Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Return of the OtherVoice Podcast

The OtherVoice podcast, official web podcast of the games at jointhesaga.com, is back in action at jointhesaga.podbean.com.

I'd done eight of these nearly two years ago, but got away from it due to scheduling issues. Now they're back. Hoping to do at least one a week. Got ideas for topics? Feel free to suggest them!

Short Attention Span Review: "Heroes" 10/26



One more chance. Karen jokes that I say this every week, but this time I'm SERIOUS!

The past couple of episodes have just been dull on top of boring for Heroes. Peter and HRG visit a kid whose power is basically stolen from Pushing Daisies long enough for Peter to steal the power and for the kid to be exposed as a freakish parent-killer. Then Peter leaves to help Hiro, who has gone off in time to save Charlie back in the first season, while HRG sticks around to play Big Brother to the new kid. He calls in Tracy for backup.

Naturally, all goes well, except for the part where the kid gets dragged to death through town by the cops.

Back at Camp Parkman, BrainSylar and Matt are vying for control of Parkman's body - and I think Janice would probably vote in favor of BrainSylar. Matt, let's face it, you apparently don't bring the A game.

At Sunnyvale University...er, wait, wrong school...Claire and her gal-pal make meta jokes about slash fiction sites on the web and endure a hazing ritual in a slaughterhouse that ends with impaling and one too many "OH MY GOD."

If this show goes on for another season, it really needs to undergo a massive purge. It's suffering from character bloat and crisis-itis. The bloat in this show is so bad that some characters have gone double to show up in almost every scene, like Sylar. I fully expect the third Tracy to show up any time. Maybe an evil twin for Hiro?

Short Attention Span Review: "Inglorious Basterds"



Finally got to see this before it escaped theaters. I'm glad I did - it seems most worthwhile to see this movie on the big screen (especially the explosive finale).

That said: I didn't *love* this movie. My problem with it comes down to the simple fact that two storylines are leading to the same conclusion and diminishing each other as a result. Shoshanna's vengeful plan to blow up Hitler's top men in the cinema runs parallel to the Basterds' plan to blow up Hitler's top men in the cinema. A friend correctly noted that this is basically two movies competing with each other inside of one. Neither comes out the winner.

Some elements of the movie were winners for me, though. Christopher Waltz was a great surprise as Hans Landa. I most enjoyed the scenes where people just talked and tension built, and he was in most of those.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Short Attention Span Review: "Heroes" 10/12



Slipping, slipping, slipping...into disinterest.

Ernie Hudson's inexplicable surliness toward amnesia-Sylar, the shrink woman's utter willingness to go along with the sad-eyed serial-killing superhero, and all the bleh dialogue that went with it bored me to the point that I was spending far more time paying attention to continuity problems (behold Sylar's ever-shifting beard growth and hair placement!) than I was to what they were saying.

Claire Bennett and Stalker Girl, plus Invisible Carny Girl who frames Stalker Girl? BORING. Bring on the snipers and special effects!

Peter and the deaf girl: More interesting without Peter. At first, I thought having the power to be a human game of Simon was the lamest superpower ever. But then I saw she could peel paint and remove wallpaper. She's hired.

Short Attention Span Review: "House" 10/12



This episode was certainly an improvement over last week's, although I don't exactly get why billionaire dad had to bankrupt himself (and his son) in order to save the kid.

Enjoyed seeing House back to his old tricks of manipulating his minions, while also demonstrating why he doesn't normally interact with patients. (But interacting with them anyway!)

I really couldn't care less about Thirteen's whole "will she or won't she?" plot. If she could go to Mars and stay there, that'd be awesome. Her relationship with Foreman doesn't do this show any favors. Ever.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Lessons I've Learned No. 4: One's a Lot of Fun

As much as I've enjoyed the "group" epic adventures on OtherSpace throughout the years, the artifact tournament events remind me how much more I prefer running activities for an individual player.

Team events are still great for allowing people to work together, but often it's a challenge - usually not terribly successful - to make sure that everyone involved in the group event gets their moment to shine and has a good time.

In a solo event? Well, that's different. It all comes down to the interaction between the player, the ref, the +sheet, and the story that's being told. Through these solo events, I learn more about the characters, their capabilities, their strengths, and their weaknesses. I also experience first-hand whether a player is a good sport or not.

It can be argued that I get more bang for my buck if I throw a lot of effort into an epic event that a dozen players can experience. But, I don't know. The buzz I'm hearing about the artifact tournament, which can be viewed live in the Last Orders Tavern when bouts are in progress, is that more people wish they'd signed up because of the cool stuff they've seen their fellow players doing on a solo basis.

So, expect me to look for more excuses, whenever possible, to run activities that just involve one player at a time.

Lessons I've Learned No. 3: Objects in Motion

The life expectancy of a MUSH that isolates the playerbase to a single relatively small area can be measured in months.

Mathematically, it makes sense to consolidate the players into one area, thus forcing them to roleplay with each other. However, this logic is fundamentally flawed due to the fact that behind those players are humans, driven by free will, and ultimately it is impossible (and futile) to try to force them to do ANYTHING they don't want to do.

It could be argued that, with a dedicated enough staff running events around the clock or aggressive players generating their own activities without administrative assistance, the life of a tightly centralized MUSH could be extended. I suppose that's true. However, it's unlikely that it would grow much larger than a somewhat ambitious tabletop RPG group. It's not a growth industry.

Back in 1999, we threw all of OtherSpace aboard a massive colony ship called Sanctuary. We had some refugee starships aboard, so that gave some folks places to hang out. The colony vessel itself was a pretty huge grid by most standards, with the hangar level, command deck, and massive domes for inhabitants to dwell. You could even zip back and forth on monorails. Originally, I planned for this experiment to last a full year. However, plot fatigue (on the parts of both staffers and players) and player attrition due to boredom, RL, and other issues led to an acceleration of the planned return to normalspace. We had a decent-sized playerbase, but most of them were hanging around in the out-of-character area rather than roleplaying.

In January 2009, we threw all of OtherSpace: The Farthest Star, OtherSpace: Millennium, and Chiaroscuro aboard a modestly-sized sentient starship known as Comorro. Now it's September, and although we've got a decent-sized playerbase, the foundations of a crafting system, and numerous possibilities for players to generate their own fun (or call on staffers to help make fun for them), we're starting to see the trend toward people hanging around OOC when they could be on the grid. Also, we've seen a resurgent complaint about the lack of things to do for players who are in time zones that are well offset from most of the staffers.

We're not, at the moment, in a position to enter a strong growth mode for OtherSpace. But we are very close. With the arrival of HSpace 5.0, we'll open the door for players to have their own ships, fly trade missions, and explore. That'll mean new worlds to visit - including some to claim, colonize, and call your own. Trade runs and exploration opportunities should be a huge help in generating "instant" crew activities. You don't need a staffer to ref your run from Hekayt to B'hira. You don't need a staffer to help you map the star charts and discover unsual alien worlds. But those activities WILL be something that can be done around the clock, no matter what time zone you're in.

It's been said in the past that spreading out the grid too much can be the death of a game. I'd counter that the lack of activity to draw people together, and the unwillingness of staffers to make sure that players can get together when the need arises, is what threatens a game's existence more than how many rooms are keeping people apart at any given time. Lots of small planet grids with things to do - trade, crafting, exploration - are a better solution than one big localized grid.

We're on the verge of an exciting time. I'm glad you're all here to be part of it and I'm looking forward to what happens next.

Lessons I've Learned No. 2: Give the Hard Case a Rest

For more than a decade, I've struggled with finding a balance for dealing with players, their complaints, and their overall attitudes.

Before the advent of MMORPGs, it was rather easy for me to take on the attitude that the MUSH was the online equivalent of a house party, and it was my house, and if you didn't like it, you could get the hell out. Plus, it was undeniably amusing in a Roman bread-and-circuses sort of way to deal with the trolls and twinks and asshats in brutal public fashion.

Now? Well, putting it bluntly: I've got to be happy when even the asshats stop by and give the games a try. Every visitor is a little miracle, and that miracle could blossom into a great experience if they're given the time and opportunity to make a go of it.

I can't afford to treat the game like my private house party. Now, more than ever, a MUSH is a creature that exists only as long as it's got an audience that supports it. If I'm being overly harsh on channels, I need to throttle it back. If someone posts a critical commentary and my knee-jerk response *wants* to be a concise two-word blast, then I need to sleep on it and respond in the morning when I can provide a calmer, more rational answer.

Some of the new achievements that I've established - particularly the roleplaying belts - were instituted specifically so that I would be forced to interact with players more regularly on a one-to-one basis, give positive feedback, and provide a sense of achievement - ESPECIALLY to players who might otherwise think I'm critical of them, don't like them, don't trust them, etc. I don't want to be a demon. I'm not out to ruin everybody's fun. I want OtherSpace and Necromundus to thrive. That means every player should be allowed to thrive. We don't have to get along like gangbusters behind the scenes all the time, but you've all got value. You're the best advertising we've got and there's no evolving story without you.

Will I sometimes get frustrated? Undoubtedly. Will I occasionally snipe because of this? Yeah, probably. I'm human. Not a robot. But it won't be for sport. It won't be for the amusement of myself or others.

