that teaches them how to open doors.

I don't know what happened to them or how their experiment ended.

Chunderstorm
May 9, 2010


legs crossed like a buddhist
smokin' buddha
angry tuna

Funkmaster General posted:

Pressure is now once again looking for progs (for real this time, I promise!). If you know MOOcode, and especially if you worked on Hell in one or more of its iterations, hit me up on irc.synirc.org #pressure. The channel isn't active as a discussion channel but I'll check it every now and then and work with people to get progs going.

In case you need some motivation, here's what we've gotten done in the last couple of days:

* Wordfilters, both global and personal, replace every instance of a given word with something else. Practical applications include an optional censorship filter which replaces curse words with sillier alternatives, but in reality this functionality was built as a saner and more flexible version of Hell's limited filtering stuff.

* Senses; messages the player receives check for their working senses, so that blind characters don't get visual information, deaf characters don't get aural information, and so on.

* Power, sort of like Hell's powered/unpowered room system, but more intricate. Rooms are granted a certain amount of power by whatever generator they are connected to, and if too many powered objects drain from the room the power will start to dip or even cut out in the room or other places connected to the same source.

* Along with this, darkness, limiting players' visual reception in darker areas, and noise levels, doing the same for aural information in noisy rooms. 100x cleaner and less buggy than hell's darkness, mainly because I didn't touch it with my greasy fingers.

How hard would it be to translate knowledge from C# and Javascript (or what little I've learned of it from using Unity) into MOO? I'm kind of in a zone where I'm trying to learn as much as possible from a code side, and while I'm not a fantastic coder (majoring in game design), I do understand more than the basics of object-oriented programming.

I just checked the irc and only otsp is on (and seems to be afk). I'm eager to learn new stuff, and looking at the little syntax that was available on Wikipedia, it seems pretty straightforward. I can show you some text-based stuff that I've done in C#.

ninja edit: I've also never played a MUD, but I get the general idea.

Sheep
Jul 24, 2003
If you've any experience using any programming language whatsoever, then any of the mud languages, be it LPC or the various stuff MUSHes and MOOs use, will be dead easy as you've already got the mindset and some frame of reference down. The only MUDs that would be difficult would be those that generally lack interpreters, the ones that are just straight compiled code driven (like Diku derivatives, for example), or if you were planning to do game driver work.

In other words jumping into a MU*/MOO shouldn't be any problem at all with even a rudimentary knowledge of C# and Javascript.

tarepanda
Mar 26, 2011

Living the Dream
I looked into MOOcode and frowned immediately.

I was thinking that it would just be C like ROM, but bleh.

Sair
May 11, 2007

Geezabiscuit posted:

So where are all the old HellMOO players these days? Any particular MUD? I've been giving Wayfar a go over the last couple of days. Seems interesting, but still light on players and there doesn't seem to be a lot of content yet. I do like the idea of playing a game in it's early stages and seeing it evolve over time though.

Nowhere.

Pochoclo
Feb 4, 2008

No...
Clapping Larry

tarepanda posted:

I looked into MOOcode and frowned immediately.

I was thinking that it would just be C like ROM, but bleh.

Yeah. Coding in high level OO languages is my 9 to 5 job, and I must admit having to code inheritance through the MOO itself instead of through editing files in a comfortable IDE kind of sucks. It does allow for easier distribution of work (enabling several types of contributors with different depth levels), once most of the database backend stuff is in place and fleshed out, but coding that backend stuff in the first place in the MOO itself sucks.

piL
Sep 20, 2007
(__|\\\\)
Taco Defender

Pochoclo posted:

It's obviously super green, but I always thought that most of the current MOO/MUDs are running on ancient engines, and I wonder when we'll see some new pseudo-MUDs that more easily integrate with a web UI come up.

Last time I was looking for a more modern code base, I found Evennia. It has some nice modern features that could be developed into something cool. There are web-api features built-in, but I'm mostly too stupid for that sort of stuff.



On an only tangentially related note:

I think think there are some underused ways to exploit the strengths of a text-based medium that could make MUDs more relevant as you simply cannot provide the same experience in other games.

* Content generation is easy for MUDs compared to visual games, but there's still barriers (limited numbers of admins, needing to code, etc). I think developing ways for players to submit ideas, weed out the chaff, and integrate that content while minimizing the involvement of the administration, could result in super-content rich MUDs. I played a MUD that had randomly generated dungeons once, and it was cool, but everything got samey fast. But if 50 people played regularly and each wrote a good room description a month, an item a week, and so on, and that was somehow integrated into the game automatically, you'd have 300 unique rooms and 2400 unique items from the investment of a system designed to encourage and integrate player-submission. This would only grow with player-count and time.

