Argh

[chipotle]

What's been sucking my brain out for the last two weeks or so is a MUCK project. God help me, I'm starting one, despite my recent assertions that I was leery about getting involved with PuzzleBox chiefly on an available-time basis. Oh, yeah, instead of joining a MUCK, start one! That'll take much less time, moron.

I didn't intend to. I intended to make a specific place on Tapestries -- a place for giants and "normals" to interact, akin to the Giants' Club on FurryMUCK. I came up with what I thought was an interesting concept, a little more rough-and-tumble as befits Taps, and a neat character and basic background.

Then several things happened. I learned that Tapestries has imposed a building moratorium, which started about the time that they surgically excised the Tavern. (This may be a coincidence.) I learned that several people had a "Tapestries, feh" reaction, which the surgical excision of the Tavern didn't help (which certainly is not a coincidence). A few people I talked with about the idea seemed interested. And the character I'd come up with was, well, very insistent about being developed.

So I've been on a spree of self-inflicted pain, getting Fuzzball 6 out of CVS and tracking down global programs (and hacking on a few of them) and brainstorming on a wiki. The wiki's primary purpose has been to keep me from working in a vacuum; I'm doing nearly all the installation and building work myself, but I wanted to have feedback. Rather than rallying builders and wizards to the server, I've been rallying brainstormers to the wiki.

I worry that this will be controversial, after a fashion, taken as a sign of arrogance or elitism. But I've watched many MUCKs start out immediately experiencing "paralysis by committee." Let's face it, in practice a roleplaying MUCK does not need a lot of rooms, given how many rooms on most systems are used for transit -- or just blithely ignored on MUCKs which have grown too huge. I'm hoping that by requiring true in-character roleplaying -- even just in social situations, not organized tinyplots -- the involvement will come from, well, roleplaying. The place is going to be made or broken on the strength of its theme and the style of roleplaying and plots that the setting encourages.

"Wait," somebody may say (just my inner voice, perhaps), "you're talking about not only furries but macrophiles here, aren't you? And you're expecting them to roleplay rather than just have strange VR sex?" Well, uh, yes. The MUCK is going to be adults-only, to be sure, and I'm not going to pretend there won't be strange VR sex there if it takes off! Nonetheless, I'm taking an uncalculated risk: that there's enough creative people within and around that community who'll be willing to try a strongly-themed roleplaying environment, one where they have to create an appropriate character with constraints imposed by that theme, to make such a place sustainable. We'll see. (I do mean "around that community," too -- the setting, I sincerely hope, will be interesting enough to draw in people who are interested in roleplaying and not adverse to RP around and with giants.)

More will appear here when appropriate -- which will probably be soon. The curious can, however, visit the BandariMUCK wiki at http://www.ranea.org/wiki for disorganized details.

Comments

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

Rather than rallying builders and wizards to the server, I've been rallying brainstormers to the wiki.

No, certainly not; if you wish to put yourself through that kind of abuse, you're welcome to it. :)

[gen.livejournal.com]

I was flattered to see TwistedKingdoms come up in suggestions. We do have an applaud system there where you reward people for good roleplay. You can also cash in applauds for various things.

I've been there since August. Applauds seem to work, although they also cause some consternation in that sometimes people get upset over being left out when they do something and don't get as many applauds. I credit the fact that we have good players to the fact that this hasn't been a huge issue yet though.

Good luck! Maybe I'll pay you a visit...

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

It's the potential "I didn't get applauds" angst that worries me, but perhaps it isn't that big a concern. I gather Twisted Kingdoms has a character creation process (I poked around the website a little), which is interesting; right now I'm leaning toward having a "human editor" type process for Bandari, where nothing is quantified, you just convince me the character idea is in theme and won't unduly screw up the balance. :) This'll be from the Bandari website when things get going, and when I figure out a good way to actually handle the automation. (I'll admit that rooming with the guy who wrote the server software does help in that regard...)

[gen.livejournal.com]

It's sort of free creation. There's stats, but they very RARELY come into use. (And the system isn't as uber nitpicky as Sinai was) Stats are considered more of a last resort refrence sheet should two PCs clash. ("I'm faster than you, I can run away. I'm stronger than you, you're not yanking the bottle out of my hand" etc etc etc...)

