Don’t forget we moved!
https://brandmu.day/
Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo
-
As far as I know, SMU never did get coded ammunition, but it wasn’t for lack of Mal trying to get it. He was obsessed with this for a long time. On a game with definite database space limits.
Coded ammunition on AoA was because of the constant staff refrain that ‘players have too much money/XP/stuff’, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
I’ve wondered for years if the DSS codebase brings out the number-obsessed twit in terrible MU owners/wizards…
-
@Anony-Mouse Actually, SerenityMUSH DID have coded ammunition. Mal threatened on the Public channel to wipe out PCs’ stores of ammunition that weren’t stored in lockers more than once. Actually did it once, which at least one player quit over.
-
Ah, my bad.
Can’t blame the person for quitting, frankly. Money was incredibly hard to get on that game, and ammunition was just one more thing to spend it on. Though what difference storing a bunch of stuff in a locker would make as opposed to carrying it around on you is an utter mystery to me.
-
@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.
-
@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…
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
@Pavel said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
That seems dumb to me, but I can’t quite articulate exactly why…
It is absolutely dumb for exploit reasons, but they’ve got someone who was caught more than once exploiting systems on staff now, so clearly none of that matters.
-
@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.
Edit because @Zephyr explained it better while I was typing all of that out. So it turns out you just made counter on ammo box go down, and counter on clip/magazine go up, not INDIVIDUAL BULLET objects. Or maybe even that, who knows, it’s been almost 15 years since I glanced at SerenityMU.
Mummy Pun? MUMMY PUN!
She/her -
@Jennkryst said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
it’s been almost 15 years since I glanced at SerenityMU.
We need to go lie down, we’re too old for this.
-
@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.
Mummy Pun? MUMMY PUN!
She/her -
@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.
they/them
-
@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.
-
@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.
they/them
-
@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.
Mummy Pun? MUMMY PUN!
She/her -
@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. -
@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.
-
@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.
-
@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.
-
@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 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.