Lessons I've Learned No. 1: Stop Kicking the Anthill

It's no secret that I've drawn a lot of inspiration from series television, especially the space opera epic of Babylon 5. That show got particularly good the moment John Sheridan stated that the station was declaring independence and standing against the government he no longer believed in.

I loved watching those walls fall down.

So, when I started OtherSpace, it was with the intent for the game to grow and evolve with similar dramatic peaks. That's why we saw events like the near-collapse of the Stellar Consortium and the civil war in the Parallax. It's why we ended up putting the entire playerbase aboard Sanctuary and shifted the game off to Hiverspace for six months, only to come back and fit it was now the 31st Century in normalspace.

I liked kicking the anthill. But I can't keep kicking the anthill.

This lesson I've learned: Soap operas and series television, with their slate-changing dramatic moments, are fun to watch. They are NOT so fun to live and breathe.

A fundamental truth that I've come to accept is that although we make a very clear divide between the player and the character from a storytelling perspective, there's no denying an emotional connection between the two. When a player creates a character on OtherSpace, it's with a sense that the character will change and grow based on events and interactions with other characters - not necessarily that the character and the player must constantly adapt to the dramatic whims of the game's lead storytellers.

The best moments on OtherSpace aren't when I kick the anthill. They're when I break out a magnifying glass and hold the lens over the hill's inhabitants.

So, that's why Event Cards came to be. That's why Roleplaying Belts now provide encouragement for players to become referees and event managers. And that's why the more intensive activities on the MUSH these days are focused on the player level.

Grander changes are still afoot in the universe at large, so don't get me wrong. But I'm trying to develop those events through news articles and localized activities. Players deserve a chance to shine a lot more than I deserve to blow up another planet or raze a spacefleet with another mighty alien armada.

We've got lots of stories to tell. We don't have to keep blowing up the world to mine for new material.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Short Attention Span Review: "Stargate Universe" 10/9



All right, I think a quick and merciful death is in order for this show. This episode MADE NO EFFING SENSE.

You're running out of air aboard the ancient ship. The ship takes you to a planet with a breathable atmosphere. And you only send a *handful* of people off ship to hunt for limestone to go into the filtration system? You leave behind everybody else so they can look miserable and jeopardized, rather than allowing everyone to get a breath of fresh air? Maybe have extra legs and eyes and arms to hunt for what you're after? Because, seriously, two of the people you sent were pudgy and out of shape to begin with - and you didn't even include a real doctor on the walkabout?

All of it was just a really lame excuse to give us Scott's Hoth-esque exposition moments as he staggered around following a dust devil.

And color me totally confused and grumpy about the communication modules. Those scenes would have made much more sense to me if the "puppet" people had done the talking. However, I understand that Lou Diamond Phillips - who should have been one of the puppets - isn't as available as they'd hoped. Anyway, it just seemed pointless and awkward and hard to follow.

Bad start, folks.

Short Attention Span Review: "Fringe" 10/8



In this episode, we find out that the Parallelinators have mercury in their blood. And we get an extended conversation with William Bell in the Alt World Trade Center after Agent Dunham downs a protein shake made from tapeworms.

Much better than the Monster of the Week episode of last time. Enjoyed Theresa Russell as Walter's loopy sees-parallel-people girlfriend. Nice little reminder with Peter's "halo" at the end.

And I guess that's it for Charlie?

Anyway, good episode this time around. Much happier.

MUDdy Hobo Trackside Interview: Staff@Multiverse Crisis MUSH

The MUDdy Hobo recently had a chance to ask questions of the staff at Multiverse Crisis MUSH. They answered! And here's what they had to say:

MH: How did you get started in MUDing?

Reliant: I got started in MUDing when somebody back in my old chatroom RPs went on an elitist tangent about how much better MU*ing was than chatroom and forum RP. Truthfully they were right for the most part, but it was an impolite way to put it to somebody who had never even heard of a MUSH before.

Asagi: I migrated into MUDing from AIM RP in early 2005 (January of '05 to be precise). I was recruited onto the MUSHing scene by a long time online friend of mine who thought that since I had a knack for short stories, I would be good in back and forth RP, since we always played around on AIM.

Hugh Bliss: A now ex-boy friend of mine introduced me to it actually. He showed me to that Shadowrun-esque mu* Cybersphere and then I started looking into mu* data bases and learning about other games that I wanted to try out. I didn't really take mu*ing seriously untill late 2002-early 2003 when I found TMNT mush, however.

The Wonder Twins: I found logs of RP from Transformers 2k5 MUSH well over 10 years ago, and read them religiously. I had some experience with chat room RP, so I thought I'd try to immerse myself in the awesomeness that was Transformers in this new way. Despite sucking badly, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and have been RPing ever since.

The Guy: Oh boy! How did I get into MUDing? Well... Our story begins a long long time ago, in a borough far far away. The Bronx. I was staying at my aunt's house and had just discovered the wonders of the internet, as she gave me my very own America Online Kid's account. I was a wee lad at the tender age of 12 at the time, and wanted to check out the games available to me. The first one I found was called Cosrin. A text based, web-based PvE MUD. And boy was it steep, at a price of 2.99 to play per hour. But I was hooked! I played it for all of a year, before putting it down. Years pass. I turn into a lad of 16 and get bored with playstation. So I join my first MUSH. Which eventually led to creating a character on a second MUSH. And then, by he age of 19 I applied for my first character at Multiverse crisis MUSH and I've been here ever since.

Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader (Owner): I was never into MUDing itself - only MUSHing and its brethren. I started out as a teenager on Transformers 2K5 MUSH, after hearing about these 'MUD' things in an article in - of all things - the Wall Street Journal, and deciding to take a look. Transformers seemed appealing, as I was still quite fond of the theme despite having "outgrown" them only a few years before. I made quite an idiot of myself that first year, but I learned a lot. I became admin for the first time on my second MUSH, Transformers : Genesis, not long before it fell apart (for reasons that had nothing to do with me, thankfully). I've been admin on several different MU*'s since then, and have had characters on MUSHes, MUCKs, and MUXen, and perhaps a character or two on a MOO once or twice.

Charon: I got my start back in highschool in 1992, with Tsunami MUD via my school’s interent connection. I didn’t really get into the interactive storytelling portion until 1995 or so with a place called MegaHeros. After that I bounced around a bit, playing on a variety of places until I ended up at Mega Man MUSH. That’s where I had my first staff position, and really formed my core set of principles. Around that same time I was also playing on Otherspace for a while. After leaving Mega Man MUSH I took a break until I joined Multiverse Crisis MUSH. I wouldn’t become admin until a year or so later.

Firefox: I was just cruising around the internet one afternoon looking at Transformers websites because I'm a big TF fan, and came across the sites for 2k5 and the long since defunct TF2. A saw a chance for a more 'grown up' (hahaha oi I was such an idiot back then) version of playing with a theme I loved and apped at both. Things snowballed from there as I made friends and they pulled me to other places, and the rest is history.

Antiquity: I got started at the TMNT MUSH run by Jill (the headwiz's handle) and loved it. Creative people, a focus on playing and character interaction and a really great application system along with friendly and helpful staff. I try to be as good as them at the Multiverse, since this is a MUSH that I've been at for a good number of wonderful years with my fellow Administrators.

MH: What's the origin story behind Multiverse Crisis? How did the core concept form and how did it evolve prior to opening?

Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader (Owner): That's an interesting question, as there are actually a lot of bizarre rumors as to why and how the place was started.

Although I had a few home MU*'s, I spent a lot time before MCM ever started wandering from MU* to MU* in search of one that would accept some of my characters - I tend to change canon themes around a lot, and while many people who would listen seemed to like the changes I made, the venues for actually applying them were few. During this time I came up with many ideas that would eventually be incorporated into MCM, things that I wanted to see. Some were pretty radical for the time, i.e. the ability to make modifications to canon (the term we typically use for source material as it is published in the media - many MU*s want you to unerringly comply with this) if you were able to do a good job, the ability for characters to interact in combat with comparable abilities no matter what theme they were with (so that Dragon Ball Z, for instance, would not make Super Mario Bros. essentially worthless), and factions that put characters together to encourage RP (as many MU*s I previously played at often caused groups of characters from the same canon - called 'casts' - to hole up in their own little world, and slowly dwindle to near-inactivity for lack of things to do). A particular influence on me was Videoland, a video game-centric MUSH that had a number of ideas I particularly liked. Eventually I started a MUSH of my own; however, after a year, for several reasons, it failed. I managed to get some MU* space from a friend and decided to put it up and see if it stuck, figuring it would last maybe 3-4 weeks.

We're now likely around week 200 or so.

MH: How much has the game flourished with the relative openness of theme? Have their been any significant drawbacks to being so broad thematically?

Reliant: I would say that it has. The biggest drawback with being so broad thematically is having to fit all of this STUFF together. This can be as much a problem with the players trying to overplay their stuff as the content of a character itself being a problem, but things have to be at least a little watered down or else you get some themes dominating others in really hideous ways. The best example we've had with this is super robot themes, which have been occasionally been insistent on trying to violate our destruction limitations - which were mostly put into place to prevent cities from being wiped off the map on a daily basis because two guys decided to have at it.

Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader (Owner): I would say that the MUSH has flourished. In many ways you can find just about anything you'd want here. Many themes that could not sustain a MUSH on their own are here, including some themes that are particularly prone to very short MU* lives, as well as helping to adapt themes that would make poor MU*'s (often because of having FCs that are too special and too powerful, which would often concentrate most 'interesting' things to a small circle). There are a lot of things you can do here that just wouldn't be possible elsewhere - most places insist on being canon, often to a painful extent, whereas we encourage you to break it if you can come up with a good way to do it. Of course, canon interpretations are also encouraged, and we allow concurrent versions of themes to help people be able to do it "both ways" - having canon and non-canon versions of themes existing side by side. A side benefit of this is that it is very rare that any character is completely 100% out of a player's grasp by being "taken" - you can often come up with an alternate version that will work as well.

Unfortunately, just as there are many benefits, there are at least a few drawbacks. One has to be ready to deal with a LOT of powers that would not otherwise be encountered in various themes, and how to get them to work together. For instance, if someone picks up a theme with an instant death power (i.e. Death Note), we're not going to let them run hog wild outside of their theme (or in their own theme, for that matter) - often the powers will have to be reduced somehow (i.e. the Death Note can usually kill 'useless' NPCs or cannon fodder, but PCs are much more difficult to kill). We also have to try to keep ourselves aware of as many themes as possible. If someone picks up something particularly esoteric stuff may get past us - though if it's blatantly and seriously in violation of the letter or spirit of our rules, action will be taken to correct it. Particularly esoteric themes can also cause staff to have a hard time in terms of judging applications. Staff tends to try to be lenient in those cases, but when someone uses that leniency for ill, action is usually taken.

Charon: The game has actually flourished a great deal. I don’t think our founder actually expected us to grow quite as much as we have, and a lot of it is due to the expansive nature of the theme. It’s very easy for a newer player to think of a favorite book, anime, movie or game and pick a character from it to play. Because they’re usually drawing from an established source, there’s a firm basis for personality and what they can do. It lowers the barrier for a new player in figuring out how their character fits.

From my perspective the main difficulty in having such a broad theme is trying to compose storylines that are unique to the theme itself. We’ve got plenty of ongoing storylines within the game, drawn principally out of a single sub-theme or cast and then drawing in the rest of the game. But writing a storyline for the core theme itself can be difficult.

MH: Has MCM suffered significant loss of players due to the rise of graphical MMORPGs? If so, how have you tried to deal with this? If not, what's your secret?

Reliant: Not really. MMOs and MUSHes provide a significantly different experience, so as far as I've ever been able to tell we haven't lost players to MMORPGs like World of Warcraft or EverQuest. It'll be a long while before they can provide a roleplaying experience rich enough to make MUSHes obsolete, and given the limitations of simple /emotes I'm not even sure we'll see MMOs with truly viable roleplaying environments anytime soon.

Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader (Owner): We're in an odd situation - we formed AFTER the rise of the MMORPG. However, I do believe that the MMORPG has caused significant problems in MU*ing, so I'll address that for a moment.

I think that, really, the future of MU*ing is going to be on the web in one way or another. Ultimately Telnet is a protocol older than most of our players, and the thought of downloading an odd-looking client probably turns off a lot of players. There will always be a place for high-speed interactive role play that MMORPGs just can't offer - IRC still has plenty of it - but it needs to be more accessible than it's current form.

Charon: Not significantly. Multiverse Crisis MUSH opened after the release of the World of Warcraft. We do have a significant number of players who do play graphical MMO games, ranging from Maple Story to EVE. So our player levels have never really been significantly impacted by the release of these games. I think the players we have are looking for a story they can more directly be a part of, even on a small scale. Without a huge and massive investment of time and effort that the same story altering level of power requires in the graphical games – if it’s even possible.

MH: What are the most popular types of characters that are apped for on Multiverse Crisis MUSH?

Hugh Bliss: I'd say main character heroic types. Minor character's aren't apped as often, even if they're good. Villains are heavily outnumbered by at least 3 to 1 without exaggeration. Unaffiliates are hard to keep to their place and seem a little on the rarer side as well. I'd also say that the most popular characters seem to be between their mid teens and early twenties, but that's a trend I've noticed all over.

MH: What types of characters are most needed currently?

Reliant: Villains, most definitely. This is actually a problem with multitheme MUSHes in general - everyone wants to be the hero, and the villains are often downtrodden by comparison. This is partially our fault, truth be told - some of our early villain player(s) were not very good sports with their heroic counterparts and essentially wanted to eat worlds without retribution. While this isn't true of ALL villains, the backlash on what villains were allowed to get away with was pretty nasty, and it's something we're currently trying to fix by assigning a staffer to be an active OOC arbitrator between the faction(s).

Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader (Owner): Bad guys. Bad guys are ALWAYS in short supply. Specifically we're trying to shore up the Confederacy and provide it a solid shot in the arm. We've been pushing a few initiatives to try to encourage apping in the Confederates - for instance, no "cool down" time between apping another character and a Confederate, like we usually do to keep the app load sane for the character staff

We're also interested in magical or mystical characters. It's important to note that magic is NOT more powerful than technology here, and there are limits (i.e. don't expect your Curse Of Apocalypse to kill half the enemy faction because you say so), but still, magic is an area where we don't have much representation, and we'd like to see some more characters for it, so well thought out concepts both from original and existing themes are quite welcome.


MH: Explain the two factions, Union and Confederate, and what they should mean to new players.


Reliant: In essence, the Union and Confederacy are sort of super nations that formed relatively recently in the history of the Multiverse, made up of an enormous conglomeration of worlds. To put it into simplified terms, the Union makes up our 'good guy' faction, and the Confederacy is our 'bad guy' faction, both of which formed around a conflict over the most effective method of travel in the Multiverse known as "warp gates". (Things like FTL drives and the like are still functional, but not everybody has those.)

Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader (Owner): Simply put, the Union are the good guys, and the Confederates are the bad guys.

However, the reality is more complicated than that. The Union is not an extensively overly good faction - we tried to stay AWAY from that. We try to be balanced in terms of the characters that are more reluctant to use violence (such as themes for younger children) versus themes that encourage more violence (i.e. video games). This has been rather difficult. That said, the typical member of the Union, grudging though they may be, WILL take a kill shot, and many of them have at least a few NPC deaths. Some surprising ones actually have a lot, usually in preventing some atrocity or another.

The Confederates, on the other hand, are an interesting dynamic, and in a lot of ways their identity is more fluid - which is what you might expect from a faction of backstabbers and villains. There is often a struggle between the "lawful good" and the "chaotic good" - it's difficult to put out good PR when you've got members of your main forces eating babies, after all! It has evolved over time, and continues to evolve, which is actually something the admin, as of late, have been trying to put a bead on.

The background story is overall, over the years, the Union came together by the more 'just' nations, i.e. the United Federation of Planets from Star Trek, various iterations of the United States, and so forth - to oppose more villainous entities, so they could have a united front. These villainous factions found themselves hard pressed to work independently so they formed a grudging alliance, hence the two super nations. They have both evolved over time to form their current entities - their precursors are 200-300 years old in Multiverse time, and became mainly cohesive in wars over the so-called warp gates. The Union's precursors have been relatively stable, but those of the Confederates have formed and reformed repeatedly, and it is highly likely that should the war ever be won in favor of the Confederates the supernation would quickly splinter if not outright crumble in fighting among themselves - after all, most villains don't like sharing their world domination with other bad guys. Our player characters focus on the militaries and the allies of these militaries (often the types of heroes or villains that one wouldn't think would join a military, giving them a place in the factional structure as well), but they do not entirely exclude the civilians, and we've had a few in the past.

MH: How much of a struggle is it to balance, say, a character from HBO's Deadwood against a superhero from the Justice League of America?

The Wonder Twins: In one sense, it's pretty easy. In another sense, it's quite difficult. Simply saying that people from two wildly different scaled themes, like DBZ and Metal Gear, are equal seems to be relatively straight forward. With Aura and a real, IC cosmic effect called Balancing, justification for people being on the same level is pretty easy. It's when it comes down to assigning specific power levels that things get very tricky. So saying that two people from different themes are in the same ballpark is a snap. Saying which one is a PL 34 and which one is a PL 36 is much harder, and is inherently subjective, and impossible to fully standardize.

Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader (Owner): It can be tough. However, the players typically end up doing pretty well. For instance, superhuman strength may be relative. A punch from Superman may very well not do nearly as much as he'd think. However, typically the environment suffers a lot more - when one weak but smart individual fights an incredibly super-powered individual, chances are the ground is going to have a lot more craters in it than when they started. However, the question invariably comes up, what if someone starts flinging around nuclear weapons? Well, we have things that are rules of thumb - for instance, in general no single, regular combat strike should detonate more than a city block - but something more fundamental to the universe is necessary for it to really be believable that Little Johnny survives exposure to a nuclear blast.