I really like the "specials" thing that we do there, and PCs are allowed to suggest specials if we have one that doesn't fit. A special might give you stat bonuses, special powers... or it might just mean you fall on your face or blow up a lot. Plus, for the people that have earned it, we have really powerful things that we give PCs as awards.

Nilesta came up with the system, and I think it's great. Your character is defined by the special, and then fleshed out by the stats. But there is no dice rolling at ALL. Also, before you're allowed to go IC, you have to make a pinfo for yourself. Forcing people to be creative enough to make a pinfo before they go out into the IC world weeds out about 99% of the people who just want to blow things up and ignore the theme.

Um... I'll stop now. Eh-heh... Did I mention I'm the RP wiz there? Hence, my obsession. Sorry ;)

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

The "make a pinfo" rule is an interesting idea, actually. Right now Bandari doesn't have any OOC areas defined -- although to be fair it doesn't have any IC areas defined, either. :) Is there a lock on the exit from OOC areas to IC areas that requires a pinfo property to be set, or is it something that a wizard does to give you an "all clear"?

I'm also waffling over whether to have a guest character. I'm leaning toward having one with an odd password that's documented on the web page, so people have to make at least a cursory visit there. :)

[mordrul.livejournal.com]

And now to continue my post below with a detail I forgot:
SCM also has the same rule: make up a 'backstory' and plug it into a field on your character. It's not even visible to other players, just the wizzes. Then you have to page a wiz and get his approval of your character before you're let out of Character Generation.

SCM also has a seperate OOC zone, you just type 'goooc' and you're there. 'goic' and you're back where you left. The CharGen area is linked to the OOC area, although you can't go back to CharGen once you've been approved. The OOC area seems to be mostly a hangout-and-shoot-the-bull kind of place.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting idea -- although doing that would of course not only require a wizard to be there to "release" players, it would require multiple wizards. Right now Bandari only has *one* wizard who I'd be inclined not to have on as a wizard any more often than I can manage it. (I'm considering writing a MUF equivalent of a "sudo" program that might get around that issue, though.)

Question: do you think an OOC place is a good idea? I recall back on Brazilian Dreams, a long-gone MUCK, an OOC cafe was added after the system had been going for a while -- and a couple friends of mine accused it of effectively killing roleplaying on the system. Everyone ended up at that OOC bistro when they were connected. Of course, when I showed up there (after the fact), Brazilian Dreams didn't have any obvious IC gathering spot, which may have been the real Achilles' Heel; Bandari will have Sharabu.

[mordrul.livejournal.com]

I think it works, yes. There's no particular central gathering place ICly, there's dozens of them (multiple major well-known systems and/or space stations). The OOC zone is a place for players to congregate, get to know each other a little better without IC constraints (my character, for example is no more expressive or sociable than my namesake character on FM), and exchange OOC information on various things. It doesn't detract from RP at all, because to really RP in SCM proper, you have to actually go places and do things. There might be a gathering spot you like to hang out at, but oftentimes it's in another star system that you have to travel to (and FTL travel takes time, too).

Now, this is for SCM. It works for that setup. Would it work for Bandari? Hard to say, although I'm leaning towards 'probably not', and for much the same reason I suspect BD had a problem with it. Or who knows, maybe it might. I guess a thought might be to try having Bandari be exclusively IC for a while, and see what your attrition rate is like. If it gets bad, maybe try adding an OOC cafe or something. I dunno, really.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*wanders in via the usual sort of chain of links*

Around Puzzlebox, there's no explicitly OOC area. There's the 'OOC' command, which lets you say and pose with '[OOC]' prepended, as well as an OOC-page variant.

Serious OOCness is very rare; the general culture of the place has come to discourage it. If there's a flurry of twenty or so OOC poses in a row, you can bet someone will grumble and say 'can we get back IC?'. And people will. If folks want to discuss RL stuff, or contemplate plot ideas, they'll usually end up in an obscure corner of the geography, and politely warn anyone who wanders in that they're very OOC. Or page.

