QUERY: Anybody out there?
Taladan
groups for that matter.
Tal
--
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 9.04
Release: 9.04
Codename: jaunty
Gordon Henderson
Taladan <tal...@somewhere.com> wrote:
>I'm wondering if anyone still reads rgm.admin...or any other rgm.*
>groups for that matter.
Hard to read when nothing much is posted...
I fear the days of people being able to type and think for themselves
are almost upon us )-:
Gordon
Taladan
Nah,
It's not getting that bad yet. There are still those folks out there
who like to type and read and think for themselves. They just are
more insular now as the vidiots get louder. ;)
I'm really just wondering if the MU* community still uses usenet or
if we've all become dependant on graphical/web-based content like
'everyone else'.
Gordon Henderson
Taladan <tal...@somewhere.com> wrote:
>On 2009-11-18, Gordon Henderson <gordon...@drogon.net> wrote:
>> In article <913ba$4b0345b8$471c26a3$8...@ALLTEL.NET>,
>> Taladan <tal...@somewhere.com> wrote:
>>>I'm wondering if anyone still reads rgm.admin...or any other rgm.*
>>>groups for that matter.
>>
>> Hard to read when nothing much is posted...
>>
>> I fear the days of people being able to type and think for themselves
>> are almost upon us )-:
>> Gordon
>
>Nah,
>
> It's not getting that bad yet. There are still those folks out there
> who like to type and read and think for themselves. They just are
> more insular now as the vidiots get louder. ;)
and older...
> I'm really just wondering if the MU* community still uses usenet or
> if we've all become dependant on graphical/web-based content like
> 'everyone else'.
Well.. Think what MU*'s were 15 years back - the "instant messenger"
of the day... Today we have TXT/SMS, Facebook, Twitter and who knows
what other "IM" type of systems out there... Like usenet and good old
mailing lists - a vanishing resource, being replaced almost monthly by
whatever new and shiny pops up on 'tinterweb...
The yoof of today!!!
I still run my MUD - but these days it doesn't see any new players -
just a few old-timers using it as a chat-system...
Maybe we need to hook a MUD into twitter...
Gordon
Chris Babcock
Gordon Henderson <gordon...@drogon.net> wrote:
> Maybe we need to hook a MUD into twitter...
I have a few ideas for punching up the old MUD meme if there are any
content providers still interested. Twitter really won't work for play,
but it is worth using for promotion with the right support. For real
interactive games over the Internet, the three key words are Push,
Persistence and Presence. Doing those well is harder than interacting
with a Twitter account.
Persistence is having a permanent, findable place on the Internet. MUDs
specialize in transient data. The lack of persistent content means that
there is little to index in a search engine compared to a web based
game. This is the first place that MUDs lost to the web. To take back
a good share, we need to produce and persist content. Unfortunately,
because the web has the edge now, we need to compete on their home turf
with graphics to match. Fortunately this is comparatively cheap,
otherwise the web would never have happened in the first place.
Presence is the ability to know when friends are online. This is an
area where MUDs are still technologically superior, but the number of
users on the web negates that advantage. The big web portal companies
have painted themselves into the same corner we have, however, which is
that they have islands of connectivity. Their islands are bigger than
our islands, but we have a better platform for building bridges.
Push is what MUDs have that web sites don't - yet. That's the ability to
send players information when it's ready instead of making them ask for
it. Ajax tries to fake that, but it doesn't perform well because HTTP
wasn't designed to support push. There's a cluster of specs centered
around HTML 5 that is supposed to fix that, but it could be years
before the websockets recommendation is consistently available -- and
performant -- in browsers. That's our window of opportunity.
There is a cutting edge chat server, psyced, implemented in LPC. In
addition to supporting the usual telnet interface, it also speaks IRC,
XMPP (formerly Jabber) and has a native protocol called PSYC that is
coming along well in Beta testing. The server supports programmable
rooms, of course, making it a natural backbone for an interMUD. The
developers went wild on implementing protocols so there's support in
varying degrees for HTTP, SMTP, NNTP and a number of other protocols
included.