We use a concept called 'Aura' to achieve this. The term is derived from Main Character Aura, which is the nickname a lot of people use for the fact that main characters tend to survive ridiculous situations and come out on top despite all logic to the contrary. We, however, have made it more or less literal. Aura is basically the realities of two universes pressing against each other, struggling for dominance, and manifesting in terms of total effect. Player characters are characters with EXTREMELY high levels of Aura (think 99.9999th percentile, and that's probably literally a bit generous for population proportions). A fight is not a simple contest of Aura, but it does have significant implications as to the outright effects. Superman, for instance, could toss Solid Snake through a few buildings. If this were more 'realistic' Solid Snake would likely be dead or close to it, but because of Aura, he can get up and keep fighting. As another example, human opponents (at least, player characters) could well take on the main guns of a Transformer, live, and even strike back. Even things like super speed can be countered with sufficient skill and intelligence - be smart enough to not be where your opponent's fist is going to be, for instance, or predict their move such that ... Unfortunately this does have some trade-offs - some might, for instance, say that this implies that 'weakling' Aurics such as main characters of more regular series have to be inherently much smarter than 'strong' Aurics such as main characters of comic book series - but the other trade-offs, such as ignoring it entirely (thus making the MUSH a lot less friendly to play) or disallowing characters from themes over or under a certain power level, would be much more painful.

I would say by FAR our greatest concern in terms of balancing is in terms of size. A 500 foot mecha is going to have a difficult time being brought down by a humanoid opponent. That said - it HAS been done! Typically the players have to play an active role in it. For instance, shoot your opponents in the knees - there are sensitive gear shafts and such in even military mechanoids, and considering the PCs are supposed to be the best of the best, they ought to be able to at least attempt that impossible shot to actually hit something important there. We try to use themes that use scale in different ways as guidelines, i.e. Chrono Trigger and other RPGs that have apparently insane-scale fights, at least to illustrate to characters. Ultimately it's easier to envision an apparently random human surviving (and continuing to fight despite) being engulfed in fire, than it is if that same apparently random human is stomped on a few times by a mile tall military robot.

A related problem is people using "ultimate" attacks and whatnot. For instance, Lina Inverse's Giga Slave, or the Matrix of Leadership in Transformers. These are often sealed somehow for a variety of reasons, using something more stringent than having it be deterred by, for instance, some code of honor or even the potential death of the user. Reasons for this are things such as the fact that a character's mind could very well change if something near and dear or ridiculously huge in scale is in the balance (what hero wouldn't risk their lives in saving an entire planet, for instance?), and since it can be quite condescending to be from a theme where there are no superduperdramaticultrapowers and yet you've got someone in whatever group you're in who can toss them off without a thought, even if they are for some reason filled with angst and terrible consequences.

There are other problems, i.e. ranged attacks versus hand-to-hand, but we could go on all day about this sort of thing. Unfortunately it's one of those things that is just inherent to the genre, and we do the best we can to keep things balanced for everyone and enforce consent-based RP without making people use it as a cop-out a lot.

MH: How do most new players learn about MCM? Are you doing much with social networking sites?

Reliant: Honestly, I have no idea. Our only external forum that I'm personally aware of is on our wiki, and we don't have a Facebook/MySpace/Livejournal, and so forth. Maybe we should get one, but it isn't something that has ever seemed especially necessary. If I really had to guess I'd say most of our prospective players are people who got pulled over by word-of-mouth, but we don't usually ask about it.

MH: How relevant do you feel sites like Top MUD Sites and MUD Connector remain in this day and age? Do you get a lot of traffic from them? Does your staff spend much time on those sites?


Reliant: Personally, I think MUD Connector is an important part of keeping MU*'s "on radar", but these days it seems to me like Mudtape and the like are a bit more relevant. I'm not sure how much traffic we actually get from these sites, though, so I could be completely wrong. Either way, I think they're still relevant - especially to veteran MU*ers who are looking for something new.

I don't know about the rest of the staff, but I do check MUD Connector occasionally, and we should still have an entry there.

Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader (Owner): The appeal of MUD Connector and Top MUD Sites is probably not very high for our particular genre. This is not surprising - they cater to different audiences. They typically focus more on more traditional, hack-and-slash MUDs; most role-play based MUSHes, on the other hand, are focused more on storytelling, although they do have common ancestry in terms of both the communities surrounding them as well as the code and designs used in their basic construction. That said, they still do provide valuable resources. While we don't see as many as we used to, we have found a good number of players referred from the MUD Connector in particular. To our knowledge, none of the staff frequent them insofar as being actual "members of the community" there, though - as stated, the sites are in many ways focused differently from what we are doing.

MH: Explain the application process for MCM. How long does it usually take to get a response? What are some tips and tricks and common pitfalls?

The Guy: The application process for MCM is rather simple and gentle really. Our character applications have been upgraded several times, but the basic premise is the same. We request some simple OOC information of the apper, name, age, e-mail to respond to them. New applicants must use the 'long' application form, which includes a question on what their definition of consent based roleplay is, coupled with a few extra questions in regards to how well they know the personality of the character they are applying for. People who have already apped at MCM in the past, or who are applying for an alternate character, simply need fill out the 'short' application form, which contains the same basic questions as the long app, with a few specific exceptions removed for ease.

The application process itself is broken down into several sections that need to be filled out. The +finger information, which consists of the character's name, the series they hail from, their 'function' (Describing them in a single line), a quote, and a paragraph to use for the profile, a blurb about the character.

Following filling out the character's +finger, the next section are +powers and +flaws! +Powers describe exactly what the character can do, and +flaws is a new feature we recently incorporated, and used to show that these characters are not almighty and all powerful. Everyone has flaws and weaknesses, and this is where the apper describes them. Flaws, after all, help in making a character more three-dimensional.

Following filling out +powers and +flaws, the next two sections of the application are history and personality. These parts are just as important as anything else, as the history details what the character's life was like up until the point that they appear in the Multiverse, or even if they've been around in the background and no one noticed. Personality is just as big. It's where we, as staffers, find out what makes a character tick. How they live, think, breathe, their aspirations, dreams and doubts.

And finally, there's the power justification. All characters on Multiverse Crisis MUSH have a power level ranging from 5, which is the lowest allowed, to 36, the utmost highest any character can have. This section of the application is devoted for the apper to explain what power level they feel their character should have! Below a 30 needs no justification, but anything above requires at least a few notes on why they feel the character is deserving. But Staff is usually pretty generous, and may even award a higher level for a good quality app.

A common pitfall though is 'just how much is enough?'. Many new applicants are sometimes unaware of just how much information to put into any given field, while some returning applicants have been known to put too much! As a general rule of thumb, staff tries to work with what we're given, but we're detail oriented and that is exactly what we like to see! Detail! Not to the level of needless fluff, but 'what you think is right' works most of the time.

That said, staff tries to be as fast as we can with responses, we have a hard working and dedicated charstaff corps, who do their best to get back to players within a few days at best. Though we do get swamped from time to time!

Addendum by Reliant: Owing to our size, application processing can slow down pretty heavily based on current workload and staffer burnout. We try to get applications back by a week at latest, but the wide range of alts that we allow coupled with any number of other variables can really slow things down.

Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader (Owner): We publicly post the general application process. Essentially you fill out the app and it goes to the box. A character staffer who feels they are qualified picks it up (we have many themes that only one - or even NONE - of staff are familiar with). It's then processed by the character staffer's judgment, with their knowledge of the theme (when possible), the player, and of course the application itself. The character staffer then has the option of rejecting and sending it back for revisions - or for passing it. Or if it's beyond a certain power level, putting it up for votes, whereupon 2 out of 3 is passing. In some particularly odd cases, such as a highly inappropriate character, we may put up a character for concept rejection, which means that the character cannot be apped as-is by the player without major revisions. Often these characters will only be given to trusted, long-time players, and perhaps not at all, due to being overwhelmingly powerful or otherwise disruptive, even with the checks and balances we have in place for powers.

Reliant wrote an addendum about the slowdown. I think I should also note that apps from new players are generally prioritized. Further, the more powerful or stranger the concept, the longer the wait - it is not organized in a queue, contrary to popular belief. Finally, usually once an application is in the revision stage (if it gets there - many are passed on the first try, and often the revisions requested are minor) things usually go a lot faster.

MH: How is combat handled in the world of MCM?

Onyxia: Combat is mostly a matter of typed role-playing; we do have a coded combat system, but it's deliberately kept very vague for the most part. The characters who are fighting (usually) pair off, posing their attacks and their reactions to the attacks being sent at them, and use the coded command to determine hits, misses, and damage. (There are also commands for healing, buffing/reinforcing and debuffing/weakening other characters.) Characters who are reduced to 0 HP are determined to have been knocked out; player characters rarely die in combat due to condeath (consensual death), although there ARE rare cases where a character loses condeath.

MH: Is anything off limits, concept-wise, for new players? The theme seems pretty sandboxy, but are lines drawn somewhere?

Onyxia: New players on MCM are extremely unlikely to get characters with high authority/rank in either faction. We usually advise new players to start out in one of the factions, but if someone really wants to start out unaffiliated, we don't block them. Outside of that, I don't think we bar new players from anything that isn't banned for the rest of the MUSH, and most of that list is for either legal reasons (Disney, Pern, etc.) or matters of content (pornographic themes).

Addendum by Reliant: While new players are generally not barred from anything *explicitly*, there are some concepts and abilities that we will generally not give to new players. Most of the time TP Powers (powers that are incredibly powerful and cannot be used outside of TP Circumstances) will not be handed out to anyone we're not reasonably familiar with - in no small part because we've been bitten for giving someone the benefit of the doubt*. Other things that new players may have a hard time getting are character(s) with heavily consent-regulated power(s) such as mind-control, or characters that are essentially quadruple agents and do a lot of defection/politicking conceptually.

