-- BEGIN: Creative Writing & Text-Based Games by Audumla -- Vexon smiles at Audumla, "There she is!" Vexon claps as he steps to the side of the stage, "Take it away." Audumla says, "Give me a moment to clear some channels" Audumla says, "There." Vexon steps quietly backstage Audumla says, "Well, I am Audumla. Most of you know that part. I have a few things I like to do in MUSHing, but the one that I think I do best is run my little World of Darkness MUSH, Granite: NH by Night." Audumla says, "In 1995, after a couple of years of dealing with the insanity of text-based gaming on AOL, I struck out and started an IRC channel to carry forward a few ideas that had inspired me to put up with the mayhem that was endemic to AOL chatrooms." Audumla says, "#Blksquirrel was an evening game with a simple waiterbot, some dice, and a few roleplayers. Not really that much different than nost IRC channel games, save for the inclusion of creative writing as an assumed part of regular roleplay there." Audumla says, "I got involved in MUSHing during that year in the IRC, but found most of the games lacking the full-throttle creative element that I enjoyed through the IRC and AOL exeriences, so I ported IRC game to MUSH and Granite has been there ever since." Audumla says, "Most people groan when you say "World of Darkness", and they are certainly right too. I fully admit that the genre has fallen prey to the problems that any popular genre has. I played D&D back in the days before the hardcover books, so it isn't really new to watch a genre slide downhill." David groans. Audumla says, "But where we went with Granite in the early days is what made the game what it is now. From the outset, we did our best to make the game accessable and playable both on and offline, built it around a story that we could actually point to and say "Go read this." And that, I believe is certainly doable in any genre, prepublished or original themed." Audumla says, "The premise at work is giving players access to the story, giving them a bit of stake in the direction and quality of the work in progress, encouraging them to develop their characters in a forum that lets them show off a little, show the internal parts you might not get to see on the grid, then post it to a forum, such as a mailing list, that lets others gain insight and appreciate that there is a story going on around them." Audumla says, "We archive all stories posted to our list at our game website. After 4 and a half years, the archive is just under 10 meg. We provide support for people who have never written and published anything before, which gets people to try. It's really awesome to watch some of these folks take a stab and succeed, not only in getting their work posted, but also glow when they get compliments from their fellow players." Audumla notes that anyone wanting to ask questions can chime in. Apocalypse says, "What, specifically, do you mean when you say 'a story?' As in, a piece of original narrative fiction, or...?" Apocalypse refers to your comment about Granite having "a story." Audumla says, "Our game revolves around both grid level play and the story list. People literally take RP experiences and write short stories from the perspective of the character." Audumla says, "Granite also has a highly developed uberplot. We basically sat down with the game system and picked through the material to find out what had been said about our region, Upper New England, and then started working on how best to play our game within the rough boudaries of the published material." Audumla says, "For instance, the vampires are playing stories based somewhat on a supplement. The magi are playing in a situation we pulled from both published material, but also using elements that we felt would keep the playing field level in a multi-racial WoD game." Apocalypse says, "Can you give some specific examples? I've seen a lot of the same types of problems in SW, and I'm looking for any inspiration I can find on how to deal with them." Audumla says, "One of the dreadful problems in WoD is that fluffy bunny mixing of spheres that generally turns a game into a mushy pit of timestops and TS. I have found, in almost all cases I have seen, that this is because there is little to no enforcement of the stereotypes that you see in the books. I believe that part of the reason for this is caused by a critical failure in game design by the MUSH organizers. With the exception of a bare handful of games, most places simply don't have a developed storyline, one that is enforced through passive and proactive means." Audumla says, "As far as that goes, one of the bigger problems in WoD is the vast power potential for Mage in relation to all other spheres. A mage, literally, can do anything that they can convince the ST is valid. When we were doing the predesign work for the opening of our mage game, we considered how best to deal with this difference and concocted a plot twist that we based on an element of the original vampire history. In short, a faction of mages managed to cause a tear in reality itself and all the current mages are having to live with the consequences. Keeping them busy with that keeps them from wanting to go bother the other races, since ICly, they have much bigger fish to fry." Audumla says, "It also let us write some code that makes the entire sphere dive for cover when we use it. ;)" Apocalypse chuckles. Apocalypse says, "As far as predeveloped plotlines go, how...anal, for lack