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[Sotla]

Hello all -- I've been working on a project for some time named Stillborn, a post-apocalyptic MOO with elements of Lovecraftian horror and cyberpunk fiction. I spend more time on working on the MOO than I do figuring out how to actually talk to people, so here goes nothing.

I noticed HellMOO/InfernoMOO both seemed to have been popular here at some point and I figured a mention of something similar might be appreciated. Stillborn is based on HellCore and so is extremely similar to HellMOO in lots of ways mostly concerning how basic stuff works, but is in no way the same world or setting and the core itself has been modified extensively and continues to get refined daily. (almost literally, i haven't slept in weeks.) If you've played HellMOO or a variant of it, almost everything will be familiar to you and it won't be hard to get started. If you haven't, Stillborn has a tutorial and (from what i've seen, i'd not like to say anything biased) a pretty newbie-friendly playerbase. Failing either of those, the admins (myself included) are as active as we can be in helping players out if they need assistance or if something's broken.

Stillborn is a MOO, which is a subtype of MUD, which is in simplest terms a text based virtual reality/text adventure that takes place in real time with other players. Movement works by typing in cardinal directions or the names of exits in a room, and mostly everything else is explained by help files, or through the usage of the 'examine' command, which prints out everything one can do with an object.

Screenshots can explain it all better than I can:






Stillborn generally has a more serious temperament than HellMOO's world does, and actually has a focus on roleplaying instead of shunning it, to an extent that roleplay is enforced with the minimum of at least remaining in-character. Typing long emotes isn't necessary, just playing the game is good enough 98% of the time.

The backstory is long and complicated, most of it hidden away in subtle references to it ingame. The gist of it can be read from the web frontend of the game, displaying the 'setting' help file.

The design of Stillborn is mostly based on the likes of games such as Cataclysm: DDA, Dwarf Fortress, NEO Scavenger, and some other sources like DUST/FROST for Fallout: New Vegas/Fallout 4. It has a hard survival focus that's proved to be a struggle even in more civilized locations like the starting city of Caldern, and features a 'permadeath' system. (Less 'permadeath' as in 'you can never roleplay this character again if you fail a climb skill roll and fall off of a cliff' and more forced rerolling if you run out of clone backups/resurrections.) The intent of all this is to make a more realistic and harsh environment where one has more to worry about than killing things endlessly, and to make death a learning experience.

The themes contained within Stillborn are extremely graphic and disturbing, including elements of sexual violence.

Stillborn's mostly in beta right now, but we've been adding and refining stuff on a daily basis and is more or less 100% 'playable' at it's core, thus the attempt of promoting it to bring in new testers so we can get more feedback.

Web frontend to read help files/mailing lists (ingame forums) from without needing to connect to the game

In order to play Stillborn you need a MUD client of some sort. I personally recommend MUSHclient.
The connection info for Stillborn is sabbath.online:666.


If I missed anything that may be important to note, please let me know.

[Kagus]

Oh hey, I remember seeing the development thread for this and thinking it looked interesting. It's actually in a playable state now? Neat.

Are you planning on keeping the same kind of fully open PvP like Inferno has, or is the intention to restrict it like some of the other branches? Also, is there much thought/effort being put into keeping things screenreader-compatible?

Regardless, this does definitely look like an interesting take on the formula, and seems to be generally going in a thematic direction I've always kinda felt Hell should've aimed for.  Gonna keep an eye on this one.

[quinnr]

Posting to watch! This looks pretty rad, I loved HellMOO for a while so I'll definitely check this out when I have time!

[Sotla]

Oh hey, I remember seeing the development thread for this and thinking it looked interesting. It's actually in a playable state now? Neat.

Are you planning on keeping the same kind of fully open PvP like Inferno has, or is the intention to restrict it like some of the other branches? Also, is there much thought/effort being put into keeping things screenreader-compatible?

Regardless, this does definitely look like an interesting take on the formula, and seems to be generally going in a thematic direction I've always kinda felt Hell should've aimed for.  Gonna keep an eye on this one.

i can respect the idea that HellMOO had with allowing players to opt-out but i don't think that there's a way to actually pull that off. PvP isn't restricted but people don't really do it much, and i think that's because of the fact that there's more important stuff to worry about instead of focusing on killing other players. we're working on stuff that people will actually have reasons to fight over (facilities, scarce resources) so i think nobody's going to straight up grief on average. we haven't observed anything like that so far, anyways

[Donuts]

Poking in to drop a PTW and to say that this is sincerely a very nice-looking MOO, and things are actually going forwards at a pretty satisfying pace. The playerbase is also (so far, at least) really nice, saw maybe 1 less-than-pleasant person and that's about it.

Keep it up and this is probably gonna be one of the greatest in the genre, no joke.

[Sotla]

as far as recent developments i've been working on a skymap for the starting continent. it's very unfinished but i like what we've got so far here:

[Yoink]

This sounds really interesting. I'm generally not a fan of RPIs (which is basically what this sounds like, or a light version of one perhaps) with cloning systems, but I always wished there was a more roleplaying-heavy version of Hellmoo. I was that one guy who always stayed in character... certainly made it hard not to get ganked.

I really, really miss playing RPIs, though, so I might hop on and see if this scratches that itch.