* Text-based games don't need to follow the same spatial rules that a visuak game has to. This is very important; I think most games try to make room sizes roughly the same, or stick to a grid and so on. There is some stepping away from this. For example, in HellMOO, there were transition rooms between areas that represented traveling along a path instead of a specific path along an area. I'd be interested to see alternate concepts for physical space. Instead of rooms representing physical space, what if rooms were actions, and then the game compared how likely different actions were to run into one other. Like one person could be in a room called "travelling from town A to town B" and a group of players are in a room "patrolling the space between town A and town B" and every tick the game applies some formula to compare the likelihood these people will run into one another, or that an event will occur for the character travelling or for the patrol.

This doesn't work in a traditional MMO, because players are more involved in the specifics, but I think there's potential for this in MUDs (and web-games too I suppose). I'd just like to see people take the opportunity to provide radically different systems.

* On a similar note, there are lots of other ways to do conflict resolution. This is basically what everyone in TG is constantly wanking about, but in MUDs its pretty much always a retextured D&D. Maybe your hitpoints change every level, maybe it's points, but it's basically some structure where you make an opponents hp go to zero before yours and then you win, and then you heal up and go fight another thing.

gently caress that. Something as simple as aping Shadowrun's health system where you have a set status condition, and you instead resist damage that comes in is a good touch. But combat doesn't even have to be an all or nothing thing. The Mouse Guard RPG has a conflict resolution system where the battle itself determines where along a path of possible outcomes. If a group of seasoned vets go up against a group of untrained whelps, it's not a contest to see whether (very likely) the vets win and kill all the whelps or (very rare) the whelps win and kill all of the vets. Rather, the gameplay determines whether when the vets win did some of the whelps get away? Did one of the vets get injured in the process? Etc. It's a very different way of thinking about conflict than I've ever seen a MUD use, but I think could be well suited to the MUD experience. Instead, the rules were basically set up in 1980 and the core hasn't changed much since.

Sorry for what was supposed to be a short rant turning into a novel. It's stuff I've been thinking about for a while, but hadn't (and probably still haven't) formulated into a coherent thought.

Reicere
Nov 5, 2009

Not sooo looouuud!!!

piL posted:

The Mouse Guard RPG has a conflict resolution system where the battle itself determines where along a path of possible outcomes. If a group of seasoned vets go up against a group of untrained whelps, it's not a contest to see whether (very likely) the vets win and kill all the whelps or (very rare) the whelps win and kill all of the vets. Rather, the gameplay determines whether when the vets win did some of the whelps get away? Did one of the vets get injured in the process? Etc. It's a very different way of thinking about conflict than I've ever seen a MUD use, but I think could be well suited to the MUD experience. Instead, the rules were basically set up in 1980 and the core hasn't changed much since.

The think about Mouse Guard and a lot of TG's favorites are that they don't mesh well with the pseudo-real-time nature of muds. Either you have turnless systems that treat every conflict as a single indivisible event or they have you answering 20 questions every round.

Once you cull those out you end up with a whole lot of HP and HP analogues ... I mean is using attack power as a bonus to hit and punishing people based on their degree of failure really any different.

Thats not to say there isn't room for change, but pen and paper games aren't the place to look for it.. and given that muds are already more creative(for the most part) than other videogames you really need to come up with your own ideas.

As for working on a mud, the lack of a proper development environment is what kills it for me.. just a spoiled youngin who wants to checkout the codebase and work with multiple things at a time.

EDIT: quick, someone code up the dwarf fortress method of conflict resolution... I wanna see those layers of skin an fat flayed.

Reicere fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Oct 3, 2012

piL
Sep 20, 2007
(__|\\\\)
Taco Defender
I think punishing people on their degree of failure would be really different. Almost all MUDs break down combat as either "you kill the mobile", "you escape from the mobile" or "the mobile kills you". "You succeed at the task" or "you fail at the task and hurt yourself". There really are other options. And while MUDs are traditionally more creative, ultimately my frustration is that of course they are--putting together the assets for an image based game means you have to gamble a lot more on an idea, so they can't afford to try something new. MUDs can afford to gamble.


As for using modern tools, Evennia is all python. You make python files for different things just you were making any other kind of python application, and you can code it in a traditional python IDE.

I don't mean to shill for it. I don't have anything to do with it; it's just the only MU* codebase I know that's like that.

Edit: Or fine, don't copy Mouse Guard, but there are systems other than decrementing hp. FPSes have proven that with shield mechanics. There's a variety of approaches to simply determining whether something should be alive or not, and I feel like there should be a variety of approaches to the multiplayer-text-game other than a low-rent WoW. Because WoW does DIKU better.

piL fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Oct 3, 2012

OtspIII
Sep 22, 2002

piL posted:

I think punishing people on their degree of failure would be really different. Almost all MUDs break down combat as either "you kill the mobile", "you escape from the mobile" or "the mobile kills you". "You succeed at the task" or "you fail at the task and hurt yourself". There really are other options. And while MUDs are traditionally more creative, ultimately my frustration is that of course they are--putting together the assets for an image based game means you have to gamble a lot more on an idea, so they can't afford to try something new. MUDs can afford to gamble.

