What is a MUSH?
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@Polk said in What is a MUSH?:
And I know el zilcho about Changeling. I’m opening this Mage-only, but if it works out I will probably break down and throw in Werewolf. There is that Old West Werewolf book whose name I forget.
Werewolf: The Wild West! I had a physical copy which had a big hole through the top like a bullet hole, but ended up causing a lot of page tears. It was a fun setting, though.
Honestly after the Liberation experience I think the way to do reality levels is just to have different grids. 1-1 mappings of places across reality levels get weird to impossible, I think. Asking people to desc 2 or 3 reality levels for every room gets overwhelming.
While the reality levels can be a cool feature, I agree that it often is better to just have different grids. What follows is some WoD lore bullshit that I internalized instead of, like, mathematics.
Also, while the Umbra can be detailed in a very granular way in certain places (e.g., you have Nodes or a place affected by a great deal of emotion), it’s largely the same for large swathes of area. A suburban neighborhood will likely have the same Gauntlet strength, connection to the Weaver, etc. with maybe one or two exceptions. It is difficult, if not impossible, for individuals to make a notable change on the Umbra unless they are supernatural in some way (or some kind of H. H. Holmes style serial killer with a murder castle). This supports the separate grids idea, as you can create more conceptual Umbral locations. East Pacifica, North Daly City, etc. if you’re using San Francisco.Something else to keep in mind with this as well is that Umbral travel is always kind of a niche thing for Mages, but especially in that setting (no Digital Web – arguably Jebel Qaf exists, but you need to have a good reason for being there if you’re not Batini). The Gauntlet strength will be lower, and there’s no Avatar Storm, but there’s also IMO less incentive to go to the Spirit Wilds for most Mages, as the Technocratic Union is about to be born (1880 or 90 or something? Whenever the Difference Engineers became a thing).
It might even be a better option to have a command that spawns a generic Umbra room that allows people to describe what they need rather than dedicate resources to a separate smaller grid that will rarely see use.
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@Faraday You are correct. Evennia does not support softcode and likely never will.
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@Darren That’s a really old post.
Now there’s this:
https://www.evennia.com/docs/latest/Components/FuncParser.html?highlight=parse
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@Polk You could certainly do that (with a lot of work) but the end result would be more like MUCK’s MPI language than MUSH softcode. Do you really want to tackle server development on top of game development though?
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@Darren You are asking the guy who shoehorned lua into Rhost, mind you.
But yes at this point I’m honestly considering developing this in the form of an Evennia (WoD) MUSH in a Box.
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@Darren I’ve been convinced to give Django another shot given that it’s been over a decade since my nightmare experience with it.
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Current plan, with a nod to @Jennkryst
https://github.com/stevensmedia/EtherBox/blob/master/PLAN.md
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@Polk I would offer to help with stuff but I know nothing of mummies. I’ve preferred Sin Eaters and Possessed. But I can attempt if you end up needing help. Not so much with the code stuff but theme writign and the likes.
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@icanbeyourmuse I may need help.
Particularly with the Traditions side. When you’re talking late 19th century all my favorite kinds of Traditions mages are still in the Order of Reason/Technocratic Union.
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@Polk said in What is a MUSH?:
@Darren That’s a really old post.
Now there’s this:
https://www.evennia.com/docs/latest/Components/FuncParser.html?highlight=parse
The function parser really isn’t the same thing as softcode. It’s cool, don’t get me wrong, but–unless I’m really missing something; please correct me if I’m mistaken–you can’t build out an entire +combat system with persistent commands and data storage just using inline function evaluations like you can with softcode.
I’m not saying you can’t layer a scripting language (like softcode, or Lua, or whatever) on top of Evennia (or Ares for that matter). But it’s not built-in and would IMHO take an immense amount of work to achieve parity with MU softcode. If softcode is really a thing you need for your game, you’re probably better off just using a platform that has it (Rhost, Tiny, Penn, etc.).
ETA: I realize we’re talking about Evennia, but in case anyone cares here’s an article about why Ares doesn’t have softcode either.
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@Polk said in What is a MUSH?:
As for Mummy? You can probably build one with the Gods & Monsters rule set. Perhaps tied to House Shaea.
