OtherSpace: Staff Meeting Summary - 9/30/2009

Here's a brief summary of what we discussed during the staff meeting on Wednesday night:

* Colchek is rolling with an event card activity requested by one of our players. He's also getting ready to tweak +calendar to it works with SQL rather than an in-MUSH object.
* Wik is continuing work on implementing HSpace 5.0, including docking hatches, nebulae effects, and trade. He's also developing rewards for newbie helpers.
* I'm getting the artifact tournament in motion this weekend and it should run until November. I've also begun a revamp of the OtherVerse Wiki (finally), brought back Colin Neidermeyer as a recurring character, and started posting in my personal blog again.

We talked about some other things too:

* Canonical planets - B'hira, Hekayt, etc. - will be made available to players who have a Crimson Belt and 10 alt vouchers. Control of these planets will be limited to one per player. We're working on ideas for Action Cards/Event Cards just for planets, which can be purchased with RPP, combined and redeemed for resources that can, in turn, be sold to players.
* I need to resume work on the OtherSpace online novel.
* I should proceed with redirecting the crafting system along the lines of basic/modified items rather than basic/improved/advanced.
* M*U*S*H is hosting Mudtoberfest in October. We haven't been involved in a few years. I think we should be.
* I've gotten my personal blog up and running again.

Fallen Earth: End of the World and Beginning of New Career!

About three and a half years ago, I joined the development team working on Fallen Earth. I'm pretty sure some people thought I was making it all up. I'm not sure what they thought I was doing instead. Panhandling for coins and WoW time cards at Maynard and Chapel Hill Road? Working nights for the CIA? Infiltrating the Keebler Elves cookie factory? WELL! Look at the picture! Proof positive that I have, in fact, not been making it up all this time.

The game is now a reality, complete with a box and everything.

Do you own your copy yet?

Fireworks Part 2 post-mortem

As much fun as I had with Fireworks Part 1 (the Medlidikke attack and the arrival of the Phyrrians), I think it's safe to say I actually had a little more fun with Part 2, MUCH later on Saturday.

* First, a group of Phyrrians came over from their warships, babbled about the Overmind at Tamila, and then died.
* And then I got a page from Alastair Hall that his team had made it to the Gearclanger Hub and wanted to see what they could do to bring the systems back online.

Well. This had advanced faster than I expected. I didn't think anyone would bother trying to bring Comorro out of her coma until Sunday! Now I actually had to come up with the whole story of how the Medlidikke managed to put Comorro out of commission. I thought I'd at least get to sleep on it!

Oh, well.

Originally, I was going to go with some kind of EMP. Then I was just going to have a sedative cloud of some kind. Finally, I settled on something far ickier and possibly more fun: A giant tentacled energy parasite that had grown to fill most of the engineering chamber. Not just giant, of course. It also had to be slimy.

There were some amusing moments during this scene, particularly with Eylohta trying to stab the tentacles, Alexandra trying to dodge them while hanging onto the generator the beast wanted to grab, and then Reode got to fly in and snatch the generator back from the monster. Finally, with help from a Healing Hands action card, Alastair and Alexandra came up with a nasty pharmaceutical concoction that killed the critter.

The team got nice and slimed. Win for me! And they rescued Comorro. Win for them!

My only complaint was that during the final minutes, we had a player come wandering onto the scene from the docking hub "to be where other people were." First of all, that's a classic case of metagaming. VERY bad form. Second, even if it's true that the player had no other motive, the appearance is that they're trying to muscle in on the scene. How much fun is it to spend hours working toward a solution for a scene when someone else just pops in at the final moment to screw things up (or steal the limelight)?

Don't do that kind of stuff, folks.

Anyway, great job everyone. The first IC medals are being given out today and I hear some rumblings about vengeance and such. Always a good sign!

Fireworks post-mortem (with less mortem than usual?!)

Today's Fireworks event was the first big-ticket holy-crap no-kidding Brody-tries-to-kill-everyone showcase since we made the transition to the new OtherSpace and implemented action cards.

A lot of people turned out to let me take a few shots at them. I appreciated the opportunity. I dropped 12 Medlidikke pirates into Comorro Station and rendered the sentient vessel unconscious so that she couldn't bring her own impressive array of weapons to bear on the bad guys.

To make reffing a bit cleaner, I rolled for all 12 pirates at the beginning to determine their various result levels. So, for the rest of the fight, there would be a consistent and unchanging outcome for the bad guys. The only variable would be how the good guys did and what cards they might need to employ to overcome the bad guys.

