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Old 08-20-2012, 12:51 PM   #1
Orion
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Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

Do you want to play a MUD that is not 'hack and slash' or has pointless mind-numbingly boring quests that anyone can do to gain equipment or stats?

Do you instead, find yourself looking for a place to develop your creative writing whilst playing a character in a fully realised setting?

Do you still want your character to be able to obtain tangible items and have statistics that define your character's abilities, but would dismiss the pursuit of such things as a player and instead focus on the development of your character through roleplay?

And lastly, are you tired of being part of a MUD with players who abuse the rules and staff members who seek to control the game through their characters and use their staff abilities to achieve this? Do you seek to influence the world in which your character plays in a way which follows the game's rules, and would actively get involved in forming your own events and plots?

If you think the above apply to you, then I've been creating a MUD over the past 3-4 yearstailored to such individuals. A place where, within the bounds of realism for the setting, players will be given the neccesary latitude for their characters to shape the game world through their actions, with the caveat that player-killing would be a last resort when no other options could be considered, because there are many - from blackmail to hostage taking, to political manouevering and anything else you can think of that would generate plots rather than abruptly ending them.

Broken Cycle is set in a medieval-style village in a remote mountainous region of an unnamed world. The only current species is human. The game begins with them unable to leave the village due to harsh winter conditions. Supplies are few, and the Village Council, of which your player can be part of, if you wish, must decide how to deal with issues such as these. There are also the Protectors, a small but the only formally trained group of individuals that enforce the laws of the village. Or perhaps you would like to be a thief, or a rapist, or someone outside the council that seeks to spread discontent at the way they run the village? All of these roles would be accepted, provided that a balance between 'good' characters and 'bad' characters is maintained, to ensure sustained roleplay.

While outside the village the wider valley has not been completed yet, by summer time in-game, it is expected that it will be, with harvesting skills, including farming, hunting, gathering and wood chopping already in place.

In the meantime, there is a craft system, through which players can create a variety of items themselves in workshops throughout the village as well as in their homes. Perhaps you would like to be a master blacksmith before you begin the game, or would like to run the village's inn? Tell me and I'll set you up.

Magic does not exist in-game yet, and while it is usually a traditional element in fantasy-based games, this game will also have an element of science fiction, with supernatural abilities planned to be introduced through a loose storyline that I intend the game to follow. I say loose, in that how the story goes, in large part, will be up to the players. I will merely provide the framework.

If you think you can engage in a way that not only provide enjoyment for yourself, but also for other players, then you will be duly rewarded, but it should be something you want to do. There will be few staff-run events, with staff instead taking on the role of certain characters, just as a player would, and roleplaying with other players, rather than dictating the story, which often leaves the players little to do but play along.

I will plan to open the MUD Mondays to Fridays and close it at the weekends for maintenance as well as to fulfil any requests that have been put forth by players.

Email me at if you are interested, and please provide a log of some roleplay you have done on a similar MUD.

The creation process is very simple, however I would expect that anyone who plays reads the helpfiles to learn about the game world before playing, and if you desire your character to have certain abilities or specialised roles before playing, that will need to be arranged as well.

Character homes are assumed for each character, but if you want one to roleplay in, then I can create one - it will just take time, but there is no reason that you cannot roleplay in the meantime. I will be willing to facilitate most requests as long as they are conducive to plots.

If I am able to generate the interest of 7 suitable players, I will send everyone who emails me a response, letting them know when the game will open. These people will hopefully want to stay and form the basis for the starting playerbase, after which I may publicise the connection details, allowing more players to join.

If you have any questions please ask here, but questions only please. Criticism of the game will only be accepted on a forums once the game has been opened, and should only be in the form of constructive criticism and accompanied by a suggestion for change. Changes may be implemented or they may not, so you should be able to accept this too, if you would like to play.
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Old 08-20-2012, 02:11 PM   #2
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

Kudos on starting a mud and having a sound vision. I don't know if recruiting the elite starting playerbase by soliciting logs of people's accomplishments on their past muds is a very standard way to go. There must be dozens of people reading your opening post right now and beginning to think to themselves, "Boy, I'll probably check this one out in a second," then getting to the part where they have to practically e-mail a resume for permission to play, and deciding that, being real people in the real world, they just don't want to take that kind of time and effort for permission to try out a new game.

Question: When's the official "everybody log in and try the game" slated to be? Do you have a rough date in mind?
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Old 08-20-2012, 02:30 PM   #3
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

Agreed with ST on this one. Orion, I get the feeling that this game is 'your baby' which is fine, but IMO it would be better to let go a little and entice players into the game by how cool the game is, not by how cool the players feel for joining an exclusive club. The former will attract motivated and fun players, the latter people who are more interested in their prestige than creating a fun RP game.
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Old 08-20-2012, 03:31 PM   #4
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

Ah fair enough. I suppose if people were reading all that, they'd know what kind of MUD it is, and if they were interested, they would already be of the roleplaying persuasion and have done a fair bit of it. It was more of an afterthought really. I'm more interested in who would actually be interested than the quality of their roleplay. As long as you would be alright with writing a 3-4 line 'emote' as the norm, including actions, speech. Not thoughts, as I have a seperate 'think' command for that. It's all explained in game anyway.