of a better term...do you think a MUSH staff should be about sticking to it?" Audumla says, "I'm not anal at all. Some part of the plot are right there and some parts of it really require players to be in the right place at the right time. Others, like the mini-epic we're doing within the game are only accessable by people who are playing it." Audumla says, "It basically requires everyone to trust and respect each other, as well as a couple of people who can work to help people avoid plot trainwrecks" Audumla says, "Also helps to have someone around who can clean up messes in prose. I often draw that job, since I can work with just about anything to get a decent story or plot wrapup out of it." Audumla says, "If players know that someone will step in when the plot dies(because it happens to the best of us), and help them clean up the mess in a fun way, they work to make a story out of it for themselves. I see my job as a storyteller as engaging the players and helping them make their own stories." Audumla says, "Story has to basically be used by staff to be respected by players." Audumla says, "And preferably not like a club" Audumla says, "One MUSH that I am familiar with had a long time problem with player 'blowing off the plot'. The unfortunate thing for the players was that there is such a restrictive OOC masquerade there that no one ever bothered to say "such and such plot was resolved" No one had contact with the story and they just decided to do their own thing. It literally took someone going point by point with the godling until they understood that her playerbase had no reason to care about her uberplot, if they couldn't see it even as players." Audumla says, "Which is a case for never getting really anal about anything, except cheating and that stuff" Apocalypse says, "So should the 'uberstory' be completely transparent? Or should the admins make the general direction/gist of the story known to the playerbase in order to involve them? Or none of the above?" Audumla says, "To the character on the grid, they should see the world around them, always. Admins should use the story, whatever the form it takes freely as they need to in their own storylines. Players should be involved in many of the same ways that they would be at the table. Tabletops are as much about characters beiung RP'd as they are about trying to figure out that the referee is really up to." Audumla says, "I do believe that at the point you extend the freedom of a storylist, everyone begins to focus on the story itself. The Granite story list has proven this to me more times than I could count." Audumla says, "We had to ICly banish someone from Elysium for doing something totally idiotic. I posted a story and in the story, it showed the text of the banishment that was posted. People read their mail and posted responses. Some really funny stuff went up, as well as some stuff that panned out into some later story fodder." Audumla says, "If you're taking an existing game toward this model, you will have to go some distance to change habits. Having started from the beginning with this model is certainly easier. Having some strong writers to help staff makes it even better." Audumla says, "I haven't much experience outside of WoD, but I've yet to see how it wouldn't work in other genres. I had been cooking up an original themed game for a while that uses the same principles." Audumla says, "I am told the next speaker takes over at 3:45. Any other questions?" Krevinek says, "Okay... my question is this: since you can't FORCE people to follow the storyline, what steps can I take to ENTICE them? Usually what I do is take the opening RP moves to the players, then draw them to the final RP grounds... any other ideas than this?" Audumla says, "I basically do a lot of enticement. I mirror them, answer their additions to the plot with my own twists, and generally make sure to keep it fun--and keep them guessing." Audumla says, "Yank out the NPCs and the feature alts and go annoy them with enigmatic details." Krevinek says, "Ah, so a similar method then... I once headed up a two-part TP so that when I resigned my Admin-hood elseMU*, I could jump right in as a character with background and everything, and my final character wasn't even in the first part. It was a Trek-based MU* where I was trying to introduce 'refugees' to the area, and the first one was just a taste of what was going to happen, with the threat of 'we will return', and of course we did and my character ended up becoming a very playable PC." Krevinek says, "Of course the RL time between the two parts was around 4-5 days :)" Audumla says, "You have to have the proverbial 'cast of thousands' in your back pocket and be equally quick with an emit. There also have to be rewards for playing along for everyone. I give out a lot of 'good sport' points and such, too." Krevinek nods. Krevinek gets insight and then urges Audumla to let Jayvin start his lecture :) Audumla says, "Anyone interested in talking more can generally find me here or at granite.erisian.net 2005. Our website is http://www.erisian.net/~granite/" Kevin says, "Nicely done Audumla." Phuze claps rimnar claps. Dogma applauds heartily Kevin claps. Audumla now leaps from the stage, with slightly more grace than she got up there, and bounds into the audience. Jayvin applauds. Crossbow claps. probe applauds and whistles and hoots. Cassandre applauds, too. -- END: Creative Writing & Text-Based Games by Audumla -- -- BEGIN: