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[Snall]

I was very lucky in that I had a friend in college who got me into it so he helped me a lot with everything.  I believe they can accept hotmail.com type emails now- though I'm not 100% sure.

[Eagleon]

Ever read Wyrm?  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wyrm-Bantam-Spectra-Book-Mark/dp/0553378716  Yeah, it's pretty old and not entirely on-topic, but the rogue AI that hacked pretty much everything (suspend disbelief...SUSPEND...) managed to sneak characters onto every MU they connected to in an internally consistent way, like, oh hey it's a different MUD but I'm still my old class with my old gear.

Yeah. I don't remember it too well, though either it or Killobyte (I'd expect Killobyte - Piers Anthony is a pretty hilarious perv) mentioned furries in an abstract way, which made me laugh a pants.

I've actually thought about running an ARG based off that concept, with multiple independent MU*s that have a background process that quietly syncs them together, press a button in one MU* and see an effect on another.  There's already intermud chat, so in some ways, it might not even be that out of the ordinary.  Heh.

It would be a nightmare to sync/convert all the races/classes, statistics (object, player, and otherwise), abilities, etc. into one game, unless you went with SMAUG/maybe DoT and stuck with ROM derivatives. Even then... *shudders* So much amateur code, probably mostly uncommented. But still... Most MUDs worth mentioning had at least a few unique features or an area or something marginally interesting. You could set it up like a dimensional travel system. Would be amusing pushing twenty Hassans into one world all at once to mob on someone trying to kill one of them.

[Sowelu]

Ever read Wyrm?  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wyrm-Bantam-Spectra-Book-Mark/dp/0553378716  Yeah, it's pretty old and not entirely on-topic, but the rogue AI that hacked pretty much everything (suspend disbelief...SUSPEND...) managed to sneak characters onto every MU they connected to in an internally consistent way, like, oh hey it's a different MUD but I'm still my old class with my old gear.

Yeah. I don't remember it too well, though either it or Killobyte (I'd expect Killobyte - Piers Anthony is a pretty hilarious perv) mentioned furries in an abstract way, which made me laugh a pants.

I've actually thought about running an ARG based off that concept, with multiple independent MU*s that have a background process that quietly syncs them together, press a button in one MU* and see an effect on another.  There's already intermud chat, so in some ways, it might not even be that out of the ordinary.  Heh.

It would be a nightmare to sync/convert all the races/classes, statistics (object, player, and otherwise), abilities, etc. into one game, unless you went with SMAUG/maybe DoT and stuck with ROM derivatives. Even then... *shudders* So much amateur code, probably mostly uncommented. But still... Most MUDs worth mentioning had at least a few unique features or an area or something marginally interesting. You could set it up like a dimensional travel system. Would be amusing pushing twenty Hassans into one world all at once to mob on someone trying to kill one of them.

As a ROM nerd, that sounds utterly awesome.  But yes, it would need to be fairly generic stuff, with no (for example) item scripting on any of the games because that wouldn't be portable.  Or I guess you just make some big conversion matrix from every system into one core system, say that the core system contains the new canonical p-files, and that every excursion into a different realm involves a necessary loss of fidelity--and then you send deltas back to the master server with the exp, gold, loot gained instead of upsampling the low-fidelity pfile back.  I guess that could work.

And yeah it was Wyrm with the furries (who were terribly offended by foul language despite oh my god what are they doing in the park).  Very representative of the place at the time.  And oh boy I've derailed this thread.  I guess I owe connecting to the place and poking around, now.

[Detrevni|inverteD]