* The person in question who "bit us" was a new applicant who played a goddess-type character from an old Sega Saturn RPG. She put up a nice and helpful front-face, but twinked out a lot and ultimately got smacked pretty hard for it. This kind of this is in large part why we're much more reluctant to hand out iffy powers and stuff to new players these days.

Addendum by Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader: She was grossly abusing the ability that we grant characters to change their stats based on their total 'power level'. She had it set up in such a way that she could - and would - repeatedly and rapidly swap between high defensive/healing and high-attack modes, which is very uncool on all counts, and often attempted to justify things she did by saying, "I'm a goddess ;)", ignoring the fact that the reason that she was even allowed to app was that her divinity would not put her above other players. Once it became obvious she knew what she was doing was wrong and had no plans on changing, we let GripeStaff take care of it. She didn't last long after..

Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader (Owner): In theory, you can app just about anything you want. In practice, that's a different story.

Unfortunately there is no way to precisely define just what is and isn't allowable, especially for new players. There are, however, some powers that are absolutely prohibited. For instance, time travel simply doesn't work on a MUSH of any real size out of a controlled TP, for unsurprising reasons. Mind control that there is no cure for - that's also disallowed, and in general mind control gets a lot of scrutiny since it can be a great way to damage or destroy characters in terms of playability, along with other issues with it. Further, in general, most things that would cause serious, long-term problems for a character, especially anything without consent, are disallowed both for new and old players. We're not talking about, say, just if you were to stab someone and their wounds, we're talking about things that usually have little to no outcome but such extreme ill effects, i.e. a death curse, although in some cases very special situations can be allowed, particularly if the players in question are willing to explain why they're getting around the normal restrictions.

We also have a policy of certain powers, usually those that are excessively powerful, as being 'TP Powers.' These are unlockable ONLY on admin permission, usually by part of a planned TP. There are a number of reasons for this - for instance, if you carry a weapon from your canonical source material that can basically end the war, you will be expected to use it as often as possible, and there's little justification for NOT doing that. We do not allow players to have extremely powerful powers that are entirely in their control, even if they have a 'code of honor' - rather, it has to have some external influence. Or the power could be so unstable it just fails most of the time.

In general new players are going to have difficulty getting some of these, because the outlandish stuff really CAN cause problems, and it's no fun for anyone if the admin have to come in and clean it up. Typically after the first character or two we get more relaxed, though we still try to exercise judgment and common sense when allowing or disallowing powers. That said, if you knock our socks off with the app you may get everything you want in a high-powered character on your very first try - it's not too common, but it does happen.

MH: By nature, your theme invites use of some major intellectual properties. Has this been an issue for MCM? How do you deal with such concerns?

Reliant: So far, this hasn't actually been an issue. We try to make a point of simply not allowing themes that are guarded by paranoid lawyers and authors, such as Pern (?), Disney, and so forth. On at least one occasion, though, we were forced to make our +gripe and +feedback system record the identities of the person doing the +griping or +feedbacking because somebody decided it was just a brilliant idea to threaten to "report us to Disney", or something to that effect. Since this was too big a liability, we had to remove anonymity of those systems - that said, it's pretty hard to get into them to check names.

Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader (Owner): IP laws have not bothered us so far. I believe that an executive for Star Trek, once told of fanfic and the legal ramifications, basically denied it's existence outright - basically to the point where he deliberately pretended, for official purposes, that it did not exist. In general, most companies don't care so long as you aren't causing a large-scale, active problem, or outright redistributing their media or wares otherwise. However, there are some that are known to have this problem. I personally believe that they are shooting themselves in the foot - the entire concept of MUSHing as collaborative storytelling feeds into the general storytelling concept, which has been fluid for eons longer than the idea of intellectual property - but we simply disallow apping from these themes, encouraging players to instead app from original themes that carry many of the elements that they like from the would-be source theme. However, to avoid tromping on the toes of the 'big boys', we do not allow posting of any information on how to acquire pirated material on the MUSH, and if there is a theme that is solely MMORPG-centric, chances are we'll disallow it outright. Themes that have elements of both MMORPGs and other forms of expression (i.e. Warcraft, which has single player games, novels and many other outlets) we will typically allow those elements that have been expressed in forms that are NOT in the MMORPG, so, for instance, if General Grogg is only featured in the MMORPG, you can't app for him, but we'll probably let you app for him if he's in Warcraft 7.

MH: Beyond the attraction of a big playground using familiar existing themes, MCM encourages players to create their own themes too. How popular has this proven to be?

Asagi: Some of MCM's most notable and memorable characters are actually PCs that come from original stories, universes and player-created canons. Among a slew of examples, one of the most notable stands as Captain Storm, who was second in command of the entire Confederate military, and was from a player-created theme. This is just one of a number of famous and notable characters across MCM that weren't from an established theme, and were instead made from back stories and canons created by their players.

Addendum by Onyxia: It's reasonably popular. Some of our new themes are made up from whole cloth; others are based loosely on existing series. I'm not sure what the proportion is.

Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader (Owner): Not as popular as some would hope, but it has had some that are devoted to it. Original themes are basically worlds that joined with the Multiverse, but are not directly based on anything other than the player's imagination - for instance, if someone always wanted to write a story about a particular kingdom, they could do that here. Although we don't recommend that for aspiring writers (since some publishers might count verbatim copying into a MUSH as a form of pre-publication and make their potential publication worth less on the market), the idea is the same. Typically one gets an original theme in hopes of encouraging others to apply for characters from that world. Although we've had some themes come and go, a few have stayed around for a long while. In particular, one that was developed to help people who liked some particularly unique themes that were otherwise difficult to apply from due to the aforementioned intellectual property issues, that has been, relatively speaking, very popular. Of course, the best advertisement of an original theme is the RP of the one(s) who founded it, so if you think you'd like to give it a shot, we'd encourage you to.

MH: What's been the greatest moment for MCM thus far?

The Guy: There are too many to count. The MUSH has had so many large plots that ran in the past, to pick one great moment in RP would be impossible. Off the top of my head I can easily think of the time Solid Snake brought the killing blow down on the incarnation of an evil alternate universe. With a combat knife. Or Dr. Doom acquiring Power Multiversal and challenging the Union, after taking over Paradise Island. Or when Nanoha Takamachi ascended to Field Marshal of the Union and brought an epic clash to the gates of New Pyongyang against the new Confederate Field Marshal, Alice Maestra. These examples don't even scratch the surface of the iceberg of great moments.

MH: What's been the darkest moment?

Mr. Rogers/Fearless Leader (Owner): Probably early on. Some bad calls were made because the place grew so fast. This is a trend that I've noticed in many MU*'s that succeed - they suddenly acquire and sustain a massive playerbase. However, often the admin are not ready for such a massive influx. Some of those 'bad calls' turned out to be blessings in disguise, but nevertheless, it was not necessarily a happy-fun-time, especially since RL was affecting a lot of staffers (including myself) quite negatively at the time.

MH: Share a Twitterblurb-length summation of what you want people to think of when they're considering MCM (140 characters or less!)

Asagi: Goku and Superman fighting Doctor Doom on an exploding planet while Picard evacuates civilians. This is the best way to envision what MCM stands for in under 140 characters.

MH: What hobbies do you have outside of MUSH development?

Reliant: I'm into tabletop gaming (Exalted is a favorite of mine), anime/manga (although less so now than I was about five years back), comic books (just started reading Fables), and video games. I'm kind of picky (okay, not really), but I also like to read novels of a fairly wide variety. I'm fond of most anything by Neil Gaiman (particularly his short stories, and The Graveyard Book), and just got started on "A Game of Thrones" in the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series by George R. R. Martin.

Firefox: I'm still an avid video gamer and collector. Kids would have a hayday walking into my living room and seeing all the Transformers, Zoids, LEGOs and other assorted action figure stuff decorating my shelves. Still read a fair bit of sci-fi and mystery too, but I can't stand the wangst and whiny overdramatized or almost lewd 'romance' that gets thrown into a lot of newer writer, bleh. I play some roleplay stuff like Dungeons & Dragons, but even that is done mostly online these days.

MH: What do you want players to take away from their experiences on MCM?

Asagi: MCM is a great way to hone your writing talent, truth be told. The players are, for the most part, friendly and courteous on an OOC level and many are more than willing to help out. If there's one quality I'd want players who leave MCM to take on to other MUSHes and even other endeavors at real life, it's that they remember when they were a new player, remember that people helped them learn the ropes, get familiar, and learn their way, and that they use that remembrance to help other people that are just starting out, in any area. Whether it be teaching a new MUSHer how to RP, or helping an old lady that just moved in to town find a store she's looking for. No one likes to feel like the odd man out, and MCM's playerbase tries its hardest to welcome all newcomers.

Addendum by Onyxia: Most of all, I want players on MCM to have a good time and want to come back and play more - different scenes, different series, different characters. Secondarily, if somebody plays in a scene on MCM and comes away wanting to read/watch the published material for a theme - a novel, a comic book, a movie, a TV show - then I see that as a bonus too ... partly because I'm a fan of some very obscure series.