By the end of the fight, Varal, Thayndor Zahir, and Zabyra were badly injured. Seven pirates had been decapitated, disemboweled, plasma-vaped, or neck-shot. The five remaining Medlidikke grabbed Thayndor and teleported out with help from none other than Ancient Shog, everyone's favorite Thul.

First important note: No characters died! Zabyra and Thayndor came close, but Thayndor played his Tier 2 Whoa card and Sheppard came to Zabyra's rescue with a Tier 1 Lucky Break card.

I did not, as Markiel predicted, kill Markiel.

The event was a lot of fun for me. I enjoyed giving the players a challenge, but it wasn't anything they couldn't overcome, and the generosity of players like Sheppard toward Zabyra was really heartening. As it concluded, I'd managed to reintroduce one of the game's oldest villains (Shog!), introduced some new villains (the Medlidikke, up close and personal), and dropped a mysterious dozen Phyrrian warships on Comorro's doorstep.

What's up with that shit? You'll just have to wait and see.

One month after WoW...

It’s been a month since I left behind the World of Warcraft completely. So, let’s review what’s been accomplished in the post-WoW era thus far:

* We’ve got the new Drupal-powered site at http://www.jointhesaga.com
* OtherSpace has a crafting system, with items that players can customize and rename
* OtherSpace has a roleplaying "belt" system, which provides recognition for our most accomplished roleplayers
* OtherSpace has an HSpace testbed
* We've been able to showcase some fantastic new art by Reode
* I’ve kicked off a Twitter MUSH-awareness campaign
* The who list is regularly in double columns
* We've started offering bits of the old OS grid to players as keepsakes
* We're offering personalized virtual bobblehead souvenirs
* We're offering jointhesaga.com email addresses again
* We've added new races that ought to appeal to anthropomorphic roleplaying fans
* Story-wise: The Koltkamir government on Aukam formed under Zar Hideg Fekretu, creating a new foe for the playerbase

Back in January, someone asked: If OtherSpace is still sluggish in six months, would I shut it down for once and for all? The good news: No need to answer that question, because it feels like the sluggishness is fading. From a State of the Game standpoint, I think we're in pretty good shape. We've got a solid core of veteran JTSers, a growing crop of newbies, and a fairly steady flow of visitors. We've even seen players who faded away in the past showing up again with renewed enthusiasm. We've seen an uptick in PayPal contributions, which are always welcome to help offset the expense and effort of running the site and marketing the game. We're not anywhere close to break-even, but we're paid up for the year and in no danger of being shut down. Our Google analytics show an upswing in new traffic, not from old reliable sources like Top MUD Sites and the MUD Connector, but from Twitter and Facebook.

No, OtherSpace won't be shutting down anytime soon if I can help it. It's only going to keep getting stronger. As crafting continues to expand, as we add Hekayt Prime and other worlds to the grid, as we introduce the space system, OtherSpace will continue to grow and thrive thanks to the combined energies of an enthusiastic playerbase and an involved lead designer - the way it worked best in the old days.

The news for Necromundus isn't quite as cheery, but it's not all that grim, either. We've let it slip under the radar during the past few months while the lead admins worked on adding subclasses and expanding the sandboxy feel of Necromundus. However, now that OS is starting to steam along nicely and the work Necro's admins have been doing behind the scenes is close to finished, I'll start dedicating some energy to that game. Besides a lot of marketing on TMS, TMC, Twitter, and Yahoogroups, it'll get a bunch of new badges, including the roleplaying belt system that started on OtherSpace. Both OtherSpace and Necromundus will get a new belt, the Steel Belt, which will be one step above the Golden Belt - awarded to a player who accomplishes the achievement of earning a Golden Belt on both games. Another bonus for Necromundus: Anubis and Loki took on a new minion, Inari, to help spark activity. So, it's safe to assume that Necromundus is about to enjoy a renaissance of its own in the coming months.

All in all, it seems like giving up WoW and throwing myself back into the mix, full-force, is having an overall positive effect. So, what could make me happier?

* Getting some Golden Belt players who can become mentors for new players
* Spending more time writing the online novel (it has taken a back seat to the work that needs to be done in-game)
* Developing Ribas Salek through RP on OtherSpace
* Evolving the Koltkamir storyline on OtherSpace
* Getting at least a year or two ahead on server/marketing costs
* Fleshing out the information about Necromundus on the Drupal-powered site
* Settling on a BY-GOD-FINAL design for the main website at www.jointhesaga.com

We've had a lot of changes within the past year. I want to thank everyone from OS:NJ, Millennium, and Chiaroscuro who weathered the storm of our transition to the new OtherSpace. It amazes me how well that hare-brained scheme of mixing the three playerbases worked out. Yes, we had some regrettable losses as some players didn't want to make the shift, but we've bounced back. We'll be here when they decide to give us another try.

