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Old 10-15-2002, 10:52 PM   #1
Letum
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Talking

Hello-

I have an idea for a MUD that I would find extremely interesting. It would be based on the "Hornblower" book saga by C.S. Forestor, and therefore would be based on the "Channell War" between England, Spain, Revolutionary France, and Monarchist France.

Characters in the MUD would start on one of the country's ships as a "Midshipman", and try to work their way up to being an "Admiral". The game would include sea and land areas, and battles would be fought between the ships on the sea. I expect this game will have to be pretty advanced, so that each country has to export their own food, and must use one of their ships to do it. They must also perform other advanced functions such as transporting diplomats and calculating money to run the ships. Each player would have a vital role in the game, from the "Grand Admiral of the Fleet's" to each individual "Midshipman". This would be because it takes every last man to run each ship, and each ship must run smoothly for the country's war efforts to work. I think the game may end and start anew when one country wins the war. (I.E. all other non-allied country's surrender to the one country, or one country and allies become in governmental control of every other country).

Tell me what you think of the idea,

Letum
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Old 10-16-2002, 12:02 AM   #2
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I like the idea, it sounds very complex and entertaining. Here are some factors that may be a concern.

1. You'll need a large playerbase
2. What happens to people when they log on during off-peak playing times or their playing times are sporadic and never the same (i.e. random, such as 2-5 PM one day, 9-10 AM another day).
3. Is it going to be a RPI/RP encouraged or H&S/LPMud type?
4. How are you going to introduce new things to keep it "fresh" so people don't get bored and go away?
5. How reliant on other group playing will the game be? Will solo-players have a place in it?

Just some things to think about and I'd be interested to hear if you have and how you have "fixed" them or if indeed you want to "fix" them.
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Old 10-16-2002, 01:09 AM   #3
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Old 10-16-2002, 06:33 AM   #4
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Kastagaar and I once discussed a similar sort of idea, except with spaceships rather than ocean-based ones (and planets instead of countries). We drew a lot of inspiration from games such as Elite II, and looked into combining the real-time element of muds with the turn-based concept utilised by a many web-based games. The basic premise was that you could fly your spaceship around the universe exploring planets, trading (or smugging), mining asteroids, fighting other ships (assassinations, bounty hunting, etc) and so on. Money could be spent on ship upgrades, better weapons, and the like.

Unfortunately we never took it further than the brainstorming phase, but I still think it has great potential as a game concept. In fact there's a graphical mud which came out recently (I can't remember the name) which has quite a lot of similarities, and was presumably also inspired by Elite.

I've also thought about using some of the ideas from Spelljammer within a fantasy mud.
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Old 10-16-2002, 02:08 PM   #5
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Hello-

Thank you for all of your responses! This is very useful. As for what I have been watching, actually, I have been reading the Hornblower saga by C.S. Forester, and watching the Hornblower series on A&E. Still, very good stuff!

As for the MUD, yes it would have to be very expansive and it would rely on a large playerbase. I think, to make the game a little more even for all ships, captains would be able to leave orders posted on a board for the crew to cary out. And, maybe it would be a little-bit turn based, so that you play for two hours each day. That way, the crew would know what time to be online, and could schedule for it. Maybe, there would be one 4-hour turn each day, where everybody would log on, and play the game in real-time. In otherwords, the crews would cary out duties as they would in a 24/7 MUD, except they would only have 4 hours to do it in each day. Or, perhaps each day in the MUD is four hours, and there is one MUD day in every regular day. This way, players would know when they had to get on, and players would not have to be on 24/7.

I think this MUD would be a very strict RP MUD. You play the life of a sailor, and must act as a sailor would. For instance, "Yes sir!" would not be good sailor talk. "Aye, aye sir!" would be correct.

To make this MUD interesting, I think I would need to perhaps advance technology as the war goes on. So, maybe I introduce new war procedures and protocols that someone has "invented" at a certain date. Weapons could advance as well.

This MUD would be entirely based on group play, however, with one 4-hour turn per day, everybody will have a scheduled time to get on, so the groups will show in masses, and people will be able to schedule around the group play. A dedicated captain that ison hand every turn can keep a ship afloat and run it well.

I don't know about the on-shore infrastructure being automated. Obviously, I am not going to map out all of Spain, England and France. Most likely just port cities. At the port cities, captains will have to be able to pick up food, and exchange it for money, and that would be automated. However, if crewman have ships leave, they need some sort of place to go to have a good time on land, such as a casino, bar, etc...These would have to not be automated.

As for the final think, the space MUD, cool! I didn't think about space, because I believe htere are enough of those out there already. Also, I like the Hornblower series and I study the Channell War as a habit, so I think I'd keep it as a Channell War MUD...However, it's good to know that I'm not a looney and someone else had similar ideas.

Thanks, tell me what you think of my "fixes",

-Letum
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Old 10-18-2002, 06:12 PM   #6
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Hello?

Is anyone going to reply to the last post I submitted? I am really interested in this idea and what you all had to say, and am wondering what you thought about my ideas as described in the last post.

