Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo

[Jennkryst]

@Pavel said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@Zephyr said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

They do have virtual items. Some things like ammo are always virtual, and then items that are placed in containers like bags and lockers are converted to virtual when in there. When removed they’re given a DB# again.

That seems dumb to me, but I can’t quite articulate exactly why…

Ultra simulationist is… fine. Sometimes I’m in the mood for it, but not always. I crave space trucking and whatnot, if for only to have a mini-game happening in-window between poses so I don’t alt-tab into another window when it’s not my turn and then you blink and now it’s two hours later and your RP partner went to bed because they responded while you were DISTRACTION SQUIRREL’d, whoopsy.

Buy also because ships are cool. I actually got into working on deck plans for ships because, ironically, AoA staff were like ‘no, your ship is too small for X’ and I was like ‘uh… WANNA BET?’ but that never really went anywhere.

[somasatori]

@Jennkryst said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

And it is pretty much all the RP you could do as Alliance members, inventory and weapon upkeep. Because player ships are all faster, and the pirates have a psychic who instantly spots any spies you send their way.

I thought I initially misread that the only RP you could do as an Alliance member was putting things into lockers but, nope, that’s … what you said. Cool game, I wonder why it’s not around anymore.

[Pavel]

@Jennkryst said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

Ultra simulationist is… fine. Sometimes I’m in the mood for it, but not always.

I don’t even think that is necessarily ultra-simulationist. You can have the ammo count, weapons, whatsits, and doodads, but they don’t need to be actual objects. It’s just inefficient.

@somasatori said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@Jennkryst said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

And it is pretty much all the RP you could do as Alliance members, inventory and weapon upkeep. Because player ships are all faster, and the pirates have a psychic who instantly spots any spies you send their way.

I thought I initially misread that the only RP you could do as an Alliance member was putting things into lockers but, nope, that’s … what you said. Cool game, I wonder why it’s not around anymore.

Honestly, having the Alliance as a playable faction was a mistake IMHO. But that’s from the mind of a reasonable person, not Mal.

[somasatori]

@Jennkryst said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

I crave space trucking and whatnot,

My heartbreaker game that I would build and would never get players is a space-trucking, cassette-futurist game filled with working class, down on their luck types operating ancient machinery and picking apart ships in a ship graveyard post-Expanse-style Earth-Mars war. I love that genre so much, the Aliens-just-a-buncha-folks kind of space game, sort of like in the TTRPG systems Mothership or Orbital Blues.

[Jennkryst]

@somasatori said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@Jennkryst said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

And it is pretty much all the RP you could do as Alliance members, inventory and weapon upkeep. Because player ships are all faster, and the pirates have a psychic who instantly spots any spies you send their way.

I thought I initially misread that the only RP you could do as an Alliance member was putting things into lockers but, nope, that’s … what you said. Cool game, I wonder why it’s not around anymore.

Sit around, RP taking the guns apart, cleaning them, loading up mags and clips for the marines to use when they do whatever (me being a perpetual pilot, I stayed ON THE SHIP), and maybe the occasional gym thing? I think I had one scene chasing down a ship, and then getting told ‘oh, they landed on the pie-rat moon, call it in and run away’. Whee.

@Pavel said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

Honestly, having the Alliance as a playable faction was a mistake IMHO. But that’s from the mind of a reasonable person, not Mal.

The Alliance isn’t as objectively bad as the Empire, so it’s easier to be a sympathetic member of their military. My pilot was your basic ‘signed up to get college paid for’ type. The point was to be foils for the independents and criminals. Guidelines for ‘this is how a ship inspection scene should play out, this is what you can give out fines for’, etc.

… except the PCs were undercut in just about every way to keep them from actually being anything but the vague hint of a threat.

[Pavel]

@Jennkryst said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

… except the PCs were undercut in just about every way to keep them from actually being anything but the vague hint of a threat.

Yeah, it could’ve maybe worked on a game not run by an idiot. But in that instance you’d get people who just want to ruin others’ fun playing them. Hence my dislike of such foils being PCs, especially back then.