I find that MU* gaming is still quite alive, though in most cases the community for them are so jaded and set in their ways that thinking outside the box and trying to introduce new ideas to liven up plots is essentially frowned upon. In another RPI MU* that I will not name, the GMs would have such a deathgrip on each and every pedantic detail of a plot that you would eventually feel like it wasn't your story any more, despite you starting it. It would be driven by the GMs, they were the ones in control, and you helplessly dangled whilst they plucked at your strings. If you're a hacker, and try to hack open a door they don't want you to get into, despite you having the correct stats and whatnot, they'd edit it so that it'd be impossible to open. It would have other super old characters of such level and with such protection that it was essentially impossible to make anything more than a slight dent in the world. Crime was apparently a big heading for the game, yet you couldn't bash some doors down or set up traps in all places. Anyone who had played the game long enough would have such high stats and such knowledge of the game world that they would be unbeatable to anyone below them.
Now, this is just one example, but I've found that this kind of foul play and effort to not have to go outside their comfort zone is quite consistent across the board on a lot of RPI's I've played. Understandably, if you've spent so long on a character, you don't want to see them die, but is the fun part of playing a roleplay intensive MU* the act of writing the story and enjoying building up their personality and life story, not sitting at the endgame with a jaded death machine who sits atop his crystal palace?
I've always felt that RPI MU*s should be run by the players, and should be dynamic enough that there'd be a big twist or turn now and then to keep the story alive. PC government overrun by PC rebels, introducing a dawn of anarchy, and all that.

[Old-Man-Gator]

Having played both HellMOO and Cybersphere a fair amount of time, I can tell you that both are pretty much about the same. One has a more unlimited structure to it and the other is more structured and has a more established feel to it. Personally I preferred HellMOO, up until just before the big player wipe.

[Fikes]

I've shared it before, but I can share it again. The first time I played Cybersphere as a guest, I walked in front of the main bar. Out of no where the police Humvee showed up and locked its 50 cal machine gun on some guy. That guy quickly dove into the bar. I walked in and he was all shaken up, saying "You have any idea how fast that could have killed me?"

I was hooked. I actually looked around for a free email site that Cybersphere would accept and set up an email account just to play it. The next year was basically me surviving for a week and making a new character. I finally hit on a good idea, a waste land character, and that really took off. I even had a small 4 person or so gang. We found a biker gang was coming back around and alerted one of the power city gangs who came out and murdered them all. One of the Admins was pretty pissed saying "You know how much work I put into getting that gang going again?" but beyond his quick nasty gram, there were no IC repercussions.

The gang eventually died off, I had a string of very bad luck and some ambiguous RP decisions. First off, I lost a fight I should have won. Then there was a feud over the wastes. A female character decided that killing the animals and stealing their eggs to sell was somehow a bad thing. I updated my clone knowing she was going to come after me and when she killed me, I put out a hit on her. It was decided that I used post-death OOC knowledge to setup the hit and I ended up in a cell for a week. It was hard to recover after that.
But a lot of my experiences go back to what Sowelu said. You can’t break the bonds of the REAL oldbies. I played Cybersphere for 2 years and that one wasteland character was the only to have any interaction with the upper crust and even than it was very minor. Every other character was me running around, not accpect by any group, doing missions for Kingpin and Jayna (Are those the right names?) until they stopped giving them out, trying to join the Mafia, and dying in the process.

I guess there were two other notable characters. The mentally retarded tough guy and the NCSP officer who ended up with that condition you get when you have too many implants. The tough guy had his com system hacked and someone pretended to be his own thoughts and convinced to murder a peace keeper. The NCSP officer got addicted to implants and ended being handcuffed in the police station but getting away and running to his implant doctor for just one more. Hahaha.

I guess the biggest problem with CS was the fact that you got busted for setting up groups OOC. I couldn’t private message someone and say “I want to join your gang, what does it take?” and build a character around it. Instead you’d have to build a character and hope you fit in somewhere. In the end you got rejected and had a character with a bunch of useless skills.
tl;dr I played CS for 2 years and found it addicting. Even though the oldbies never let me into their sandbox and most of my characters died without note.

[Snall]

Like I said I've played for almost 10 years and I've never really had a long lived char- but I also love Char gen.  All my chars who did the best were deckers with crazy credits (Well for me) and a lot of automated security. 

[Sowelu]

I bet it would be cool to have an RPI MU* set in a world where lifespans are necessarily short.  No character ever lives for more than two RL years, so there is constant, constant churn.  You could set it in some kind of limbo between life and death, where everyone knew they were going to pass on after a certain time had passed.  It'd be pretty hard to devise though.

I've found that RPing with relatively new characters is always more fun.  On a Werewolf MUSH I was on, the oldbies -as people- were fun, but the long-lived characters were just a pain to be around.  It had a lot of character churn, too, because it's such an incredibly lethal setting (My life for Gaia!  Chaaaarge!).