What I'm hoping to be able to accomplish here is to serve HTML 5 over
PSYC. That would mean the capability to add some serious ambiance to
rooms, and seriously new relevance to the skill of LPC coding. There
are still a lot of pieces that need to come together for this, and one
of those pieces would be content. There's an informational wiki at
http://about.psyc.eu or you can connect to telnet://psyced.org, where I
am known as Kol_Panic.
Chris Babcock
Taladan
I didn't want to snip your thread there - there's lots of good text
flowing there. I have to admit right up front, I'm not a 'mud'er as
much as a 'mush'er. I've been running a Mush since 2001 based on 3rd
Ed. D&D - it's still up to this day and moderately active.
I've noticed that the hardest thing to do is to attract staff. I'm not
going to go into a whole heap of 'staff to do what', simply that it's
difficult to recruit staff now. I think part of the reason for this is
the psychology of people who enjoy staffing on muds/mushes. Those of us
who enjoy staffing are generally drawn to technical wizardry, shiny new
toys, new software development that may or may not be cutting/bleeding
edge...new projects on the web - I think that's what has drawn away
folks willing to staff.
In that line, I sat in on M*U*S*H's ITBG (Innovations in Text Based
Gaming) this year and one of the presentations was about how to tie in
text based games with innovations in the web, specifically in making
clients that are able to do more than teletype style fonts, more in
depth font controls, things like MSP and Fansi implementations, etc.
I think that it's up to us (the people driving the games) to push the
development on these projects...only problem is going to be what it
always is - time, energy, interest, ability to invest in a project that
may or may not attract users and/or other developers. Unfortunately I
know nothing about programming - I'm more of a networking/hardware guy
instead of a programmer, but I know that if enough people draw together
an interest in bringing about changes and improvements in TBG's it will
likely pull momentum and interest from a new generation of gamers.
People eventually get tired of watching their beautiful graphical avatar
hack n slash and not really be able to interact with other characters
and the environment around them in a true roleplay situation.
Eventually they want some type of 'human' interaction.
</SOAPBOX>
Chris Babcock
Taladan <tal...@somewhere.com> wrote:
> On 2009-11-18, Chris Babcock <cbab...@kolonelpanic.org> wrote:
>
> > What I'm hoping to be able to accomplish here is to serve HTML 5
> > over PSYC. That would mean the capability to add some serious
> > ambiance to rooms, and seriously new relevance to the skill of LPC
> > coding. There are still a lot of pieces that need to come together
> > for this, and one of those pieces would be content. There's an
> > informational wiki at http://about.psyc.eu or you can connect to
> > telnet://psyced.org, where I am known as Kol_Panic.
>
> I didn't want to snip your thread there - there's lots of good text
> flowing there. I have to admit right up front, I'm not a 'mud'er as
> much as a 'mush'er. I've been running a Mush since 2001 based on 3rd
> Ed. D&D - it's still up to this day and moderately active.
My main application is Diplomacy, which is very much a strategy game
with very few mud or mush-like elements, but I'm generally interested in
a broad range of what I've been calling "text-based social games" for
the reasons I mention here: http://usak.asciiking.com/about.html
It's not possible to have one game that appeals to everyone. It's a
little like pizza -- everyone wants their own toppings, their special
blend of cheese and just the right crust. Toppings, cheese and crust --
double meanings are probably deliberate.
One of the things that can be done with a psyced server right now is
coding PSYC rooms as bridges into existing MUDs and MUSHes. Simply put,
it's possible to set it up so that a room on a psyced install will
connect with the telnet port of an external MUD or MUSH and behave like
a MUD client. It's nothing special to only do this for one server - the
only gain would be that players have more choice of clients - but once
we do this with a few different games then they start to enjoy the
benefits of network effect. Just like the mall, the mall food court or
so-called "auto malls", the different games benefit more from the
increased traffic being close to their competition more than they lose
to competitors. This is something that I'm interested in doing for the
love of gaming and I'm glad to discuss the weaknesses and limitations
as well as the benefits if there's interest.