Softcoded Space - The Next Frontier by Jayvin -- Kevin applauds the new Lecturer. Phil-Laco says, "Go Jayvin!" Crossbow applauds wildly. Jayvin taps the mic. "Can everyone hear ok. Are we ready to start?" Kevin says, "We can hear loud and clear, I am ready to hear." Jayvin says, "OK, here goes :-)" Jayvin says, "Greetings :-) Thanks for attending the presentation of my softcoded space system. When I have finished with the pre-prepared portion of the presentation, I will be happy to hear any comments or questions you may have." David ohs. Jayvin says, "I call my space system JSpace. I don't have as much time for working on it as I'd like, but I did present it here last year, and have recently been making some major improvements. It was developed for my own social PennMUSH called DynamixMUSH! Please indulge me while I explain a little about the motivation for and conception of JSpace. In doing so, I will also be telling you a bit about DynamixMUSH." Jayvin says, "DynamixMUSH was conceived with the notion that it should be by the players, for the players. It is a place for expressing building and coding creativity, with as little restriction as possible. This philosphy has attracted a number of talented builders and coders, and has made Dynamix a rich place to explore. Since my presentation last year, the Dynamix database has grown to more than double its size, and our player base and average connections have also greatly improved." Jayvin says, "JSpace has been implemented in an area of DynamixMUSH and has been running for over two years now. I had ported it here, but with adminstrative duties and new code development on Dynamix, I have not had time to fully implement it here. I hope to do so sometime in the future. You are invited to stop by Dynamix any time to have a look and give it a try. The IP for DynamixMUSH is dynamix.dyndns.org 4201." Jayvin says, "Just before starting Dynamix I worked for a short time helping someone else build a space themed MUSH called StarFlight. We were doing a variety of building and also working on a rather complex soft coded space system. The head admin had a lot of trouble making his ideas come to life and eventually we gave up the project. I got the idea of making a simpler soft code space system on Dynamix, using my own original design for the system (though it is very loosely based on a PC strategy game called Stars!)." Jayvin says, "In my original design, the entire system consisted of just two objects: a starship parent and a blank universe object. The first time a sector is visited by a starship, the sector's conditions (possibly including a planet of interest) are created randomly and stored as simple attributes on the universe object. So as starships move from sector to sector, they are really doing nothing more than accessing different attributes of the universe object." Jayvin says, "There are a variety of things to do in space. As you explore the universe, you can transfer minerals from uncolonized worlds and trade these minerals for fuel or buy over 10 different kinds of upgrades for your ship. You may encounter other players' ships and do battle with phasers or photon torpedoes. Eventually, you may want to colonize a planet of your own." Jayvin says, "When a colony has enough colonists and minerals, they may apply to get a starbase. Only then is JSpace extended beyond the universe object and starships. Starbases are new rooms added to the MUSH and colonizing players can @dig out their planet or starbase and link them to this room. This gives the player an opportunity to add their own areas and code to the space system." Jayvin says, "JSpace was not conceived to be a general space system, but rather an area of Dynamix. I have begun to generalize it, splitting up the code into more logical parent objects, and automating many of the setup and adminstrative functions. It is my intention to make the code publicly available when I complete the reorganization." Jayvin says, "Please keep in mind that it was designed to be simple. Dynamix is a newbie friendly MUSH, and I wanted JSpace to be accessible to new players. There is sufficient complexity to keep things interesting, but not nearly the complexity of some of the hard coded space systems available." Jayvin says, "Here are some recent changes I have been making: Players can now be assigned race conditions, so that the value of a planet in terms of colonist growth and production will be different for players of different races. The formerly square 2-D universe is now split up into several galaxy objects. The galaxies have a more realistic circular radius, and allow expansion of the universe to as many objects as needed without putting an overwhelming number of data attributes on a single object." Jayvin says, "I also am planning to implement starbases as things rather than rooms. This will allow starbases to be involved in battle, and can be treated in many ways as the starships are. I hope to give starbases some automated functions, to defend planets against attacks and prevent bombing of colonies. Like ships, starbases will also be upgradable as more minerals and resources become available to the colony." Jayvin says, "I have really only touched on the functionality of ships and all that is available in JSpace. For more complete details, the help file has been placed on our web site at http://dynamix.xidus.net/dmspace.htm. Now, if there is time and interest, I would be happy to answer any questions you may have, and