My attitude towards OOC gathering places is "if you want the West Corner of the Park, you know where to find it". When people need to go OOC, they can do it, but I feel like adding an explicitly OOC area to an IC muck is... slippery.

[mordrul.livejournal.com]

Ahh yes, thanks for reminding me. I totally forgot, in spite of playing just last night, that SCM also has 'os' and 'op' for OOC say and OOC pose. Also all pages and whispers have [OOC] appended to them. There's no IC whispering, oddly. I guess if you want to be naughty in a public room with someone, you gotta be OOC. *smirks*

I think you're right, though. Having an explicitly OOC area on an IC intended MUCK is a little cagey, but it does work on SCM. Again, though, I think that's primarily due to the geographic design of that MUCK in particular. I guess the 'goooc' zone serves as the obscure part of the geography, mostly because few people want to travel 10 minutes just to have an OOC conference with a few furs. And that's just space travel. You're also expected to be IC at all moments in time, which means looking to see if there's anyone live in each and every single room you travel in, and pose moving if there is. At least, that's the impression I get, since I've several times been page-bitched at for breezing through a room with someone in it when I was on my way to do something non-RP related (I either ignore them, or snap back, depending on my mood). Not to mention, it usually only takes 5 or so OOC comments by someone in a room to get the 'can we get back to IC' response. But of course, Bandari is not going to have these decidedly unique attributes and limitations, so you're right I think, that having a specific OOC zone may not work well.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

expected to be IC at all moments in time

Eeek. That sounds like it could be pretty wearying, especially if there's forced, programmed delays in space transit. Around Puzzlebox, I'll sometimes zip through a room if I'm going somewhere, though I'm just as likely to use 'meet' and pose something about exactly how I got there. (Does SCM deliberately lack rapid-transit tools like 'meet'?)

Stuff like that sounds like it could get in the way of story, which, I think, is a lot of what highly-IC mucking is all about. But yeah, that's kinda irrelevant to Bandari since 'travel time' will probably be two minutes or so at most.

I think there should always be some wiggle room for OOCness. And more importantly, a willingness to bend the rules a little for story. For instance, I could see someone getting uptight about a macro being 'in' a normal-sized house (I gather 'too big for the room' is a not uncommon argument in macro circles) when a few poses involving opening windows would suffice: the field of interaction is clearly Normal Person's living room, it just so happens that Macro is poking their head in from the yard. On the other hand, Macro being in a room in the underground catacombs that have no openings higher than eight feet (there's an idea for something to think about building, chipotle - some kind of area that macros explicitly just can't get to, IC) would be legitimate OOC concern.

I'm drifting from my point: I think I'm down on 'OOC Lounges' on RP-heavy mucks. It's too easy to just sit there all the time and bitch about your sucky life, the piss-poor quality of the dubbing on the latest Japanese import on Cartoon Network, or negotiate setting up a net game of $hot_computer_game_of_the_moment, with not even a thin veneer of your intended character. It's a mosaic story, not a virtual water-cooler with everyone in costume.

[mordrul.livejournal.com]

Does SCM deliberately lack rapid-transit tools like 'meet'?

Yup. You gotta get there physically. No allowances made for Q-hood. On the other hand, there's several different types of star drives. You have 'slow drives', which can travel from one corner of the galaxy (100x100 sectors in a square grid) in one single jump -- but it takes quite a while per sector. I don't yet know how long. They're nice and cheap. You have 'microwarp' drives, which take only 10 seconds per sector -- but can jump no further than 10 sectors per jump. Then you have normal warp, but I have no idea what the specs are on that. On the uber-elite (and uber-uber-UBER² expensive) end of the spectrum, you have spacefold drives. Pick a sector, and *BAMF* you're there. Still have to pilot into the system the slow way, though. There's one system I've seen which enforces a delay of something like 5 minutes or so just to fly in from the outer system to the inner. But only one, thankfully. The rest of them it's as quick and easy as moving from one room to the next on a normal MUCK. Did I mention they want to enforce RP? They do have a valid point in this. Say you're on a TP mission to smuggle contraband to a person on a spacestation. Say that you have to get from System A to System B to do so. And say that there's a Space Navy force with an Interdictor ship and some gunboats patrolling in between the two systems. Realistically speaking, you'd have to deal with them somehow. MSummon and other similar tools is kinda an unfair way around that -- in that particular context, of course.