MH: How do you expect MCM to evolve over the next five years?

Asagi: I expect a great deal of change from MCM in the next five years, both on an IC and OOC level. One of the things I always prided MCM in having is a great strive to improve itself. The factions are always trying new setups and scene ideas, and the admin are always working to refine everything from news files to the combat code itself. MCM is a MUSH that is constantly striving to be as perfect as it can be. So, in five years, I expect it to be substantially different than it is today, while also keeping the core aspects that made it such a great MUSH from the very beginning.

***

Thanks to the crew from Multiverse Crisis MUSH for taking the time to respond to these questions!

MUDdy Hobo Trackside Interview: Matt Adcock@MUDGamers.com

The MUDdy Hobo recently had a chance to ask a bunch of questions of Matt Adcock, whose official site can be found at bc-dev.net. We appreciate him taking the time to answer!

MH: How did you first discover MUDs?

Matt Adcock: I guess I was a relative latecomer to MUDs. I first discovered them around 1998/9 while at university. I don’t remember exactly how I started, possibly through TMC I think. I tried a few games that I don’t really remember much about, but the first MUD I played for any length of time was called Avalon.

MH: You indicated on your website that FMud, your Flash-based MUD client, came about because you weren't happy with existing web-based clients. How popular has FMud become since it became available? What are you happy with? What still needs work?


Matt Adcock: There are several MUDs out there using it and I think it is definitely a good alternative to something like the JTA telnet client. The biggest barrier to entry is the requirement to serve a policy file and that’s what I get the most support queries about. Unfortunately, this is required by the Flash player and the only real workaround is to use a proxy, which is what I did with MudGamers.

I think the client definitely looks nicer than some of the Java ones out there, and the scripting capabilities are pretty advanced for an embedded client. You can also save logs in plain text or HTML and load/save script settings locally which is nice.

The main problems with the client are the telnet and terminal support which are rather limited. It works well enough for the majority of MUDs out there, but ideally I’d like it to be more compliant. Background colours are probably the most glaring omission right now.

MH: How did your RPG project, Maiden Desmodus, come about?

Matt Adcock: About a year ago, I was looking to get involved in a MUD project and responded to an ad on TMC from Wade Gustafson who was looking for a partner to work with on a new project. Wade is an excellent writer and a very creative guy and he had several game themes that he’d fleshed out and between us we settled on Maiden Desmodus.

Wade does all the writing and the overall world theme and story, while I do the programming and design the game systems and mechanics. There is some crossover of course and we frequently bounce ideas off each other, but generally we work really well together within our own areas.

MH: What's the current status of Maiden Desmodus?

Matt Adcock: The original plan was to open Q1 of 2009 but as is often the way that has slipped a bit, but we hope to open soon. Certainly it’ll be a matter of weeks rather than months.

We began last summer and while it doesn’t feel like nearly a year I’m pleased with how much we have done in that time. As of today we have 1069 rooms, 373 objects, 171 mobiles and 297 scripts – all unique prototypes. We also have around 20,000 more lines of code than when we started.

I made the decision right away to use Nakedmud as a base to build on and I think it definitely gave us a head start compared to coding from scratch. It was a bit of a risk as at the time there were no operational MUDs using the codebase, but I liked the design and it was actively maintained which is a huge benefit.

MH: How are you approaching theme development on Maiden Desmodus? Are you providing a detailed history for players to build from or do you focus more on broader strokes while players fill in more of the details as time goes by?

Matt Adcock: There is definitely a distinct theme and world history to Maiden Desmodus. This is based around a faction conflict between two warring Kingdoms, as well as the mysterious figure of the Maiden Desmodus herself. I guess the setting would best be described as medieval low magic fantasy with a dark horror feel. It’s pretty gritty and brutal and I think it’s a nice change of pace from the more common gothic type of horror you often see in MUDs.

What we’re working on right now is putting in a long quest line which will introduce new players to the game world, history and the ongoing faction conflict. Each faction has a line of 20 quests each so hopefully these will really help to engage players with the setting.

Wade wrote a full-length novel based around another game theme he developed, so he is pretty detail-oriented and it’s fair to say he knows the setting of Maiden Desmodus inside and out. Unfortunately I spend too much time in the code and can’t even find my way around the world half the time, which is a little embarrassing I suppose. Although having designed the combat system I can PK him really easily :)

MH: How did the MUDGamers site come about?

Matt Adcock: It was something of a Sunday afternoon thing that I did after being frustrated trying to navigate TMC. I thought it would be so much cooler if MUD portal sites were more like modern web game sites such as Kongregate. Presenting games clearly and providing players with plenty of tools to sort and find games they are interested in playing, combined with a ‘click to play’ interface just seemed like a really good idea. This is even more important when you are trying to attract new players from outside the established MUD community.

I never really intended MudGamers to seriously compete with the likes of TMC and TMS, it was more of a ‘call to action’ for those sites to show them that MUDs can be presented in a more modern, appealing and accessible way. That said however, traffic is increasing and we just hit 75 games listed on the site so I am really pleased with how it’s working out.

MH: On your site, you state that you're working on a client for Iron Realms Entertainment. What's the status of that project? How did it come about?

Matt Adcock: The project is mostly complete now and the client has been used by IRE on several Flash gaming sites as well as on their main portal site. Back when I was first developing FMud I had heard that IRE were looking at doing a Flash based client so I got in touch and we went from there. Jeremy at IRE has been great to work with and it was a lot of fun working with him and their design guy to knock the client into shape. It was also a good learning opportunity for me as FMud was actually my first project using Adobe Flex.

MH: How optimistic are you about the future of text-based games? Why?

Matt Adcock: I am definitely optimistic and believe that MUDs have the potential to grow. Text games will always have a niche appeal, but with more and more people getting into online games there has to be a new audience out there for MUDs. Even my mother in law enjoys playing web games in her spare time.

Taking IRE as an example, if you look at the comments on their Kongregate entry there are plenty of “wtf text suxors” comments, but equally there are quite a few from players who’d never played a text game before and really enjoyed it. We need to find better ways of reaching these gamers.

Again this goes back to the reasoning behind MudGamers, I imagined someone coming from a MMORPG or web gaming background landing on TMC and just not knowing where to start. We need to say really clearly to people “these are the games, click here to play them”.

MH: What's the most important lesson MUD developers can learn from graphical MMORPGs?

Matt Adcock: The single biggest lesson is accessibility, no doubt about it. By this I mean ease with which a new player can get into your game. If you look at modern MMORPGs like WoW, WAR, AoC etc, character creation is simple, there are no separate tutorials to complete, no manuals to read, and new players are directed where to go and what to do as soon as they enter the game world.

Too often in MUDs I see a detailed character creation process where the player is forced to make character choices without knowing the consequences of those choices. This is often followed by some kind of “MUD school” that is completely removed from the rest of the game, often accompanied by lists of help files to read and remember. Couple this with some pretty arcane syntax and many games can be quite intimidating to players unfamiliar with MUDs.

Whatever the focus of your game, whether it is hack and slash, PvP, role-playing or whatever, the key is to get new players involved in that right from the start. You need to draw them in from the moment they log in, not tell them to go spend an hour reading help files or wandering around a phoney MUD school.

MH: How valuable are social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook for MUDs? Why?

Matt Adcock: Social networking is a great way to reach people who may share a common interest with you, so in that sense sites like Facebook could be used by MUDs as a marketing tool. I know FMud can be embedded on Facebook, MySpace or as a Google widget for example.

I think there are one or two MUDs that use Twitter for broadcasting game information and events in real time, and certainly if more people talk about MUDs whether on regular blogs or on services like Twitter it can only help MUDs as a whole. I personally use both Facebook and Twitter (@bcdev), although not specifically to publicise my MUD projects.

MH: Have you built a career around your projects or are they something you do in spare time? What do you do for a living?

Matt Adcock: I do have some commercial MUD projects, but I think it’d be something of a stretch to say I make a living from them! I have a wonderful day job taking care of my daughter and also work freelance as a web developer.

MH: What MUD-focused sites do you follow? Why?

Matt Adcock: I follow TMC, TMS and Mudbytes, although I am not a very frequent contributor to any of them. I also read quite a few blogs and other gaming sites such as Massively and Gamasutra. I do enjoy keeping up with what’s going on in the MUD and wider MMORPG community, although the signal to noise ratio can be pretty low a lot of the time.

MH: Are current MUD-focused sites missing something? What can they do to make themselves more relevant and viable?


Matt Adcock: As I’ve said before, I’d love to see a MUD community portal site that looked and functioned a lot more like a site such as Kongregate. A modern look with simplified navigation is important to attract and retain new visitors, and a way to play the listed games without having to download a dedicated client is really essential.

It’s not just about cosmetic changes however. I also think there needs to be a fundamental shift in thinking by those of us who run MUDs. Traditionally there has been a lot of competition for players between MUDs but I believe this only harms the community in the long run. We all have our favourite few MUDs, but these often change over time as we discover new games or revisit old ones. I’d like to see portal sites that bring MUDs and their individual player bases together, where I can try out a variety of MUDs and hopefully find several that I can enjoy playing. Once you add in cross game features like chat and rankings you can really start to build a sense of community between games, rather than the site simply being a place to list in order to attract players to your own game.