> I've noticed that the hardest thing to do is to attract staff. I'm
> not going to go into a whole heap of 'staff to do what', simply that
> it's difficult to recruit staff now. I think part of the reason for
> this is the psychology of people who enjoy staffing on muds/mushes.
> Those of us who enjoy staffing are generally drawn to technical
> wizardry, shiny new toys, new software development that may or may
> not be cutting/bleeding edge...new projects on the web - I think
> that's what has drawn away folks willing to staff.
"Oh, shiny!"
We're all like that, a little. It's mostly good. The trick would be to
make MUDs the new shiny thing. Voice recognition and text to speech are
going to do great things for text-based games on mobile devices. The
new trend towards open devices like those based on Symbios and Android
will make that easier. The PSYC client I use is written on Qt so could
be compiled for Symbios today and on Android once Qt is supported on
that platform.
> In that line, I sat in on M*U*S*H's ITBG (Innovations in Text Based
> Gaming) this year and one of the presentations was about how to tie in
> text based games with innovations in the web, specifically in making
> clients that are able to do more than teletype style fonts, more in
> depth font controls, things like MSP and Fansi implementations, etc.
I think "Now with 256 colors!" is going to be a tough sell.
I suspect that the most direct competitor to the MUD is today's
PHP-based bulletinboard game. To steal talented players away from that
environment the pitch should be that they can just login and roleplay
without wasting time on what those games call 'searches' -- mindless
clicking that wastes players time and system bandwidth for no real
purpose other than serving advertisements. I'm thinking first of
Legend of the Green Dragon, which is a PHP port of Legend of the Red
Dragon, but it's a common pattern.
> I think that it's up to us (the people driving the games) to push the
> development on these projects...only problem is going to be what it
> always is - time, energy, interest, ability to invest in a project
> that may or may not attract users and/or other developers.
Setting priorities is hard.
> Unfortunately I know nothing about programming - I'm more of a
> networking/hardware guy instead of a programmer, but I know that if
> enough people draw together an interest in bringing about changes and
> improvements in TBG's it will likely pull momentum and interest from
> a new generation of gamers. People eventually get tired of watching
> their beautiful graphical avatar hack n slash and not really be able
> to interact with other characters and the environment around them in
> a true roleplay situation. Eventually they want some type of 'human'
> interaction.
>
> </SOAPBOX>
That type of game has huge mental health implications, but I don't
think that's where we're going to pick up most new talent -- players or
coders. There are also scalability issues with Second Life, EverQuest,
Twitter etc. (including social as well as gaming platforms) that mean
those places have to find money to throw at the problems represented by
growth. I'm flogging a platform here that can be hosted in spare
capacity on almost any MUD server and meaningfully combined for the
mutual benefit of the community.
Chris
Taladan
<---SNIP--->
> My main application is Diplomacy, which is very much a strategy game
> with very few mud or mush-like elements, but I'm generally interested in
> a broad range of what I've been calling "text-based social games" for
> the reasons I mention here: http://usak.asciiking.com/about.html
>
> It's not possible to have one game that appeals to everyone. It's a
> little like pizza -- everyone wants their own toppings, their special
> blend of cheese and just the right crust. Toppings, cheese and crust --
> double meanings are probably deliberate.
>
> One of the things that can be done with a psyced server right now is
> coding PSYC rooms as bridges into existing MUDs and MUSHes. Simply put,
> it's possible to set it up so that a room on a psyced install will
> connect with the telnet port of an external MUD or MUSH and behave like
> a MUD client. It's nothing special to only do this for one server - the
> only gain would be that players have more choice of clients - but once
> we do this with a few different games then they start to enjoy the
> benefits of network effect. Just like the mall, the mall food court or
> so-called "auto malls", the different games benefit more from the
> increased traffic being close to their competition more than they lose
> to competitors. This is something that I'm interested in doing for the
> love of gaming and I'm glad to discuss the weaknesses and limitations
> as well as the benefits if there's interest.