For X20, the Mummy rules can be found on one whole page of that one Vampire book; it amounts to 'they can learn any Thaumaturgy or Necromancy discipline or ritual without a teacher, instead of Vitae they have Sekhem, the pool is equal to their Humanity rating (Or Path of Typhon rating, if ebil mummies), and then a couple other things.
And I know el zilcho about Changeling. I’m opening this Mage-only, but if it works out I will probably break down and throw in Werewolf. There is that Old West Werewolf book whose name I forget.
Just pretendy-fun-time and nom nom nom creativity. GOOD NEWS! Since this is before the moon landing, there are no Arcadian Sidhe! Really, wild west would probably be a lot more Gallain, so native kiths that use Gnosis instead of Glamour, even, but maybe an influx of Kithain. I dunno.
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@Faraday See, I don’t care about coding entire game systems in softcode.
I’m trying to bring softcode to its roots, which is for lighter duty tasks than that.
In the old school MUSH engines you were supposed to be coding expansive systems in C, for crying out loud.
Everything we do these days with dozens of nested functions of one liner softcode, including your own epic and beloved FS3, is pushing the system far beyond its ever expected limits.
Heck back then it would have been too slow on the by modern standards tiny, slow, low-memory, multi-user systems MUSHes were running on.
So we may be talking past each other here. I don’t see softcode as something to build an entire stat system in. I see it as something for simple, relatively uncomplicated tasks, within a safety sandbox so players can use it.
That’s the key. I want softcode for PLAYERS. Not for game CREATORS.
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@Faraday You are correct, the function parser isn’t currently up to the task of replicating the functionality of softcode, but it could be, with a bit of work. Pretty much everything is in place already, you’d just have to implement a lot of functions and figure out how you’re going to tie it into the rest of the game. Again, the end result is going to look more like MPI rather than softcode.
By default, the funcparser is disabled. When enabled, func calls in output are processed. You can also call it manually, which is what I do for my messages (@SUCCESS, etc). I also use it for room descriptions for dynamic formatting and data generation. This gives me some of the functionality of softcode without having too much overhead. I haven’t thought too much about how you might tie in into the rest of the game to give true softcode functionality. I’m sure it’s possible to do.
TBH I really don’t feel the need for softcode at all (I can say the same about Ares).
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@Polk said in What is a MUSH?:
I see it as something for simple, relatively uncomplicated tasks, within a safety sandbox so players can use it.
That’s the key. I want softcode for PLAYERS. Not for game CREATORS.
I’m not sure what tasks players would need solved that are uncomplicated. Could you give an example of what you have in mind? Since as far as I know, any routine tasks that a player would be interested in (multi descing, handling XP spends) would either be too complex or already handled.
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@STD See I’m miscommunicating something here. Things like XP are coded game systems.
A player might do something like desc a house.
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@Polk said in What is a MUSH?:
@STD See I’m miscommunicating something here. Things like XP are coded game systems.
A player might do something like desc a house.
I mean, that’s not really player softcode, either? I think every MU* I’ve been on have had game systems for players to be able to desc their stuff.
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@Polk said in What is a MUSH?:
Things like XP are coded game systems.
True, but they’re also traditionally softcode.
Whereas things like
@Polk said in What is a MUSH?:
desc a house.
are traditionally hardcode. (Yes, some places have it as softcode, but @desc is hardcode and more usual).
So what you’re really thinking of is having more tools available to players that many places have often left in the hands of coders or staff?
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
I can understand the delineation between gamewide code and player code here – for systems like Ares and Evennia, all the game-wide code ends up as hardcode. So I understand it more as the ‘systems installed by staff that are accessible to the whole game’ vs ‘code written by players just accessible on their own player bit’ as the delineation we’re doing here. But surely descing builds is going to be a gamewide system, not something a player would need their own custom code for. So I’m also curious what sort of player code you’re imagining.
she/her | playlist
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@Roz said in What is a MUSH?:
I can understand the delineation between gamewide code and system code here
Yeah, the hardcode/softcode delineation doesn’t make much sense here.