On quitting WoW

It's not like I hate World of Warcraft. I don't.

It's not that I got in some kind of personality clash with people there. I didn't.

The problem is a simple matter of mathematics: Once I add up all the major obligations I've got in my life, I just don't have time to make the most out of WoW the way I could in the past.

Too many other things need my attention right now:

* Karen and her son, Stefan, who lives with us half the time.
* My job working on Fallen Earth.
* My games at jointhesaga.com.
* And, when time allows, content for the MUDdy Hobo blog.

I've gotten to know some great people through WoW. I springboarded into MMORPG development as a career thanks to that game. Chances are, come the next expansion, I'll poke around to see what's new.

But, for now, I'm setting it aside.

R.I.P. Dave Arneson

Dave Arneson, one of the founding fathers of the tabletop RPG, has died at the age of 61.

If it wasn't for the work he did along with Gary Gygax in the 1970s, I probably wouldn't be doing what I do today.

Life without WoW...

...might be a lot more productive. Seriously.

I took the last week or so away from my race to gather achievements on World of Warcraft. As a result, OtherSpace now has:

* Its own achievement system, with badges.
* A new tutorial area.
* Event cards.
* Action cards.
* The foundations of a new crafting system.
* An open house.
* Quite a bit of promotional advertising around the web.

Go figure.

Of course, now I'm going back to work on my Loremaster achievement, dammit.

IGDA: Fallen Earth presentation! (Raleigh)

We were at the Ess Lounge in downtown Raleigh tonight to show off Fallen Earth, which is now in closed beta. The crowd was big, enthusiastic, and apparently really interested in the game.

Next week, we're off to Baltimore to make a similar presentation to another IGDA crowd. I'm really looking forward to it!

Stuff's afoot on OtherSpace

We've run into a bit of a lull during the past few weeks on OtherSpace (jointhesaga.com 1790), but I think that's about to change.

1) Okaskatitch, the B'hiri ambassador, has arrived on Comorro Station and, after talking to several refugees, has come up with an idea to use the Harrower to travel back to normalspace to prevent the course of events that leads to the Kretonians invading the Orion Arm.

2) The crew of the Zero Gravitas went on a salvage mission to Rigor Strand. In the process, they pissed off the Medlidikke (bloodthirsty Hekayti pirates) and came away with a shadowy hitchhiker. From the pirate side of things, this incident sparked the creation of Vard Bokren, a cruel and ruthless leader of the Medlidikke who I'm hoping will become the new OtherSpace's answer to villains like Colin Neidermeyer and Majordomo Grim. (If you've ever watched Farscape, I'm looking to bring a Scorpius-like vibe to Vard.)

3) I'm trying - and I've encouraged other staffers - to schedule specific times on the +calendar when we'll have our characters on the grid and available for RP.

Introducing: The MUDdy Hobo

I've grown tired of people talking about how text-based games are dead. They're not. They just don't have the same audience size as graphical MMORPGs. World of Warcraft is so loud that it can drown out the games that made its success possible in the first place.

So, I've started a new blog, called The MUDdy Hobo. I'll review text-based games, interview their developers, and do whatever else I can to help raise awareness about these projects.

Hop aboard and become a hobo with me!

Short Attention Span Review: "Guitar Hero World Tour"

So, yesterday I got my copy of Guitar Hero World Tour for the Wii. Right now, I've only got the guitar controller, so I haven't tried playing with anything else. Based on my first impressions of playing through the starting songs: Dude, this is more fun and challenging on Medium than Rock Band. Plus, I like the selection of music a lot more. They're not all gems (I'm looking at YOU, Paramore) but there's a lot of good material that I like.

And now for something completely local...

...My appearance on the News 14 community news broadcast from the Global Game Jam.

Can I get a "w00t-w00t"?

http://news14.com/content/top_stories/604359/game-designers-converge-on-cary/Default.aspx

OtherSpace: The Super Bowl Commercial

In a universe where reality itself is unraveling...

* A black hole swallows a spaceport lobby
* Bright blue energy rifts tear open in the middle of a busy urban landscape
* Angry Cossacks gallop through one of these rifts on horseback, only to find themselves adrift in deep space

Sometimes you must choose...