[Jennkryst]

@somasatori said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@Jennkryst said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

I crave space trucking and whatnot,

My heartbreaker game that I would build and would never get players is a space-trucking, cassette-futurist game filled with working class, down on their luck types operating ancient machinery and picking apart ships in a ship graveyard post-Expanse-style Earth-Mars war. I love that genre so much, the Aliens-just-a-buncha-folks kind of space game, sort of like in the TTRPG systems Mothership or Orbital Blues.

The thing is, it doesn’t need to be the theme of the game itself. I say space trucking because it’s the easiest way to convey ‘make it be a MUSH version of Elite Dangerous where I fly the ship around and punch in code until it is my turn to @emit my next pose’

This could work just as well with the BTMux Sim pods where I pilot a Battlemech around until is is my turn to pose.

Anything that keeps my attention HERE, instead of wandering to something else.

[Anony Mouse]

@Zephyr said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@Pavel said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@TNP I don’t quite remember how their code works, but I’m fairly sure they use virtual items: Usually set as an attribute on your character rather than an @created object.

They do have virtual items. Some things like ammo are always virtual, and then items that are placed in containers like bags and lockers are converted to virtual when in there. When removed they’re given a DB# again.

@Warlander said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

A number of SerenityMUSH players/staff migrated there years ago after the most recent reopening, which is probably why the game has been ‘blessed’ this way.

I believe nearly every Serenity MU player has left, the last few in the last mass exodus. As far as I am aware none of the staff from Serenity were on staff on AoA, and almost all of the nitpicky code or abundance of items has come from Cujo’s obsession to turn AoA into a video game. Which he then gets absurdly angry over because people start collecting and hoarding items. He’s made it so that people are tracked for what they buy, how often they land on planets so he can watch for people who are obsessed with buying things in the system that he designed. He also made it so that he can manually set vendors to prevent people he doesn’t like from seeing the more valuable items.

Having lockers that convert real items to virtual items, and boxes that convert real items into virtual items, just sounds like a huge amount of makework for anybody trying to do pretendy funtime. But then again, this is Mal/Bryce from SerenityMUSH, and he was possessed of a special kind of stupidity. There’s probably a special Hell for it.

As for Cujo… yes. He has a similar but different special kind of stupidity, the kind stuck on a certain game model that really doesn’t work well. He has coded trading so players can earn money (it’s also supposed to encourage RP, but only does so in his mind; one of the most popular things said on the game is ‘Can’t play now, trading, lol!’), and then persecutes everyone but Certain People for using that money for exactly what it’s intended to be used for. And has a system in place to support such persecution.

They’re literally doing what his econ is designed to do.

@Jennkryst said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@Anony-Mouse You (dbref 1) have a locker (dbref 2) on a ship (dbref 3), 3 guns (dbref 4-6), and 5 boxes of ammo (dbref 7-11) and 100 rounds of ammo (dbref 12-111).

Put the ammo in the boxes, and you just make the ammo counter on the box go from 0 to 20. Now you have cut down on 100 DB objects. Now stick the ammo boxes in the locker, and the locker says ‘item 1 is ammo box 20/20’… and then deleted the ammo box object. Remove the ammo box, the locker will @create an ammo box with 20 rounds.

And that is how 1 locker object handles the work of a specific 105 objects. Remember to put your gun in there, too, along with any magazines or clips, to cut down on even more bloat!

And it is pretty much all the RP you could do as Alliance members, inventory and weapon upkeep. Because player ships are all faster, and the pirates have a psychic who instantly spots any spies you send their way.

Makes sense, though it really is more trouble than tracking all that ammo could possibly be worth. Maybe DSS does bring out the numbers-obsessed D&D addict in terrible game owners/wizards.

[Anony Mouse]

@somasatori said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@Jennkryst said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

I crave space trucking and whatnot,

My heartbreaker game that I would build and would never get players is a space-trucking, cassette-futurist game filled with working class, down on their luck types operating ancient machinery and picking apart ships in a ship graveyard post-Expanse-style Earth-Mars war. I love that genre so much, the Aliens-just-a-buncha-folks kind of space game, sort of like in the TTRPG systems Mothership or Orbital Blues.