MUDs are definitely a niche market, yet they can offer players a wide range of unique gameplay experiences. It’s vital that we, as MUDs, present what we’re about in the best possible way. I have the greatest respect for the existing MUD community sites and I think they do a great job, however I believe there are better ways to present MUDs, particularly to those who may never have played one before.

MH: One opportunity presented by MUDGamers.com is the sense of multiple projects available at a click through a single platform. Where do you see that going in the coming years?


Matt Adcock: Personally I’d love to take the MudGamers concept of “click to play” and apply it to a smaller selection of high quality games with cross game features like chat, achievement ladders and badges, all combined with a common account and micro transaction system. Something similar to what Skotos do I guess, but with a free to play model and more cross game features. This way you can build a community around a collection of games with the goal of sharing players rather than competing for them. You could also add in some simple Flash games that complement the MUDs, such as MUD themed mini games or even link them to the MUDs directly. One of the ideas I’ve got for Maiden Desmodus is to take the mass warfare system I’m working on out of the MUD completely and into a simple graphical strategy game on the website where the outcome of battles would be reflected in the MUD.

MH: What books are you reading these days? Got any movies, music, and games to recommend?

Matt Adcock: It’s terrible but I haven’t read a novel in ages. I’m reading Ted Castranova’s Synthetic Worlds right now which already feels a little dated but is a fascinating read none the less. I’m a big Steven Erikson fan and I think he has a new one out this Summer, but it’s frustrating waiting for the next novel as you invariably forget half of what’s happened before. I’ve also been following George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire but I’ve no idea when his next one is out, he seems to have been writing it for years now. My wife loved the new Star Trek but I fell asleep before the end so not sure I can really recommend it!

As far as gaming goes I don’t have as much time as I’d like and haven’t had the Xbox on for a couple weeks now. I tried Age of Conan recently but couldn’t really get into it so I am getting my MMORPG fix from Warhammer these days. It’s frustrating as I want to really like it, but it always somehow disappoints. It’s wonderfully accessible and I love how you can jump into PvP through scenarios or realm conflict almost immediately. The way the realm conflict is scaled in particular is great design but in practice there’s something missing. I almost wonder if it’s just too easy; you can jump in and out of PvP as you like, there’s no death penalty and with the open party system no need to find a group. It’s almost like there are no incentives not to suck, and with a game that forces team play to such a degree, being surrounded by mediocre players is no fun at all. If things get much worse I may have to turn to Darkfall. But I digress. I don’t really play any MUDs at the moment as I am too focused on Maiden Desmodus.

MH: Are you most passionate about the programming elements or the creative facets of your projects? More about nuts and bolts than the shiny? Why?

Matt Adcock: I like to think that programming is creative, at least it is the way I do it! I guess you’d say I love the nuts and bolts, the mechanics and the systems behind the design. The “how and the why” of games has always appealed to me, even as a player.

MH: Are text-based games that don't offer some form of web-based interface effectively doomed to perpetually tiny playerbases? How can they reach beyond the niche audience otherwise?

Matt Adcock: I don’t know about doomed, but they are certainly limiting their appeal if they don’t offer a web interface. There are plenty of options around in either Flash or Java, and I’ve even seen a few HTML implementations, so it should be relatively simple for any game to setup. They could even list on MudGamers and redirect from their own website direct to the client page if they wanted.

MH: You've blogged about the need for more commercialized MUDs. Has there been any blowback from this from people who condemn the monetization of text-based games? Why is it important to see more commercialized games?


Matt Adcock: I haven’t had any negative feedback on that actually, although there are definitely a few people in the MUD community who think commercial games are taboo. I don’t think it’s a particularly credible position given that MUDs have been commercial for at least as long as they’ve been free, and certainly before free codebases like DIKU and LP.

The main reason I’d like to see more commercial projects is I believe that this would raise the general profile of text games and help to attract more players to all MUDs. More revenue for MUDs means they can spend more on advertising, particularly outside the established MUD community. Developing new portal and community sites with the kinds of features I’ve mentioned would also cost money.

MH: What's the most important thing a MUD developer needs to consider before embarking on their own project?

Matt Adcock: I think you really need to be clear what your motivations are and what you hope to achieve. If you just want to learn programming that’s great, but if you want to produce a game try not to get too bogged down in the technical details. I suppose at this point I should make the customary appeal for people to join an existing project rather than start their own, but nobody who wants to run their own MUD wants to hear that :)

The single most important thing is to make sure you finish what you start.

MH: Where do you see MUDs going as a medium in the next few years? Five? Ten? Are they still around? What niche are they filling?


Matt Adcock: I’d like to see MUD portal sites incorporating some of the features I’ve advocated, and I definitely think we’ll see more web based clients in the future, particularly with custom features like maps, stat bars etc. I also think we’ll see more games merging, at least in terms of marketing, so rather than all trying to attract players to their own websites they can come under one site with a common interface.

While lacking the shinies of big graphical MMORPGs, MUDs can still fill an important niche for several years yet. Given that they are so much cheaper to develop and operate MUDs are able to cater to minority gaming interests in ways that graphical MMORPGs simply cannot. Features such as enforced role-play or permadeath, obscure historical settings and frequent administration run events just aren’t commercially viable for many graphical MMORPGs.

Graphical games will eventually catch up and we’re already seeing this for example with the Hero Engine which uses similar content creation tools to those that MUDs have had for years (not surprising given that it’s from Simutronics). I’m sure these types of tools will find their way to the masses one day, and then we’ll be inundated with hobbyist graphical MMORPGs, DIKU style. Art is still a huge barrier but maybe in the future procedural generation will become more viable and creating content for a graphical game will be on a par with that for a text game.

There will always be some players who just prefer text over graphics of course, but once graphical games are as cheap and easy to produce then we may well see the end of MUDs. I think that day is still a long way off though.

MUDdy Hobo Trackside Interview: Aristotle@Threshold

We recently had the opportunity to ask a bunch of questions of Aristotle, lead developer over at Threshold, about his text-based online roleplaying game.

MH: How did you get involved in MUDs?

Aristotle: I played MUD-like BBS games in college, and a friend on my favorite BBS said to me one day "hey, you should try these games on the internet called MUDs." I took him up on the offer, and my life was irrevocably altered (for the better!).

MH: What's the origin story behind Threshold? What led to it opening in 1996?

Aristotle: The OOC origin story? Well, I had given up on MUDs due to having a bunch of my code stolen a few years earlier. But one summer I was clerking for a law firm, not really liking it, and needed something "fun" to do. So I decided I'd take another crack at making a MUD, but this time I would do it solo so my code couldn't be stolen. That was how Threshold came to be.

The IC origin story is something you need to play Threshold to discover.

MH: How has the playerbase changed since the advent of graphical MMORPGs?

Aristotle: I think Threshold's playerbase has become a little older and more mature since the advent of graphical MMORPGs. While we definitely suffered an overall usage hit for a few years, the long term net effect has been very positive on our community. We lose a lot of the "l2play n00b" types to the graphical MMOs, and frankly they can keep them.

MH: Have you added features to Threshold that were meant to directly compete with MMORPGs?

Aristotle: Not really, no. We get a lot of good ideas from playing graphical MMOs, but I do not think we have ever added a feature specifically to compete with MMORPGs. The closest thing to that would be the simple fact that we always try to be mindful of the accessibility factor that MUDs have going for them. The main reason we do not have a custom client that we REQUIRE is because we want to keep Threshold (and MUDs in general) as widely accessible as possible.

MH: What makes Threshold stand out from the many other MUDs available for people to play?

Aristotle: There are three main things that make Threshold standout: 1) Is is the only RP required (and enforced) commercial game on the internet. 2) It has an absolutely wonderful community. I think the fact that our playerbase is about 50% female is a huge factor there. It helps our community stay balanced and diverse. 3) A fanatical devotion to quality. We could churn out content a lot faster if we really wanted to, but we want everything we add to the game to be top notch in quality. A corollary to this is the fact that we care very deeply about our players. We talk to them on an almost daily basis and are always open to player feedback.

MH: How do you classify Threshold: Hobbyist or commercial? Is it what you do for a living?

Aristotle: Threshold is definitely a commercial game. It is part of our company, Frogdice, and it is my full time job (as well as my wife's full time job).

MH: What do players get in exchange for making real money contributions to Threshold?

Aristotle: I should mention first that almost everything you can receive with real money can also be obtained through regular gameplay. With that said, the main things players receive are convenience options (like quick transport back to their house), in game coin, extra gear storage, and a wide variety of customization options (for their character, their house, etc.).

MH: The game is touted as the oldest RP-enforced MUDs around. How is RP enforced? Where can we check out logs of RP activities from Threshold?

Aristotle: RP is enforced largely by the community itself. New players are immediately offered help by in game advisors, and the RP requirement is made very clear. If players run afoul of it, other players try to take them aside and explain the RP requirement. If they continue to be a problem, they are reported to the admins who take over from there. It is extremely rare that admins have to get involved. It is even rarer that someone refuses to stay IC and roleplay. By making this rule very clear during creation we avoid problems before they start.

MH: What has been the brightest moment for you and your playerbase on Threshold?