[Snall]

Yeah- I like games where starting characters (Or 2-3 of them anyway) can take down any oldbie.  Grind is meh.  In two weeks or so you can compete well- then it's all about alliances/trickery/out-smarting people.

Oh- did I mention you can kill people when they're logged off/break into apartments/steal vehicles, etc?

[Fikes]

I think you sort of summed up the CS experience. The lowbies have a LOT of turn over, the oldbies are immortal. The oldbies have their relationships all figured out, the lowbies are stuck as cannon fodder.

There was one equalizer in CS, it was called Clone Death. First of all, if you died without a clone you had to make a new character. But even if you did have a clone, there was a chance that it would be copied incorrectly and have shit stats. Clones ranged from super cheap to pretty expensive. The pretty expensive ones only had something like a 5% chance to fail, but still, there was a chance that RNG could knock and oldbie off the throne.

[Sowelu]

Seems irritating that if I go idle, or have to hop off the computer because my cat is on fire, that I can lose everything even harder than usual.  It turns it from recreation into...something else, don't know what.  Harsh consequences for in-game actions is fine; harsh consequences when RL steps in and you're not totally devoted to the game are less cool.

That was my big beef with RetroMUD:  God help you if you don't get back to your castle to stash your gear before the end of the day.  Sometimes that's half an hour of work, for some builds and if you wind up deep in some scary place.  Eff that.  RL comes first.

[Snall]

You can go @ooc if you have to leave- and then cant be harmed..and obviously using this incorrectly can have dire consequences. 

[Sowelu]

You can go @ooc if you have to leave- and then cant be harmed..and obviously using this incorrectly can have dire consequences.

Okay, that's a feature I can appreciate.

[Eagleon]

Sorry to rez this topic, I'd just like to register my irritation. Started character creation four or five days ago, chose the advanced mode because I tend to love messing with things I don't understand, even when it fails horribly. Developed a solid character concept that I would enjoy roleplaying (a 50s-ish 'late-anarchist', sort of comical engineering journalist person that thinks he can shoot and likes motorcycles), finished all my 'nudities' (pretty annoying there). Hit submit expecting to be torn to shreds about background inconsistencies with existing RP, that kind of thing, and fully OK with that.

Fast forward to today, finally got ahold of a GM, his response was that chemistry is unimplemented. Ok, fine, I go back and quickly make him an electrical engineer instead.

[CGnet] Dr.Tran [to you] Sorry about that; I was dragged AFK. Okay... if you have any intentions of being in combat, first off, you will definitely want to cap shock and dodge. Shock lets you survive more than one or two bullets; dodge, obviously, lets you dodge them.
[CGnet] Eagleon says, "He's not about to go headhunting. I wanted a little bit of combat skill, more from paranoia than anything, but it's not his main focus."
[CGnet] Dr.Tran [to you] Decking... well, if you -want- to do that with your first character it's all well and good but you may want to hold off as decking is a little hard to get the hang of...
[CGnet] Dr.Tran says, "Also, you may want to addcom newbie; you can type 'new <message>' to talk on it, other players can help you that way too."
[CGnet] Dr.Tran [to you] 'help wiki' will point you at the wiki for CS, which will have a lot of useful advice for you, but seriously, pare your skills down a lot more. You want six or seven, probably.

What happened to letting new players bumble through hilariously bad builds? I really don't know how to respond to this gracefully - I fully expect to be ripped apart in combat, and that's just fine. The guy is 53 years old - capping shock and dodge seems like powergaming to me, regardless of how I change his basic concept. Do I get rid of my pistol skill and pretend he's into guns despite fumbling his weapon and missing point-blank every other turn? Do I drop multimedia and go with a pure engineering background? Why? People do technical journalism majors all the time in the real world. Do I toss his 'hobby' (breaking and entering/decking) skills out the window and sit around making blenders all day? What can I say to this? I'd like to get into this game, but this kind of hand-holding aggravates me, especially after coming up with a solid background concept and getting enthusiastic about the character.

Meh. Will play HellMOO, maybe come back to this later.

[nuker w]

Mmmmph... I'll give this a blast.