[Sotla]

This sounds really interesting. I'm generally not a fan of RPIs (which is basically what this sounds like, or a light version of one perhaps) with cloning systems, but I always wished there was a more roleplaying-heavy version of Hellmoo. I was that one guy who always stayed in character... certainly made it hard not to get ganked.

I really, really miss playing RPIs, though, so I might hop on and see if this scratches that itch.

stillborn was born (heh) from my love for HellMOO's gameplay and Sindome's/Cybersphere's immersion and atmosphere (and a lot of other things but those're the MU* influences). problem was that roleplaying on HellMOO was impossible and roleplaying on Sindome made me feel like i was being judged at every moment, and things were impossible to do without interacting with other, already-established players -- couldn't really just play the game and have everything go from there. not in the sense of "the game will be very hard if you have nobody to co-operate with" but it was more like "if you have social anxiety, you're fucked". Stillborn is supposed to be in-between those two extremes.

[Sotla]

(hope this isn't too bad a double post since it's been a day)



been working on more wilderness/overworld stuff, along with farming so people can live out there. Pictured is one z-level on a mountain.

[Paxiecrunchle]

MOO's sound terrifying, but I wish you luck with your project anyway.

[Sotla]

MOO's sound terrifying, but I wish you luck with your project anyway.

terrifying how?

[Kagus]

It's a big leap for someone who doesn't have experience with text-based RPG/adventure games from before, it requires a completely different method of absorbing and processing information and can seem like an impassable hurdle for someone new to the concept.

That, or maybe it's just that these things also tend to have terrifying depth and complexity that requires a lot of forethought and attention on the part of the player. Or maybe it's Cthulhu. Who can say for sure?


Also, glad to hear that you'll be shying away from things like the challenge system and whatnot. The fully-free PvP aspect of Hell is what attracted a great number of players, and while it does lend a certain stress and apprehension to the game that may make it a bit unattractive for more casual players, I feel that this is balanced out by the added depth and potential reward of the game.  I'll certainly admit that it's easier said than done to not cry over spilt text, but there's just something uniquely satisfying about snooping out the stash of some douchenozzle, raiding it for everything it's worth, freezing everything else into solid blocks of ice and then hiding a landmine somewhere inside.

Or, as has also been done, just sneaking an entire horde of zombies into their shower.


And farming, eh?  Is this going to be things like preset patches of cultivated land out in the wilderness, or are you planning on letting players have the ability to more directly change their environments?  There's a lot of fun to be had with environment manipulation, but also a lot of griefing/abuse and a LOT of bugginess. Oh lordy.


...as an aside, there was a rather critical vulnerability in Hell's code regarding stashed/hidden containers and explosives. This was discovered in Inferno about a year ago when a few associates and I got into a particularly scientific mood and ran some experiments, resulting in something happening that generated some several thousand ingame bug reports per second, and eventually having to reset the entire game to a backup created a few months prior.  Don't suppose you'd know if your code has that vulnerability or not?

[Sotla]

It's a big leap for someone who doesn't have experience with text-based RPG/adventure games from before, it requires a completely different method of absorbing and processing information and can seem like an impassable hurdle for someone new to the concept.

That, or maybe it's just that these things also tend to have terrifying depth and complexity that requires a lot of forethought and attention on the part of the player. Or maybe it's Cthulhu. Who can say for sure?


Also, glad to hear that you'll be shying away from things like the challenge system and whatnot. The fully-free PvP aspect of Hell is what attracted a great number of players, and while it does lend a certain stress and apprehension to the game that may make it a bit unattractive for more casual players, I feel that this is balanced out by the added depth and potential reward of the game.  I'll certainly admit that it's easier said than done to not cry over spilt text, but there's just something uniquely satisfying about snooping out the stash of some douchenozzle, raiding it for everything it's worth, freezing everything else into solid blocks of ice and then hiding a landmine somewhere inside.

Or, as has also been done, just sneaking an entire horde of zombies into their shower.


And farming, eh?  Is this going to be things like preset patches of cultivated land out in the wilderness, or are you planning on letting players have the ability to more directly change their environments?  There's a lot of fun to be had with environment manipulation, but also a lot of griefing/abuse and a LOT of bugginess. Oh lordy.


...as an aside, there was a rather critical vulnerability in Hell's code regarding stashed/hidden containers and explosives. This was discovered in Inferno about a year ago when a few associates and I got into a particularly scientific mood and ran some experiments, resulting in something happening that generated some several thousand ingame bug reports per second, and eventually having to reset the entire game to a backup created a few months prior.  Don't suppose you'd know if your code has that vulnerability or not?

that 24/7 only-stopping-when-i-pass-out part of working on stillborn was no joke, so bugginess is no issue. and yes i know about the stashed explosive bit, i was an inferno admin around the time that happened. we patched it on stillborn immediately

[Ehndras]

Ooohh. Will be checking this out.

[Sotla]

The wandering doomsayer
Once an inhabitant of Sector 4, this one rambles on and on about the brain plague.
He is holding a Colt 6250 pistol.
He is wearing a jet black leather trench coat, a pair of black work boots, and a pair of black leather gloves. He is wearing a white ShM-41 gas mask, with a hose extending from a nozzle to a canister filter. He is wearing a heavy cross made of gold as a necklace.

new areas and hopefully PvP-sparking content soon!