Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

Hey folks,

I'd like to announce the opening of Optional Realities, a design blog and community supporting roleplay-focused MUDs. We are committed to the following:

- We will publish regular articles every week, not only written by our own team of experienced MUD Designers, but the staff of prominent roleplaying games like Sindome, Evolution of Esos, Shadows of Isildur, Armageddon, Haven: Mists and Shadow, and others.

- We will moderate a community forum with a policy very similar to this one, as a place for leaders in our genre of MUDs to discuss roleplaying, writing, design, and upcoming events for their games.

- We will do everything that we can to help support designers looking to create their own games in our genre.

- We will host monthly contests with cash prizes, ranging from storytelling competitions, to game design proposals, to submission of quality roleplaying logs.


The Optional Realities team is also committed to our work with the engine, which we are using to create a new engine and sci-fi roleplay-centric MUD. But, we'll introduce that project at another time, very soon.


Please join us at Optional Realities, in our effort to strengthen our 20+ year old community and build towards an ever-better future for roleplaying MUDs.


Jaunt
Chief Editor for Optional Realities

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

And, our first article is already live. Shadows of Isildur's own Alucard has written an excellent piece on plot design philosophy, that I think is every bit as important to players as it is to storytelling staff.

Check it out!

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

Our second article is published, written by yours truly. Designing combat systems is a passion of mine, and I'd love feedback. Thanks to the many folks who are contributing already to making Optional Realities a vibrant community.

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

Our third article has been published, written by long-time GM and designer, Slither! He's written about the tools and approaches to developing and iterating new features to support your MUD, an often under-thought topic for game developers.

Check it out!

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

We've published our fourth article, and this one's written by ex-SOI and Atonement programmer extraordinaire, Tiamat/Apollo. She's a smart cookie.

Check out: !

You also still have a couple of weeks left to submit your fantasy game design to our May Contest, and win eternal glory (and possibly up to fifty bucks)!

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

We've released our final article in our big push for our first two weeks of Optional Realities. After just twelve days, we've managed to build a really great, intelligent, design-oriented community. From here on out, we plan to release one-to-two articles per week moving forward.

This article, from Imaginary Realities' own Griatch, discusses Evennia, which is a new (modern) engine perfect for developing and designing a roleplay-focused MUD. It uses Python entirely, allowing for powerful (and relatively easy) scripting to handle all necessary MUD protocols. I've used it, and I'm hooked.

Check it out:

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

Alaire, Head Admin for Evolution of Esos, discusses magic in Low Fantasy RPG settings -- and some of the lessons they've learned at EOE -- in this week's article:

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

This week, one of our published articles is from SOI's Senior Staff member, Icarus; he talks about the use of aesthetic variables in the OpenRPI Engine, and how to most effectively apply them towards creating a better and more immersive world.

Check it out!

Also remember that there's less than a week to submit a concept for your to us. The top three submissions, after review, will win recognition, publication, and some money!

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

This Friday, we have an article from HavenRPG and BuffyMUD's creator, Tyr. Check it out!

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

This week, we feature an editorial from Orpheus (owner of The Burning Post II) on his philosophies towards player killing, and the place it should have in roleplay-centric MUDs.

Take a look and discuss!

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

This week's Optional Realities design article was written by once Shadows of Isildur owner, Japheth! In it, he discusses his engine (FutureMUD), artificial intelligence, and the necessary considerations of designing a customizable MUD Engine from scratch. Japheth has a particular focus on creating a MUD Engine for rp-focused games that doesn't require a coder, with the hopes of creating a more accessible engine for builders and designers who may not know much about programming!

Check it out:

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

This week, Optional Realities has published an article written by one of its own staff, Crayon! In it, he discusses how to identify the roleplaying needs for your game, and apply your needs to design decisions to create the best, most immersive atmosphere possible. Check it out!

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

We've just published an article to discuss written by Brody! In it, he ponders the lessons learned from OtherSpace's long run in our community, with commentary on how those lessons apply to all of us and our games:

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

We've just published part one of a new, in-depth look at widespread problem of Power Creep in RPGs, and my proposal for one possible solution. Check it out!

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

While the article itself is mostly ok, the tinfoil hat grade 'evil corporation' propaganda contained therein was quite unnecessary.

Alter Aeon MUD

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

I loved the article "Just say no to Powercreep." Quite fun in style and execution. The concept of horizontal design seems interesting. I can see how horizontal design could make crafting more about manipulating variables rather then just equipment getting more and more powerful without limits. I like the idea that if one trait or stat of a piece of equipment goes up then something must be given up as a trade-off. For example, if the damage per hit goes up, then the longevity of the equipment is reduced.

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

Exactly! I'm glad you enjoyed the first part of the article. I've just published the second part of the article, which has an abundance of specific examples, and shares the full design document for Redshift's armor system:



I think you're doing me a wee bit of a disservice. Not everything that Triple A Gaming companies do is bad, and I'm not a conspiracy theorist. After all, I play their games. However, it's hard to argue that their games are not designed to use grinding as a mechanism to get you to spend more money, at the cost of diluting the quality of their games with Power Creep. Some companies and games do this more than others, but it's an absolute industry standard.

Games like Guild Wars 2 and Everquest Next are moving further away from this model with Horizontal Design. The article's all about how our genre of game can apply similar concepts to our games, to improve the experience. Not everyone will agree with me (I should hope not!), but I've made the best case for introducing Horizontal Design that I am capable of.

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

This week, we have a new article from a beloved storyteller from Shadows of Isildur, ages past.

Arucard's new article discusses better ways for staff to engage their players and get them to take part in the activities that staff wants them to. I happen to think his advice is very useful for player clan leaders, too, so check it out and join the discussion!

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

This week we've published an article from Optional Realities' Founder, Jeshin. In it, he argues that there's maybe never been more potential for story-focused MUDs in the gaming market than right now, and talks about what we can do to draw in more new players.

Check it out!



Also, don't forget about our cash contest this month. It's really a rather easy one!

Re: Optional Realities: Greater RP-Focused MUD Community, and Design Blog
 

This week, we have an article from long time Shadows of Isildur Senior Admin, Icarus, on the need for RPIs to lower the barriers to entry, the learning curve, to retain new players. It's part one of a two part article, so check it out!