To answer you SnowTroll, as soon as I have 7 people telling me that they're interested, it'll be the first Monday after that. I've been agonising over a couple of unfinished things for ages, but there's no reason I can't keep developing the game as people play it and feedback will help me do that. It's pretty well developed at this stage though.
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Old 08-20-2012, 03:53 PM   #5
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

I do understand wanting to start out with a maintainable playerbase while you work on things. The closing for the weekend idea is interesting. Here's a couple of my thoughts:

- First off, I wish you the best of luck, because I really believe in the RPI sub-genre of games and want there to be more successful sorts. That's why I created Atonement.
- Secondly, don't take on the workload yourself if you start to grow - even in the slightest. RPIs require a lot more maintenance, upkeep and work than most MUDs do. Find yourself some staff to aid you in connecting with your playerbase, building, scripting, developing stories, etc. If you burnout and there's nobody else, your game is suddenly in a bad spot.
- Perhaps make the "application" process be a literal character application as opposed to logs for proof of roleplay. RPIs require applications with the characters anyways - and not every roleplayer keeps logs.
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Old 08-20-2012, 03:54 PM   #6
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

Orion, what you have sounds closer to a mush gameplay wise (there are some mushes with coded systems), so you might want to take your request to WORA as well. Fair warning, the members there can be critical, so if I were you I'd read some threads in the advertisement section before posting.
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Old 08-20-2012, 04:00 PM   #7
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

I would class it as a MUSH, except that the combat is coded. What you do basically is emote an attempted action, say trying to stab someone with your knife, and then follow it with a command to see if it succeeds. People would take turns in combat like that, but the success or failure of such actions wouldn't be up to the character.

MUSH's tend to just leave combat purely described, with no code to back up the actions whatsoever, at least in my experience of them.

I also have combat with NPC's, which wouldn't require emotes to precede the attack commands, something that I also don't think MUSH's have either.
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Old 08-20-2012, 04:21 PM   #8
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

DonathinFrye, thank you.

I will plan to add additional staff members if the playerbase grows. Having played a few RPI's, I saw the strain it took on some staff members, however those were MUD's where I felt the staff tried to keep too much control over what was going on.

I think applications for characters that want specific roles before they begin playing is a good idea, but some people just want to get on and play, in which case if they wanted to assume a certain role, they would have to try and earn it in game. To begin with, I would prefer that people take on specific roles, and I'll probably offer them with details on the forums. There needs to be a starting social dynamic for the game to kick off properly. So ideally I'd like a law enforcer, a couple of council members, the innkeeper and a few master crafters, as well as a destabilising element like a thief. But people will be able to play multiple characters as long as they don't help one another in any way.
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Old 08-20-2012, 05:34 PM   #9
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

I've unofficially opened the MUD for people to come on and look around and try stuff out if they want to.

Connection details:

Address: 94.192.13.27

Port: 4000
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Old 08-20-2012, 08:26 PM   #10
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

Thanks for the interest. I have closed the MUD for now. I'll open it again for others to have a look at another time.
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Old 08-27-2012, 02:24 PM   #11
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

So far I've had a fair few interested, beyond the 7 I had hoped for, which is great. I'll be opening the game again tommorow (Tuesday) evening for people to take a look and ask questions again. I will post here when it's up. Currently I'm working on the forums, which should hopefully be ready soon. I will post those details here as well.
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Old 08-28-2012, 08:50 AM   #12
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

A site has been created, along with some forums that you can reach through the site.



The MUD will be having another unofficial opening this (Tuesday) evening at 9pm GMT (4pm EST.)

Further announcements will be posted on the forums in the staff announcements section.
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Old 09-03-2012, 03:37 AM   #13
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

The MUD will open for another round of player testing on Tuesday 4th September at 9pm GMT (4pm EST.)

Until further notice, the MUD will open every Tuesday at this time.

Several changes have been made to the game since last week, based on the feedback and suggestions given during the last testing event.
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Old 09-09-2012, 11:01 PM   #14
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

Sounds like a great idea, unfortunately most of my MUD time is late night so I won't be able to play, good luck though.
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Old 10-19-2012, 03:37 PM   #15
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Re: Broken Cycle - A New RPI MUD

Just a quick update. Broken Cycle will probably be having it's official opening in November sometime now, or December at the latest. The player testing went well, and there might be some more before it opens. Some changes have already been made based on what people who have tried the game have said. There's a few more features I'd like to be in place before the MUD opens, so to those who have already tried the game and sent in your character applications, have faith, I still fully intend to open the MUD in the near future.

I will post the exact date nearer to the time.

Thanks for the interest.
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