As for sizes, I believe Chipotle is making character size a global stat, so that when you try to go through an exit, the game checks to see if you're within the room's size constraints. While you have a valid point about a giant poking their head in through the window, you're also assuming a window big enough to accomadate them easily without tearing the wall apart. It's a little messy, and I think the most expedient way of dealing with this is to simply have hard-coded size limits, which means the giant can't interact with the little inside the room, or not at all, wherein you can then pose that the giant is sticking in their head. Personally, I like the concept of having size limits hard-coded, but we'll have to wait and see what it's like in practice.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

While character size is a global stat, right now there's not an easy way to make an exit lock based on that -- the server's lock system can only be keyed to see if a property is present or not, but can't test against the value of the property. I'll be working on it. :) I think for now, though, the idea that people can just roleplay that will work. I suspect when the place opens shortly there's going to be relatively few "interior" locations finished beyond Sharabu, anyway.

[gen.livejournal.com]

We've got a lock, although guest characters can bypass. No wiz approval required. (Nilesta is a badass coder)

The folks from the PK muds always bang their heads on the pinfo lock. We don't ask for a detailed background either, just a little something.

[mordrul.livejournal.com]

That sounds a lot like Stellar Convergence MUCK (which I play on). They too have @applaud, although I don't know if they can be used for anything other than bragging rights. They also have statsheets that you build, for the purpose of, as you said, last resort reference. And also no dice rolling; you just pick what kind of features you want your character to have, and you take the 10,000 credits you have and spend them on them, with the formula price=n*n*100 where n is the level of the stat. In other words, you can have Pilot Starfighter at level 1, or level 5. Level 5 obviously is superior, and costs only 25x as much as the level 1 version. So you can have a character who does 4 things super amazing fantastically well, or 100 things that are just somewhat better than a goober off the street, or obviously something in between. Or alternatively, use some of that starting money to buy a few starting items, like a ship, or 'tools'.

Of course, I'm rambling here too. The point is, it's been done, and it does work. SCM seems to average a good 20 players or so, even when there's not a predetermined TinyPlot scheduled. It is, of course, nowhere near as massively popular as FM or Taps, but then, the focus is also much more narrow. I think 20 players consistently is a pretty decent figure.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

Rephrase that doubt into the form of a question seeking a solution:

I wish there was a way to identify and reward good roleplayers that didn't result in hurt feelings and angst.

Cause right now, it's sort of left up to one's social abilities and presence, and knowing who really plays what character. I'd be willing to cut some slack to someone whose first impression is that they're "a jerk" if I knew 50 of my friends thought X was a great roleplayer.

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

This is the kind of competition I like to see... :D My history with Taps notwithstanding, I'm really glad to see another bloom of funky little indie MUCKs that want to get back to the basics. I'm definitely going to have to keep tabs on this and have a few chats with you on virtual social engineering philosophy.

Yeah, people will probably bitch about you keeping such tight rein on the place, but who cares? :D Personally, I really like the idea of applying the auteur theory to MUCKs -- it worked so darned well for the cinema. :) Needless to say, I'm very keen on intimate, thematically coherent MU*s these days.

Postrodent and I definitely agree with you on the minimalist public building principle. We've been pretty generous about handing out private building space, but that's largely because we're lazy and wanted to delegate. :D Our public infrastructure is being kept very, very tight and it seems to be working well.

And hmm, maybe the wiki idea is just what we need to answer people's complaints that they're losing track of TinyPlots on PB. We'd thought of it before, but lost track of the idea for a while...

Reads, nodnods, starts loading the Wiki into cortex.

[momentrabbit.livejournal.com]

Er, applause and encouragement and curiosity as to when beta playing might begin? Hope hope? Etc?

[bigtig.livejournal.com]

I think it's a very interesting test. Thank you for involving me.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

Yes, it could be quite cool. I'll try to put more than 2 cents in. :)