chipotle | Slogging through the MUCK

The MUCK that I've been working on for a month or so is threatening to actually come together. In the "words" of the @stat command:

     28 rooms            122 exits              0 things
     87 programs          13 players            0 garbage
    250 total objects                           0 old & unused    122 unsaved objects

Not huge by any stretch, and some of those statistics are phantom, since there's several environment rooms and a few player objects which are staff-only. Some of the people I've poked about getting characters haven't yet, and some I've asked to at least just look at the ever-lovin' wiki haven't yet either, I suspect. Some of the issues that have been up in the air are still floating -- the "One" character is still the only wizard and I haven't implemented the @sudo command I wanted to try as an experiment, and not all of the core building I need to get done is finished. For practical purposes, the only in-use locale is Sharabu, the bar. (The venerable whereare command is installed, but not activated.)

But no matter -- there's actually been roleplaying there. Only a little, granted, but that's the first major test. And, as recklessly subjective as this is, it's been the right kind, where one has to think about being in character and playing the part you've come up with. To be honest, I think I need to do a better job with that myself. And that's great.

At this point we're somewhere between what I've called the "backstage pass" time and the "soft opening" time. The former is when a lot is left to build and the holes are really noticeable. The latter is when the holes, at least the obvious ones, are all filled in -- the core building is basically done, people are getting going on their own building to fill in the missing gaps (in Bandari's structure, that'd be shops, parks, wilderness areas, and residences -- basically everything that isn't on the street or in one of a couple important buildings), the web site is fleshed out -- and we're ready for more of a shakedown cruise but not for more serious advertising. Part of the discussion at that point will be just what "serious advertising" means, I suspect -- and for that matter, whether we want to announce the soft opening anywhere other than word-of-mouth places like, well, weblogs...