>
> That type of game has huge mental health implications, but I don't
> think that's where we're going to pick up most new talent -- players or
> coders. There are also scalability issues with Second Life, EverQuest,
> Twitter etc. (including social as well as gaming platforms) that mean
> those places have to find money to throw at the problems represented by
> growth. I'm flogging a platform here that can be hosted in spare
> capacity on almost any MUD server and meaningfully combined for the
> mutual benefit of the community.
>
> Chris
>
>
I seem to remember that there used to be a way you could push a player
to connect from one mush to another via an exit, but I don't remember
how it was done. It is an interesting idea - the whole idea of a mush
'mall'...though at that point I don't know why you wouldn't do something
like set up a mush/game and then just allot space out to 'mall tenants'.
Except for the fact that if the game goes down, the mall is closed.
I /can/ say however that with places like SL, EQ, Twitter, etc...I think
that there are certain crowds of people that I'm rather glad don't mu*.
Considering that one can only take so many flying purple penises or
self-absorbed 'I'm brushing my teeth!' posts...
Maybe that's part of the problem - maybe there's a bit of inherent
elitism in most MU*'ers/MU* staffers/etc. At least the ones that are
Roleplay-centric. I mean, look at things like WORA/SWOFA...8bit...other
games/places/groups/people that are exclusionist. I suppose that it's
the double edged sword that cuts both ways.
I think for Text Based Gaming to take 'the next leap forward' it's going
to take something so revolutionary and innovative that it's completely
outside the normal rationale/thought lines of what can/should be done in
text based gaming....i just don't know what that is. What I am
surprised to see is that there aren't more uses in games of robots -
especially with the capabilities of the scripting and programming
languages that are out there. I would /love/ to see a simple python
robot framework that was adaptable to multiple uses. Think about it -
backend a python robot into your game and you have a built in platform
to work with SQL databases, CGI scripts for your websites/bboard
systems, etc. Things like that should be well developed now, but
looking through the web, I can find nothing of the sort - it's becoming
difficult to even find code for on of the old Maas Neotek bots.
Maybe if I can ever learn how to code python :/
Teal@M*U*S*H
subject the goals of both muds and mushes are one and the same.
Chris, I read your posts and I have to say I love the mindset as this
is the kind of thing I have personally been pushing for for ages once
I started to see the limitations of existing text based systems.
Managed to use SQL integration in the pennmush codebase for some small
non-realtime web/mush interaction (not far enough for, say, a web
interface to the game linked through SQL) and player-logged bots for
other things. But there is only so far you can go with these things.
Couple ideas have been those such as an XML based client-server
communication protocol to cleanly and easily support whatever added
features wanted (html, css, audio, any imaginable interactivity,
possibly 3D?), better server process linkability for stuff like bots
that do not require logging in as another player, maybe web server
modules so say apache could query the game directly via an internal
system socket, and those are just a few ideas I have had.
Lately I have mostly just been spectating these kinds of discussions
every time they come up (which seem to do so once every few months in
my corners of the interweb) and ultimately the problem seems to be
everyone agreeing on anything. No one ever seems to want to make
compromises to come to a single agreed upon system and only want their
own personal idea implemented. To make it worse is we have many
clients and servers to where their developers would also have to agree
upon a system and integrate it into their code.
I will say though that PSYC looks extremely interesting and I'll
definitely have to look it over. I may have just found myself a new
hangout if anything. :)
Chris Babcock
Taladan <tal...@somewhere.com> wrote:
> I seem to remember that there used to be a way you could push a player
> to connect from one mush to another via an exit, but I don't remember
> how it was done. It is an interesting idea - the whole idea of a mush
> 'mall'...
The idea of an interMUD isn't new. I'm just suggesting a tool to do the
job.