If you ever do, please poke me? I’d definitely play such a game.

@Jennkryst said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

The thing is, it doesn’t need to be the theme of the game itself. I say space trucking because it’s the easiest way to convey ‘make it be a MUSH version of Elite Dangerous where I fly the ship around and punch in code until it is my turn to @emit my next pose’

This could work just as well with the BTMux Sim pods where I pilot a Battlemech around until is is my turn to pose.

Anything that keeps my attention HERE, instead of wandering to something else.

Well, one theme can always be expanded. I mean, Aliens and Outland are (retroactively) cassette-futurist films that are supposed to take place in the same universe, and both films covered only two places in a much bigger universe.

[Krautistanian]

@Jennkryst Don’t forget.

Everything has weight, when you try to pick something up while over capacity, you are told it is too heavy, so you need to put something in a locker.

Is it ever told to the player when they buy something or just carry something? No. It comes out of nowhere and is intransparent. If they want to cut down on bloat, they could communicate said ‘weight’ system instead of making it annoying when you want to, say, mod someone’s weapon as a Mando. So, they drop it, you want to pick it up, but needed to run to the locker to put your own weapons away to be able to pick their’s up.

[Krautistanian]

@Warlander said

Gee, I wonder who this could possibly be aimed at?

Me?

[Warlander]

@Krautistanian Very likely, though I very much doubt you’re the only burned-out, bored player hunting for RP that doesn’t require you to become a blaster sponge in Sith- and Kora-run scenes, no matter who is shooting at who, or to be a target for known sex pests.

For what it may be worth, there is a weight system in play. However, calling it a system is ludicrously generous; since the numbers that go with each item are never explained, it’s no more effective than having no weight system at all.

[Krautistanian]

@Warlander said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

@Krautistanian Very likely, though I very much doubt you’re the only burned-out, bored player hunting for RP that doesn’t require you to become a blaster sponge in Sith- and Kora-run scenes, no matter who is shooting at who, or to be a target for known sex pests.

Well, to be honest, I don’t even look for RP there, since it feels like there is no on-grid RP left and my friends left. It doesn’t really seem functional anymore

For what it may be worth, there is a weight system in play. However, calling it a system is ludicrously generous; since the numbers that go with each item are never explained, it’s no more effective than having no weight system at all.

And yup. I mean, comparing it to a MUD, which had a functional weight system… yeah. Even if I had to have the weight system open on an external utility to see how weighed down I was, they were transparent about how it worked. On AoA it is random guesses, frankly.

[Warlander]

@Krautistanian True in both cases. On-grid RP is so rare that it barely exists at all, and the little that IS available is centered around bars. I catch a scene every once in a while to get a +nom or two, so I can collect my paycheck for a few weeks, but what’s out there isn’t exactly motivating. Though knowing that my continued presence annoys some long-term asshats there is reason enough for me to ensure I remain at least slightly active.

[Anony Mouse]

@Krautistanian said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

And yup. I mean, comparing it to a MUD, which had a functional weight system… yeah. Even if I had to have the weight system open on an external utility to see how weighed down I was, they were transparent about how it worked. On AoA it is random guesses, frankly.

Bear in mind that Banshee is of the opinion that even help files are telling players too much. Actually helping them understand how things work has never been a priority of staff here. Small wonder this mess of a weight system goes unexplained.

[SqeakyClean]

Well I logged in as a guest just a bit ago. I don’t really care if that outs me with ip tracking in their monitor channel. Cujo can get fucked hard for all I care.

They nuked all my bits except my jedi. Why the hell they keep him around is beyond me. To be treated as some sort of ken doll for Cujo or Banshee’s odd fantasy? No idea. They didn’t do that for my last jedi who seemed so integral to the game they made an entire plot around him for the jedi without my knowledge which I had to step in and finish because aryn and staff were having disagreements. Perhaps I’ll never understand the basement dwelling dipshit enough to comprehend his expert level of story telling. (Sarcasm)

Im still working on my own game. More free form and Bleach themed. I have caught up in the Mandalorian and am watching Ahsoka which has inspired me to perhaps do the same with a star wars theme. All we ever needed was imagination, a place to write notes, and an optional pair of dice to tell a good story IMO.

