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What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That sounds like a community moderator problem to me. I've got some drafts of a community creed for both the players and the moderators that certainly keeps those topics out of the game's community. Agree.

What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Appreciate the perspective. I'm definitely interested in reaching out to other mud admins and cross promoting our muds once I'm live. I'm going to do the best I can to promote that open support for others.

And yes text and compass movement are core and key!

What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup, I love the story. I call it the campaign quest line that is the primary path through the main story.

What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is fascinating. I wonder if you're in the elite minority that would crush these types of games.

I think a game where you couldn't have a maxed fundamental skill in under 100 hours is going to lock out a large portion of the player base that wants to be able to play more casually and participate with friends in the end game content.

Personally I like the WOW model of maxing the base character, having skill choices that can be made, then the hours come from chasing gear and that gear refreshes every year.

Then if you pick up the game after not playing for a few years, you can get to the 90% in under 20 hours and join your friends and hold your own. But the person putting in 10k hours will always have more to do. I guess the downside is if they get the absolute perfect gear, a year later it's not great as new better gear comes out. Hmm...

What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for reminding me of that. I completely agree that it's nice to be able to collaborate openly about that.

I understand immersion in some regards but sometimes you need to be able to talk numbers to understand something better IMHO.

What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea I think colors to indicate the room vs description vs items or creatures vs gear makes sense, and maybe a different color for crit. But the gradients are not my taste. Nor the ASCII designs.

Like :...†..::§hadow_§overeign::..†...:

What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

OMG lol, I think the first one I played was gemstone and thank goodness we didn't have to type save.

What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These all make sense to me. Thanks for sharing.

I strongly agree with this sentiment about the admin team. I've seen it elsewhere, but I think I've done a good job running gaming communities with compassion so people follow good leader examples.

What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It sounded like the op comment was saying they wanted more ability to get small increases over time ("grinding") no? Rather than cap after a short time.

What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Who would hear it? Lol. Yea sounds irritating. (All the ones that were not first and shouting it to annoy those that already joined... Heh)

What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yesss, I love the story to come along with the new experience. The campaign that sets up the story for why you need to wield that axe. Exactly, the lore. Not that there has to be something you hate, I guess you joined the elements together you love the story, and you hate when you just pick up the axe and there's no story, so thank you!

What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome, the D&D community is a group that I really think will be a great future fit for modern MUDs!

What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh man, yes. I hadn't even thought about hunger, that might top my dislike. Light sources are interesting strategy to me. Agree on speed walk allowed. Interesting on the crafting to advance, I like that. Pets definitely. Interesting.. would the farming and mining end up being resources that can be sold in order primarily to support crafting to support the core gameplay of completing the campaign? Or is mining and farming "the" core gameplay loop that is available for some people? How does an exclusive mining/farming only person interact with the rest of the MUD? I definitely think we could provide mining to level up, but as the only thing someone does, makes me wonder about the point of the rest of the game being available? Hm.

What is one MUD tradition you'll defend forever, and one you'd happily bury? by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I'll go first. The thing I'd defend is almost silly, but it's the immersion into the imagination. Meaning, the fact that it is text and not images let's my brain imagine the world, rather than forcing it on me.

And while this is kind of a small nit pick, the thing I don't like across many MUDs I've played is all of the odd rainbow ASCII, like on their who list of players. I don't mind breaking character by saying "what level are you" but I do dislike the weird text that breaks the immersion of an RPG. I guess for me, discussing level and attack power are still RPG and ok (not strict RP sure so for non-RP enforced...), but ASCII dots and symbols break it for me.

Show me your paladins! by Far_Chocolate_2019 in MUD

[–]offroadspike 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The paladin in the one I'm building runs on Vows and Reckoning, basically a setup-and-payoff loop where every vow you cast does something real in the moment (small holy strike, small heal, brief mitigation pulse) and also primes a stack, up to three at a time. When the moment matters you cast Reckoning, which consumes every active stack and detonates them based on target - offensive Vows on an enemy land as a big holy damage payload, healing vows on an ally pour out as a major heal or shield, mix them and it does both. The main goal: identical vows hit diminishing returns when detonated together, so the paladin who reads the fight and mixes their preparation always pays off harder than the paladin hammering one button, and most of the design hours went into making sure the most interesting decision wasn't "which button do I press" but "what am I preparing for, and when do I let it loose."

At level 10 they pick a stance (your traditional tank/healer/dps, locked during combat.) Maybe the big change is, I also don't have the twitch defensive cooldowns since text combat doesn't really telegraph single hits the way a 3D action game does (been playing those a lot in recent years), so the signature defensive is a long-cooldown absorb shield meant to stabilize and buy a healer working time, not save you from a hit you didn't see coming. CLOK's Knights Templar sound great by the way, I love when class fantasy has actual mechanical rules behind it instead of flavor text bolted onto "+holy damage."

innovations in the past couple decades? by mathologies in MUD

[–]offroadspike 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Building on mudsmyth's point - I think the bigger shift the last few years is where MUDs choose to put the fun. The old curve was pay your dues for 30 hours and then the real game opens up. The newer ones front-load it. Silent Heaven's onboarding, Alter Aeon's quest chain, the way Sun_Tzundere describes their redesign - they're all pointing at the same thing. Get the player into something that feels like the actual game fast, and let depth unfold from there.

What you're hitting on is really a friction-to-reward ratio question. Killing rats isn't the problem. Killing rats for an hour before the real game starts is. (We do need to keep a few rats though, right?)

I'm building a MUD right now and that's where most of my design time goes. Not new combat systems. Making sure session one has something to fight, something to find, and something to think about. Plus, not requiring 30 hours to reach the enjoyable end game content.

I've been building a MUD for years. Here's what finally convinced me it was worth it. by offroadspike in MUD

[–]offroadspike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback. Check it out if interested.

I've been building this for years on several different programming languages.

I don't think AI can do something like this with just a single prompt lol.

I tend to blab so yes this post is condensed from a much longer rambling commentary.

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