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!

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

The second part of Icarus' article is published, speaking towards a no-brainer solution to the standard learning curve problem, that every game in our genre could benefit from. Take a look!

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

"Lower Barriers to Entry, part two" is another great article by Optional Realities. Lowering barriers to entry for new players, who have never tried text games before, needs to be a major goal of any MUD. I, for one, never played a text game until I found the Iron Realms games mentioned on Kongregate.com in 2010. Once I tried one, I never went back to graphic games. Text games have so much more depth, variety, and limitless potential to have an impact on the game world. In comparison, a player seems more like a visitor in a graphic game, with little chance of dramatically contributing to that particular world. MUDs have as good a chance as any game to establish a lasting bond with a player. The trick seems to be in learning to ease a new player's transition from point and click with a mouse or console to entering text on a screen.

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

I absolutely agree! And I'm glad you're enjoying our weekly articles so far. We have an article that we'll publish in the upcoming weeks that will directly address exactly the issue that you refer to.

In the meantime, this week, we've published Crayon's new article on putting the power of regional expansion into the hands of a game's players. Check it out!

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

This week, we've published a new article from Jeshin, discussing the economic systems and design of RPGs/MUDs/MMOs. Check it out!

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

This week, we've published an opinion editorial from original Dragon Ball Infinite administrator, Leah, on the considerations and applications of staff ethics. Check it out!

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

This week, we've published an article that I wrote on designing and organizing great branching storylines for your games. Check it out!

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

This week, we've published an article from Sabrelon describing how to save yourself frustration and reduce your workload, by applying professional customer service techniques to your game's administration. It's a subject that is very relevant for anyone who finds themselves with the tricky responsibility of managing a community of people online!

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

This week, we've published an article from Apollo offering guidelines to help you get started and stay organized while trying to turn your dream game into a reality. Check it out!

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

This week, we've published an article written by Jeshin on the unenviably tough job of a Community Manager, and how they can best deal with the ... unique challenges presented to them in our niche gaming community. Check it out!

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

This week, we've published an article written by Crayon, on how text-based games can learn from Triple A titles like Mass Effect and Borderlands by intelligently blending gameplay genres to tell effective stories and re-invent our favorite gaming niche. Check it out!

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

This week's article was written by Imaginary Realities' own Griatch, who is also the mastermind behind the Evennia Engine for creating text-based games, a modern Python resource for our favorite hobby. In the article, he discusses how to get started with understanding Evennia's basic functions, and offers illustrations to help you visualize how Evennia works.

Check it out, and share your thoughts! And if you really dig what Griatch is doing, support him on his

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

This week, we've published an article written by Jeshin. He discusses some of the pitfalls of taking a good idea from conception through development, and how to avoid having your best intentions for features and mechanics backfire on you when theory becomes practice. Check it out!

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

This week, we've published the second part of Jeshin's series on game development hurdles, discussing how to identify and fix issues with "broken" game play. Read on up!

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

This week's article is from Tyr, the creator of BuffyMUD and Haven: Mist and Shadow. In it, he discusses how game designers can anticipate the problems of Out-of-Character interaction and motivations, and counter them with smart, clever design that is unoppressive and organic. Check it out!

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

Optional Realities went down about a week ago due to some server side issues. We've used the past week to re-boot our website, our mission statement, and our forums to be more mobile device and screen-reader friendly. Unfortunately, we were not able to transition over our old forums, and are re-building the forums anew.

So, that means that now's a great time to get involved over on the OR community site, or to re-register on the new forums if you haven't already. Come check us out and let us know what you think of the new mission statements, website, and forums!

We'll be spending the Holiday season re-archiving the best of our articles from the past year, and are looking forward to publishing new articles at the start of 2016.