Aristotle: This is an easy one. I met my wife through Threshold. For the playerbase, I think the brightest moment was when we switched to free to play. Doing that meant people never had to worry about losing a friend because they wanted to play less and could not justify a recurring fee.

MH: What has been the darkest moment for you and your playerbase?

Aristotle: I think the darkest moment for me was riding out the initial effects of the big graphical MMOs on the MUD genre. That was probably the darkest moment for our players as well. Fortunately, we played to our strengths and have been able to recover and grow quite nicely in the last 3-4 years.

MH: Threshold is an original theme, but are there any fantasy books that you'd recommend for familiarizing oneself with the tone of the game?

Aristotle: Dragonlance is an excellent series for experiencing a classic fantasy world. Threshold is a little more high fantasy than Dragonlance. David Eddings' various series would be good as well (for the traditional good vs. evil conflict), but again Threshold is more high-fantasy, high-magic.

MH: Where do most of Threshold's players hail from?

Aristotle: Threshold has players from over 50 countries. The USA, Canada, Britain, and Australia are certainly the most common due to the language issue. But it amazes me where some of our players come from. I find it particularly interesting that we have players from Israel and Iran, and have benefited from their perspective on our OOC game forums.

MH: What's the most beneficial advertising for Threshold? Paid ads or word-of-mouth?

Aristotle: Word of mouth is without a doubt the most beneficial and effective form of advertising for Threshold.

MH: What does the future hold for text-based online gaming? How will Threshold and other games like it continue to sustain themselves? Where are the new audiences to be found?

Aristotle: I hosted a roundtable discussion on this topic at the most recent IMGDC (Independent MMO Game Developers Conference). I think text games will continue to be viable and even grow as they provide a unique type of gameplay. Text games still do communication and interaction better than graphical games, largely because you are always at the chat interface. You do not have to click in a box and hit enter just to BEGIN speaking with people.

New audiences are to be found from graphical MMOs in my opinion. As graphical MMOs continue to deliver the same pure hack-n-slash gameplay, text games will be able to attract people to their deeper gameplay. Text games really should work together to get the word out on graphical MMO fan sites and forums.

MH: What are you reading lately? Favorite TV shows? Music? Movies? Computer games?

Aristotle: About half of what I read is sci-fi/fantasy, a quarter is non-fiction, and another quarter is modern thriller/drama/mystery type stuff. My absolute favorite TV show right now is Bones, but House is a close second. I rarely get to see movies (since we have two young kids), but I really want to see the new Star Trek movie, the Wolverine movie, the new Terminator movie, and Angels & Demons.

I play a lot of computer games, but right now I am pretty desperate for a good one. The last computer game I played that I really liked was The Witcher. I try to play just about every MMO out there for at least a month or two. I feel game developers really need to make an effort to play other games so they know what else is being done in the market.

MH: What can people expect from Threshold in the next year? Five years?

Aristotle: People can expect lots of interesting story and plot lines (as we continue to tell the story of Threshold's world, and let players shape it), new lands to explore, and some pretty advanced new systems that will add even more variety to Threshold's gameplay. We have a few systems currently in development that are things people have wanted for years. We added a new developer a little over a year ago and he has been a huge boon to Threshold. We have really hit our stride working together and it is paying awesome dividends for Threshold and its players.

MUDdy Hobo Trackside Interview: Revian@HSpace 5.0




For those who remember the old-school MUSH space engine known as HSpace, which had its origins on Hemlock MUSH, there's good news: A new incarnation of the project is underway at hspace.org

Revian, one of the main developers working on HSpace 5.0, took some time to answer a few questions from the MUDdy Hobo:

MH: HSpace used to be THE top-of-the-line RP MUSH space engine - so what happened to it?

Revian: It went through the hands of several coders, initially HSpace 4 was done by Gepht. When he didn't have the time anymore I took it over and developed it into 4.2, from there it was developed on my several developers, most notably Mark Hassman, who, assisted by Gepht I believe, did some work on it. This lead to the 'trueline' branch, which eventually died off as the people working on it didn't have the time anymore to work on it.

MH: How did the new resurgence come about? What drove the revival to create HSpace 5.0?

Revian: Well, I was away from the community for a bit as I settled into my real life and didn't really have the time to work on anything. Now that my life calmed down a bit I felt I should have a look how HSpace was doing. When I discovered the state it was in I decided it was time to do something back for the community where I learned many of the skills I now use in my life on a day-to-day basis. And I decided I should contribute something back, developing a new, better version of HSpace seemed like the right thing to do. Since Mongo(Shawn Sagady) had been working on a revival attempt for HS 4, I decided to contact him, he immediately responded with great enthousiasm. Because of my greater programming experience I took the programming lead role, while Shawn does more of the design side, since that's where his skill vastly surpass my own.

MH: What do you consider to be the most promising features in the works for HSpace 5.0?

Revian: It's hard to say, but I'm very excited about the modular system design, which should allow players huge flexibility in configuring and tweaking their own ships. We also have the new pseudo-Newtonian physics system, which should allow a whole new level of ship control during ship to ship combat. Additionally I'm very glad with the somewhat integrated economy, which will allow cargo mass affecting ship maneuverability. And also harvesting of resources in space. Finally, I hope that the integrated autopilot will make the system much more easy to use and attractive to the community's none-code-heavy players.

MH: The old HSpace had some mods that allowed the engine to be used on games that weren't necessarily space-oriented but did have vehicles, such as aircraft, boats, and submarines. How much support will HSpace 5.0 have for that kind of functionality?

Revian: Initially we do not plan to support that, simply because it is not our main target. We will focus on supporting space very well, as I honestly believe it's better for us to do one thing well than a lot of things and features mediocre. As a development team we're always moving though and the future might very well offer such functionality.

MH: How are you approaching HSpace development to make it more RP-friendly?


Revian:
Well, first of all we've already received a lot of great suggestions from the community. We will be integrating better automation systems meaning on regular patrols more time can be spent roleplaying, and less to monitor every single gauche on the vessel. Also we will allow for more types of ship to ship (and bridge to bridge) communication. Finally we'll try and make the messages aboard the ship give more 'feel' to the vessel, we are examining the possibilities of windows in ship rooms for example that offer players in those rooms a view of space. We are not sure how much of that we can get into the first release though.

MH: What's the biggest challenge facing HSpace 5.0?

Revian: Well, asides from the things that will be challenging and we have control over, which is making it a true contribution to existing MUSHes and there system. A challenge we have less influence over lies in bringing it to the people and getting it to be used (and improved through feedback, suggestions and patches!) by the community.

MH: When are you aiming to release HSpace 5.0 for public consumption?

Revian: Currently we believe summer 2009 is a feasible time to have a fully functional initial release. That does not mean that it will contain all features requested, since we will continue to improve and develop it past that point. But it will provide all functionality needed to run a solid roleplaying (or social) environment on.

MH: Can HSpace 5.0 be used for platforms beyond PennMUSH? If not, are there any plans to eventually try to create mods that work with other platforms?

Revian: We will not be providing that functionality from the current development team, however we did take great care to make sure integration on other platforms is as easy as possible. For those technical amongst us, there are two files to be implemented, all functions from HSIface.h need to be implemented in a CPP file, and all hooks in HSIfacePennHooks.cpp will have to be duplicated for that platform. Internally HSpace uses no code that depends on Penn.

MH: What's your background with HSpace? With other coding projects?

Revian: I am a long time roleplayer(although time has not permitted me to roleplay for quite a while), I have experienced HSpace on several MUSHes, and also tried to develop a couple MUSHes using it, but never quite succeeded. In my daily life I'm a Software Engineer for a internet media company and I have experience with many open source packages (for example Mozilla, VLC, Qt), and have contributed to some.

MH: What inspirations colored the development of HSpace 5.0? (In the past, we've talked about how physics in 5.0 will let you mimic the spin-around-under-velocity-and-shoot maneuver from Babylon 5, for example.)

Revian: Well, I've always loved Sci-Fi, Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica will most definitely have colored the development. Of course Star Trek, even though we will not Trek-orient the space system, and related technobabble will most definitely have had an influence. Last the people working on it and playing with it have inspired us, Shawn has contributed some great ideas and beaten some stupid ones out of me.

MH: What's been the biggest headache in trying to get HSpace 5.0 off the ground?

Revian: Getting people to take it seriously, thanks for helping with that!

MH: Developing a space system for a niche MUD population - a niche within a niche within a niche - seems like it might be a real boulder-up-the-hill sort of task. Why do it? Do you worry that you're investing a lot of time and energy in a system that might not get many eyes on it?

Revian: My personal ambition is mainly to learn, both in coding and in human relations it is a great learning experience to work on such a project. Although my real life job provides me with plenty of experiences and completely different learning experiences, it is within a strict corporate environment. This project gives me a chance to educate myself outside of that environment in different directions.

MH: Are there other similar applications you'd like to see developed for MUSHes?

Revian: I can't think of anything at the moment to be honest. I would love to eventually develop graphical extensions which would maintain the richness of text-based roleplaying but truly augment to the experience of the users environment.

Thanks to Revian for taking the time! And, if you're of a mind to check out the new HSpace, be sure to visit their testbed MUSH at the following telnet address: mindgames-studio.com 4201.