The problem with flexible conflict stakes in a computer environment is that computers are dumb and need everything spelled out for them, so the types of conflicts still end up pretty limited. A big part of the Mouse Guard/Apocalypse World/etc take on all this is the abstraction of time and space and a mechanical focus on intention, but that's really hard to pull off in a game that doesn't use the human brain as a processing engine.

That said, hard isn't impossible. A game where at the start of each fight you can choose a goal from a list (knock him out, run away, force him to hand over X item, etc) might work, as would one where you can have clashes of will rather than swords with similar very literal consequences (the person can't move into a room you're in, must hand over an item, has shaken confidence and is at -2 to all rolls, etc). It does seem tricky to make it all work, though--a conflict where your goal is 'escape' would accomplish what? You can move to an adjacent room? They can't follow you? They can't attack you, even if they're in the same room? You run away through multiple rooms? How do we keep people from using it as an exploit and just following and re-engaging, or using it as a cheap way to teleport through rooms full of monsters, or whatever? Even a concept like 'getting away' is pretty drat abstract, and computers are very literal.

Reicere
Nov 5, 2009

Not sooo looouuud!!!

piL posted:

Almost all MUDs break down combat as either "you kill the mobile", "you escape from the mobile" or "the mobile kills you". "You succeed at the task" or "you fail at the task and hurt yourself". There really are other options.
Don't forget "The mobile wimpys and paths through a room containing a blocking guard."

To build off of Otsp's comments, I think the way foward is to play to the systems strenghts. Abstraction is for people, a computer can do so much more with unmanageable complexity and a tiny bit of randomness.Hence why I mentioned DF... Its conflict resolution is extremely straight foward. Thing A does X, thing B cant stop X, X happens... but the the action X is unbelievably complicated and the controller of thing A cant be sure what will happen.

EDIT: and to be clear, I also dislike HP... its just most pnp systems aren't much better.

Reicere fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Oct 4, 2012

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piL
Sep 20, 2007
(__|\\\\)
Taco Defender
I think there's a few different ways to look at it. But if I were going to do a conflict based system, here's how I'd go about it. I'm going to make it mostly PvE focused right now, but it could be adapted, just keeping it simple.

First, the map system wouldn't be a traditional system. You could fudge a lot of things. Think about the overworld map in Final Fantasy Tactics, for example, you have different locations. Sometimes going to some you fight. Some you pick from a list whether you want to go to the store or the bar (presumably in a MUD, you'd have more options). I don't see any reason to make you navigate a grid map to go to these places. The key difference would be dungeons, which, instead of being a set map that you explore, are instead a series of encounters that you roll against.

So maybe you'd have a skill challenge type thing where, when you show up to the tomb, you have to figure out how to get in. Doing really well lets you find the secret door that lets you in relatively quickly, and you'd have bonuses to that check from doing research ahead of time, or being a super cool thief-type. But if not, maybe you have to dig your way in, or bust through a large stone slab, costing you time and causing you to already start the exploration a little fatigued.

Then your next encounter is an exploration. Since you're already a badass adventurer, if you do well on this part, you kill some skeletons on the way no big deal and find yourself to the room before the big-bad. If you do ok, you still find yourself there, but you're somewhat injured by a skeleton along the way. If you do really poorly, not only do you get injured, but you get lost.

Then a fight with a giant skeletal construct made from twenty corpses. Doing poorly gets you captured. Doing ok gets you injured, but you escape. Rocking the hizzouse destroys the construct, then you move on to a final enounter.

Meeting with the lich. You're given several options of dealing with it. Combat. Talking it into leaving the town alone. Maybe one player distracts it while another sneaks into the room and finds its phylactery.

All of these being based on possible conflict setups, and also small isolated events that could be randomly selected from a much larger bank of possible options.

I guess the major change here, in addition to using a conflict style system is that 'events' are the discrete unit of advancement, as opposed to 'space'.


Fake Edit: I think taking a traditional MUD, but you don't actually directly control any character and instead you indirectly control a group of characters ala dwarf fortress would be amazing enough without having to get rid of all the traditional MUD mechanics. Food and item quality become important because you can't let party members get jealous or they'll get mad and kill each other.


Real edit: Speaking of mobiles wimpying through guarded rooms, I think I just find MUD gameplay itself relatively non compelling, and find exploring and doing things much more fun. I did not enjoy punching crackheads or grinding in the gym, but rather just finding weird rear end things in HellMOO.

piL fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Oct 4, 2012

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