Someone take a quick peek,

-Letum
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Old 10-19-2002, 01:43 AM   #7
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Old 10-19-2002, 08:26 AM   #8
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It might work better if the players were ship captains, and the rest of the crew were mobs. Otherwise, I think John is right in that you're going to have trouble with insufficient players.
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Old 10-19-2002, 10:21 AM   #9
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Hello-

If the ship captains are players, and the crew mobs, it takes the point out of the game. I don't think any captain would want to not see any other people on the seas and just float around giving "coded" orders to a mob. It would be MUCH more fun to have an entire crew, where your orders aren't neccesarily carried out perfectly, so you face danger, and where you get to roleplay with other characters.

I do think, however, that the set times may be an interesting new concept that people would go for. For instance, I joined my first MUD a couple of years ago during the summer, and I was all set to say, OK, I've got time, I'm gonna become a star on this MUD. Then, it turned out, that people wanted me to be on 7 hours a day, 6 days a week. It's like, where is the rest of my life? So, if a MUD has a set time, it will at least get people like me excited. One of the things you could have on the MUD was that even though you don't have live play on the seas, you do have battle training that captains can schedule for their crews to participate in. I don't know, I think it may work, with some good advertising and if I am able to grab a big playerbase.

-Letum
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Old 10-19-2002, 10:33 AM   #10
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Another glitch in the logic, is that you'd find it even more difficult to attract any significant player base with only a 4-hour window to play in. People have vastly different schedules and come from all over the world.

If you want to give it a more heavy RP emphasis beyond the hack-n-slash, you could try -not- automating the on-shore stuff, and allow players to roll up fishermen and "serfs" and merchants who would craft weapons and armor, fix boats, even make boats... and supply all that to the captains and/or their crew members.

Could even have a brewing skill setup where tavern owners can brew their own ale.

Make it a real world, rather than just ship objects where players try to kill each other off. Something that folks who aren't into PKing could really sink their teeth into, and that can be played at any hours of the day or night.
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Old 10-19-2002, 10:39 AM   #11
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See, the problem with playing this 24/7, is that it can change the entire nature of the game. What if all of the crew of a particular ship logs off? The ship is left sitting out at sea just WAITING to be captured by crews who come on at that time. Captains could find themselves floating in the sea when they log back on. There's no way to control "hunters" who go around at late parts of the night capturing lots of ships that are floating crewless. There needs to be a way to control gameplay so that the war is fair, and the best captains win, no the ones who stay up the latest...Do you see my point?

Also, I DID have the idea of making the shore not FULLy automated. I think there should be non-automated taverns, casino's, hotels, and other places for the crew to go for ship leave, but a captain picking up rise could load it onto the ship automatically.

See my points here?

-Letum
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Old 10-19-2002, 11:01 AM   #12
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Ah I see the point in that. Hmm..I'm trying to figure out some way where the game can run more than just a limited time each day, but still allow for battle without getting nuts.

What about...

Small battles, maybe several times each week, at scheduled times, presented initially by the "General" (who would be a GM/IMP type person running their NPC) who gives the order to return to duty? And during the rest of the time, the crew would be either on shore leave, or cleaning up and repairing the ship from the previous battle?

In other words, have the battles be scheduled events, and the rest of the time strategic planning and shore leave, which would give characters who don't have ship-member PCs the chance to do all sorts of crafting, maybe even bards or minstrels and such.
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Old 10-19-2002, 06:44 PM   #13
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Hello-

Yes, I do like the scheduled battles idea. It gives people a chance to have fun w/out jeapordizing the games motives and points. Also, I do like the idea of the rest of the time having ships leave or repairing/planning for the next battle. It gives people things to do off-battle time. Well, good solution!

If everyone thinks this might work, you may see me asking for a bit of help developing this MUD in the future. If you wanna help, e-mail me, .

Thanks,

-Letum
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Old 10-21-2002, 04:08 AM   #14
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FWIW, the game was called "Jumpgate", but I don't advocate it since their database conveniently forgot that I had unsubscribed and still charged me.

Kas.
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Old 11-01-2002, 01:23 PM   #15
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Old 11-01-2002, 03:44 PM   #16
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Hello-

I see your point in this, how I could combine NPC and PC to create a 24-hour MUD. However, I am wondering whether my PC players would be interesting of being a leutenant as you suggest on a ship where at the moment everyone else is an NPC.

As for the player-base. I do agree thatI could have entirely NPC-run ships in each fleet, and only a couple PC ships. However, I would like to eventually integrate in PCs on NPC ships, and eventually have the game entirely PC-run. If you are playing in a world where you're always interacting with a person, I think it's much more exciting. Now, integrating PC characters wouldn't replace NPC AI acting as real characters, but it would eventually replace NPC characters that are fully NPC-operated.

I also think that you should have PCs down the line. If everybody has already been promoted once, it leaves no irony or mutiney possibilities within the innrer-shipman. In the first Hornblower book, one big deal is Hornblower's hatred of his senior officer, Simpson. It is his insistance to duel to the finish with Simpson that eventually gets him transfered to another, actually sea-bound ship that he makes prize money off of. They didn't want Hornblower to kill another officer or himself, so they transfered him. The inner-workings of the ship still have to take place.

Thank you,

-Letum
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Old 11-03-2002, 01:00 PM   #17
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Old 01-01-2003, 04:05 PM   #18
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This idea could work if you made it a web-based game instead of a mu*. Then it could take a few ideas from AAA or Cantr II to make it work.
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