* Starships gather around a dusty gray planetoid
* People on a windswept plain bid farewell to friends who vanish in flashes of cerulean light

Stand and fight to repair what went wrong...

* Several glowing-eyed figures float in space, focusing their will on a great space vessel before them
* A silver-haired, olive-skinned man is pounced by a claw-thrashing reptiloid
* A woman with glowing eyes, adrift in orbit of the dusty gray planetoid, shouts in despair as she's trapped, powerless, inside a bubble

Or seek refuge in another place. Another time...

* A massive vessel built inside a rocky planetoid is cocooned in blue light and vanishes
* A starship faces off against a warship that zooms out of an energy rift
* A roaming stellar casino materializes in the midst of a broad asteroid field
* A sentient space station floats alone through the dark silence of Hiverspace

But sometimes you find that no sanctuary is truly safe...

* Brutal pirate vessels swarm the casino in the asteroid field, blasting it with lethal energy weapons
* Furred bipeds leap at what appears to be a sword-wielding knight in armor
* A man who bears a striking resemblance to a giant talking bunny gets swallowed by a couch
* People look around at each other and start glowing
* Alarm klaxons wail
* Someone screams
* The casino explodes

Fade to black

Fade in:

OtherSpace
A classic online space opera gets a fresh start

jointhesaga.com 1790

Or play via web browser at http://mudgamers.com/home/client/?host=jointhesaga.com&port=1790

A Farewell to Rock Band?

Karen and Stefan got me a Best Buy gift card for Christmas. It's been sitting in my wallet, untouched, for more than a month!

Well, tonight I splurged and ordered Guitar Hero World Tour because, to put it simply, I'm a little tired of Rock Band and I *much* prefer the songs available on Guitar Hero. (Karen does too - she likes some Cheap Trick songs, but if she hears "Hello, Hello!" one more time, she might take a hatchet to the new TV.)

Besides: I don't have the coordination for drumming and I'm too self-conscious to sing.

So, sometime this weekend, I should be jamming to the Eagles and Bob Seger for a change.

Thinking long-term about OtherSpace...

A conversation came up in Director chat last night among staffers who are worried about keeping the new momentum on OtherSpace and what steps we can take to prevent backsliding in activity and interest.

Well, lulls happen. But it's easy in retrospect to look back at the history of OtherSpace - more than a decade - and understand why it became harder and harder to attract and keep new players. As a result, it's also pretty easy to understand what we have to do to prevent a decline of our own making (rather than the usual seasonal slumps that come and go).

One of the great strengths and interesting features of the original OtherSpace was our willingness to turn the theme on its head and really shake things up. It was gutsy and it was fun. But, ultimately, it was detrimental to the long-term health of the game. We shoved everyone onto Sanctuary, dumped a bunch of old theme, added new theme, threw in some wackiness with alternate worlds due to the Moebius Effect, let one player blow up a world, brought that world back from the dead, and created a thematic morass that was just far too complicated for total newbies to bother to wrap their brains around.

So, the obvious solution for the long-term health of 2009 “reboot” OtherSpace: Avoid overcomplicating the broader theme of the game universe and focus instead on smaller stories. Starship crews come and go, but our universe should be relatively constant. So, if we want to do shake-it-up events, focus them on the starship crews instead of the universe at large. When possible, let the commanders of those starships run their own internal “shake-it-up” events.

We need to run events that expand and enrich canon, rather than changing or replacing it.

Long ago, I was enamored with the idea of kicking down the sand castle once we finished building it. Now, I'm much more interested in adding new wings to the castle, maybe moving it further away from the eroding forces of the tide, and strengthening its foundations for the long term.

For Wheel of Time fans...

...looks like big things in the works!

More MUD Wikis? A good thing!

In response to Wikipedia's recent snubbing of MUDs as a noteworthy facet of the Internet, some folks have started up a new MUD Wiki! I don't consider it a hostile opponent of the MU* Wiki. In fact, it's awesome to see more text-based game Wikis cropping up. More visibility all around - that's a good thing.

Age of Conan: Not very long

Age of Conan? Maybe a year. Not much longer than that. Lots of servers closing down, plus reports of layoffs at Funcom: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21816

Fallen Earth dev chat transcript!

Here's the transcript of tonight's Fallen Earth dev chat on Stratics IRC. We do this once a month:

http://forums.fallenearth.com/fallenearth/showthread.php?p=164144#post164144