[Jennkryst]

@SqeakyClean Probably to hand over to a theoretical new person whomst ‘earns’ the Force User slot, that’s the way they did it back in the day. Not create a new bit. Hand the character over to a new player. Hope you didn’t have anything too personal saved in @mails or whatever.

I really need to get back to work on the FFG game again. Much chaos, mechs still need to get painted.

[Warlander]

@Pavel Technically, SerenityMUSH was both run by an idiot AND got people who just wanted to ruin others’ fun playing them. Not the majority, by far. But there were at least three serious problem players who played Feds during the time I played there…

It’s been long enough that I don’t remember the names (I think one might have been named Forge, but I might be wrong). They followed a pretty painful formula; force their way into others’ scenes, powerpose being all stormtrooper-y and ‘YOU WILL RESPECK MY AUTHORITAH!!!’ (misspellings deliberate), and generally walking all over other players 'cause they could. Complaints were pointless, since no pro-player action was ever taken.

Just as an example of how egregious this could get, I once witnessed a major disturbance (I believe there was a bomb involved) that resulted in panicked flight from Eavesdown Docks by everyone in the area. A Fed whose name I can’t remember powerposed stopping everyone passing through at least one of the exits and inspecting everyone’s hands for signs of powder or explosive residue. This at an exit almost as wide as a four-lane street, with panicked people running through like their butts were on fire. Needless to say, no PCs went near that exit, but there were at least two others available, so it didn’t much matter. None of the other PCs responded to this goof’s pose, which was just as well.

On two different occasions a ship I was crewing on decided to host an undercover problem Fed for the purposes of a plot of some kind. At the time I was left wondering just who thought this was a good idea, and in the end things either went as badly as I expected, or worse.

The really pathetic and stupid part of all this is that Mal went above and beyond to empower this handful of problem players (well above and beyond what was allowed for most Fed players), only to turn right around and complain endlessly about the amount of complaints he had to deal with regarding these very same players, and how much of a headache they were for him.

The answer seemed pretty obvious to me (get rid of the problem Fed players!), but apparently not to Mal. Most of those schmucks eventually left when other PCs stopped playing with them.

(Edited for mild clarity)

[Kyppi]

@Warlander It seems like most people were running cargo 24/7 back when I played. It was weird seeing people move like ants in a colony performing an endless cycle of credit-making without wanting to engage in any kind of roleplay. Especially in a MUSH.

The community also seemed really demanding. Everyone’s above the dreaded “Bar Roleplay” with new and unestablished characters. At this point it’s pretty much “Be An Established GM And Do All Your Own Advertising And You’ll Be Graced With Roleplay”. Not really sure how much a game like this can last, honestly.

[Warlander]

@Kyppi You’re not wrong about the cargo-running. I’ve never seen coded cargo-running promote RP on ANY MUSH I’ve ever played on, but I can tell you from experience that it certainly gets in the way of RP. Especially when you’re stuck on a ship at the corner of No and Where, and nobody’s schedules match up. Which I suppose is convenient if you aren’t interested in RP outside of scheduled events anyway; you always have an excuse to be unavailable. Those stuck on military starships that never seem to make port anywhere have a similar problem, a fact that has (temporarily) killed at least one faction on the game.

You’re not wrong about how demanding the general MUSH community is about RP, either. While there are individual players who are known to be supportive of RP with newbies, most cliques are not, and most orgs qualify as cliques. The handful of exceptions are mostly trying to recruit new members.

Unfortunately, cliques can keep a game running for a very long time without any meaningful influx of new players. SerenityMUSH and AoA are both proof of this.

P.S.: This is probably not my best writing, no thanks to fatigue and illness. Editing may follow.