> though at that point I don't know why you wouldn't do
> something like set up a mush/game and then just allot space out to
> 'mall tenants'. Except for the fact that if the game goes down, the
> mall is closed.
I'm interested in federation, not empire building. If someone does all
the work that goes into a MU* then they deserve to have their own
identity and control of their infrastructure instead of just being part
of the feature list on my server or someone else's.
So it's social and political as well as technological. I'm certainly
open to hosting one or more MUDs or MUSHes, but I want communities like
this to be empowered. That means, by and large, that admins should own
their own infrastucture -- psychological ownership if not physical
ownership. If I tried to convince Joe's MUD to be asciiking.com/@Joe or
even joe.mud.asciiking.com then Joe is going to tell me in no uncertain
terms to father my own illegitimate offspring on myself -- and he
should.
The server at asciiking.com is just a staging area. I want to build a
portal, a mall or whatever, because it's what I think text-based gaming
needs. Unlike a physical storefront, where an additional location is a
branch office and not the same as the home office, a virtual point of
presence can be a doorway into the home of the entity that is linked in
that way. Being on asciiking.com won't prevent Joe's MUD from being at
his own address, psyc.timeoutd.org or any other cyber-location.
> I /can/ say however that with places like SL, EQ, Twitter, etc...I
> think that there are certain crowds of people that I'm rather glad
> don't mu*. Considering that one can only take so many flying purple
> penises or self-absorbed 'I'm brushing my teeth!' posts...
That true in many ways, but it's also a function of the user space
itself as well as the people there. I have plenty of articulate,
socially conscious and/or technologically literate people that I follow
on Twitter. If you let people know what is expected and provide good
examples then you can absorb a larger population without intellectually
impoverishing the existing social network in the process.
> Maybe that's part of the problem - maybe there's a bit of inherent
> elitism in most MU*'ers/MU* staffers/etc. At least the ones that are
> Roleplay-centric. I mean, look at things like
> WORA/SWOFA...8bit...other games/places/groups/people that are
> exclusionist. I suppose that it's the double edged sword that cuts
> both ways.
Sure. That's reasonable. My formal training is actually "ethics and
cross-cultural communications," as I used to say on my resume. I never
became a missionary, but I take respecting the existing culture very
seriously when suggesting social change. The Internet changed
radically, and not always for the better, with Netscape 2.0 and $20 a
month dialup. You want to ensure continuity without diluting the
culture, not create a new mass phenomenon. Trust me when I say that I
would not want it any other way.
> I think for Text Based Gaming to take 'the next leap forward' it's
> going to take something so revolutionary and innovative that it's
> completely outside the normal rationale/thought lines of what
> can/should be done in text based gaming....i just don't know what
> that is.
Ask me. :-)
The short answer would be real time interactive voice. Aural
stylesheets are still fairly primitive, so it's just one area where a
straight text medium still has an advantage in producing aural content.
The irony here is that the shortest path to accomplishing this goes
through HTML, DOM and CSS. The MUD advantage is in the appropriateness
of the existing content for aural delivery.
> What I am surprised to see is that there aren't more uses
> in games of robots - especially with the capabilities of the
> scripting and programming languages that are out there. I
> would /love/ to see a simple python robot framework that was
> adaptable to multiple uses. Think about it - backend a python robot
> into your game and you have a built in platform to work with SQL
> databases, CGI scripts for your websites/bboard systems, etc. Things
> like that should be well developed now, but looking through the web,
> I can find nothing of the sort - it's becoming difficult to even find
> code for on of the old Maas Neotek bots.
I'm trying really hard to focus on the gaming applications, but AI
topics like user agents are very much on my mind. One of the reasons
that people like full page presentation like the web offers is that it
allows them to effectively scan for relevant information so that they
can get on with their lives. Effective content filters can be trained
to user preferences. Serialized (items in order, as a opposed to page
at a glance) presentation of data can be delivered with text to speech
technology without tying people's eyes to the output. Text2Speech is
already in many devices. The filtering technology is about 3 sigma
reliability (an order of magnitude better than Bayesian filtering like
that usually used with SpamAssassin), which is mostly usable but the
training isn't user-friendly yet.