perhaps go into more details about starship and JSpace systems." Jase says, "I know of another JSpace. Will this be a problem?" Kevin says, "Will you have to purchace bombs and torpedoes, or will they come with the ship?" Jayvin is not aware of it, but perhaps it will be, yes. Is it a hardcoded system, Jase? Jayvin will get to Kevin's question in a moment. Jase says, "No, it is not hardcoded. Is your JSpace hardcoded?" Jayvin says, "No, it is not, but it is the only softcoded system I was aware of. Do you know who is the creator of the other system?" Jase says, "No, but I just got word that it might or might not be called JSpace." Jayvin says, "In answer to your question, Kevin, there are a variety of upgrades available to your ship, things like armor, shields, scanner range, etc. as well as arrays like bombing, torpedoes, mining, etc." Jayvin says, "As it is in the current system, bombing and torpedo arrays will be available as add ons to the ship." Jayvin says, "The system makes it relatively easy to add other custom upgrades by just adding a command to the ship parent, and integrating the upgrade into existing systems." Kevin says, "Ok, will the fuel system remain the same?" Jayvin says, "The economy in space, is composed of three major minerals, and an abstract quantity called points." Krevinek says, "Okay, I have one for you... Everything in your system is 'event-based'? Nothing happens until someone causes something to happen, right? If so (or not), what method do you use for reporting sensor contacts found/lost? Do you just report what ships are in the sector like Stars! and TW2002?" Jayvin says, "Points are used to fuel your ship, buy upgrades to your ship, it can be thought of as a unit of work, and you can think of it in a RP sense as trading equivilent tasks, or fuel, etc." Kevin nods. Ok Jayvin says, "Now, Krevinek. In most senses yes, for example, activating the engines on your ship take you so many sectors in the direction your ship is headed. Scanning takes place on your command, and shows planetary statistics or ships in the area." Jayvin says, "But colonist growth, and point production, as well as hopefully starbase protection of planets will be automated, and take place on a timed cycle." Krevinek says, "Now will this cycle be something similar to a Unix crontab where it is only activated once an hour/day/week/month/etc?" Jayvin lags. Krevinek hardcodes space systems himself and was looking at taking his hardcoded system and breaking it down into just a hardcoded API like Ari@SpaceMUSH was doing, allowing for complete customization of the system without having to know C, and wants to get an idea on what pieces/abilities should be stored in the hardcoded API, and what to let loose with the softcoded interface. Jayvin says, "I would be happy to show you my system, Krevinek, if it would help you with your project." Jayvin says, "Oh and yes, the cycle will be a crontab, as you pointed out." Krevinek is actually more interested in the design paradigms that make the softcoded system a viable solution compared to most hardcoded designs, "You can't just use XYZ coordinate systems in a softcoded system because the update stuff would be horrendous... Although your idea for the dynamic universe is excellent... Some of those techniques of a randomly generating/expanding universe should be more implemented in games..." Jayvin doesn't use 3-D just to keep it simpler for new players. I do use functions such as dist2d and such, and I think making it 3-D would not be all that hard, but the data storage for a 3-D system would also get large. Jayvin says, "I will be happy to give you more details later, Krevinek if you are interested, or now if you have a specific question." Krevinek says, "One of the reasons why a 'true' space system is a bit harsh for a MUSH, period. It would be rather interesting to see Matrix math, vectors, and true physics implemented in a space system, but the RAM usage would not be pretty :)" Krevinek nods and lets other people ask questions. Jayvin nods and smiles. Jayvin says, "Nobody else is on the queue, anybody else want to ask anything?" Kevin votes for Krev to keep asking. Jayvin says, "Dynamix is running on a 486 with 64Mb RAM, and space works pretty well there." rimnar shudders. Crossbow shudders as well. Phil-Laco shudders too, though he doesn't know why. Jayvin says, "If there are no other questions, then I thank you for your attention, and invite you again to visit the DynamixMUSH website http://dynamix.xidus.net, or stop in and see us: dynamix.dyndns.org 4201" Krevinek says, "Well, since you are not having to store full Polygonal models, 64-96 should be plenty, but it would still be around 64 Bytes per Matrix, then another 16 for the Directional Vector, and yet another 16 for the Locational vector (not needed if you extract the location from the Matrix), plus all the status information, plus physics calculations... nasty." Jayvin nods, that's why I am keeping the system relatively simple. If I wanted to really do the nasty calculations, I think I'd be forced into hardcode. But as I mentioned, there is sufficient complexity. I just use as optimized data storage and code as possible. Jayvin notes that the lag is really making this difficult. Krevinek hehs. Jayvin says, "Anything else?" Jayvin thanks those assembled for their attention and prepares to step down. Kevin applauds. Phil-Laco applauds too! Malak claps -- END: Softcoded Space - The Next Frontier by Jayvin --