> Maybe if I can ever learn how to code python :/
Python is a good choice, but programming languages are largely
interchangeable. I have a major block on functional languages, but I
work well implementing Object Oriented patterns in procedural languages
like a funny little thing called CRM-114. I wouldn't get hung up on
learning a specific language or framework. It's more important to be
able to learn programming as a technique than it is to learn the
'right' one. Like natural languages, the first one take the longest to
learn and the second one is the hardest. :-)
Chris
Chris Babcock
"Teal@M*U*S*H" <vch...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Chris, I read your posts and I have to say I love the mindset as this
> is the kind of thing I have personally been pushing for for ages once
> I started to see the limitations of existing text based systems.
> Managed to use SQL integration in the pennmush codebase for some small
> non-realtime web/mush interaction (not far enough for, say, a web
> interface to the game linked through SQL) and player-logged bots for
> other things. But there is only so far you can go with these things.
Do you know what Gary Martin said about Pritchett's extensions to the
TradeWars engine that allowed real time multiplayer interaction? He
called it a "tactical nuclear warhead for hunting rabbits." My
observation is that people don't notice infrastructure like that. They
notice its absence only after they have become accustomed to it.
The native advantages of MUD-like content delivery systems can only be
appreciated by those who have experienced them already. To foster that
experience, you have to address the perceived needs of people who will
feel the absence of 16 million colors and 45 million other users. That's
a tall order, but there is a niche for quality. We're not trying to take
over, just improve our niche.
> Couple ideas have been those such as an XML based client-server
> communication protocol to cleanly and easily support whatever added
> features wanted (html, css, audio, any imaginable interactivity,
> possibly 3D?), better server process linkability for stuff like bots
> that do not require logging in as another player, maybe web server
> modules so say apache could query the game directly via an internal
> system socket, and those are just a few ideas I have had.
Most of these are implemented in the psyced server, or can be carried
over the PSYC protocol if supported in a client and provided by an
application.
The benefit of an XML-based protocol is that you can get a server up
quickly using standard XML libraries. The disadvantage is that many
implementations never outgrow those. XMPP (formerly Jabber) is XML
based. It's good at many things, but not MUC. That also makes it not
very good at managing presence scalably. The psyced server speaks XMPP
and treats XML data as just another bit of data. Clients that use a GUI
toolkit that includes a modern rendering engine will generally handle
XML data as easily as HTML.
The psyced server already speaks HTTP as well and a proof of concept
has been done for content negotiation. If the client announces HTML
support (when HTML content is available) then the server sends the
HTML, otherwise it sends an URL which it can serve to a browser.
In psyced it's possible to add programming logic to people, places or
services.
> Lately I have mostly just been spectating these kinds of discussions
> every time they come up (which seem to do so once every few months in
> my corners of the interweb) and ultimately the problem seems to be
> everyone agreeing on anything. No one ever seems to want to make
> compromises to come to a single agreed upon system and only want their
> own personal idea implemented. To make it worse is we have many
> clients and servers to where their developers would also have to agree
> upon a system and integrate it into their code.
Consensus building depends on people taking real steps one at a time, so
"everyone step forward" never happens. I (or anyone else willing to do
the work) can link to any public interface that allows it so that Joe
or Bill can have their MUD in the 'mall' with a minimal effort. All I
need to do is emulate a client in the room code.
It takes a disruptive technology to make changes -- something that
starts where the tech is at and takes it to the next level. I care
about culture and people, not egos... at least not in a way that will
let them be blockers. Disruptive technologies are those that completely
address the distinctives of the technology it updates while providing a
way forward.
> I will say though that PSYC looks extremely interesting and I'll
> definitely have to look it over. I may have just found myself a new
> hangout if anything. :)
Catch me, if you will please, in channel and let me know who you are.
Chris (Kol_Panic)