I dislike it when games lose that side of things. The part where we’re “doing things”. Changing the game world, interacting with storylines, leveraging rules systems, and playing the game.

I’ve played games where we’ll spend RL days working through some plot, and it doesn’t feel like it has an impact on the game in any way, shape, or form, and that kind of leads to a feeling I dislike too. I’m not a fan of async either. It’s too hard to keep interested.

I like when games push a lot of the ooc discussions to Discord or channels I can gag. I know we’re all people and we’re a community, but sometimes I don’t wanna hear about someone’s bad day or feelings on whatever spamming through channels I monitor for things related to the game.

@Faraday The way I interpret it is, the better your thing is, the more players will end up in cathegory three.

Sure, but the question was “is three months the sweet spot for a MU”. If you operate under that belief, you would gear your game toward category one and then nobody would end up in category three

Three months: The average time a player will spend on a game, any game. Once the new shine and sparkle has worn off, many move on to the next new thing.

With the utmost respect to the legendary Koster, I disagree with this assertion. MUSHes lend themselves to long-form storytelling. Their closest parallel IMHO is a TV series with multiple seasons. The idea that TV shows should aim to only be 1-season long just because statistically most TV shows don’t live past the first season is a faulty premise. If you make a good TV show, viewers will stick around for ages. Same for a MUSH.

On the flip side though, it’s still good practice to focus on making the most kick-ass 1st season you can, both to hook new viewers, and in case that’s all you get

Three months: The average time a player will spend on a game, any game. Once the new shine and sparkle has worn off, many move on to the next new thing.

A tangent but this is why I find the ‘new’ stage of a game exhausting. I know I’m basically RPing into the void with people who won’t stick around or develop anything, but who’re also 200% extra about everything OOC. I tend to be very wary of anything that hasn’t hit the six-month mark.

Is three months the sweet spot for a MU?

Actually, yes. It is. Story time!

Once upon a time when the Earth was young and I first became staff on a MUD (LegendMUD for ye curious) in the late 1990s, Raph Koster was one of the implementors (you may know him as Ultima Online’s Designer Dragon). No, I’m not name dropping here – I think I talked to him twice, it’s not like I know him. (His wife is awesome, though).

Anyhow. Raph Koster did a study on this and reported his findings. There are three cut-off points.

Three months: The average time a player will spend on a game, any game. Once the new shine and sparkle has worn off, many move on to the next new thing.

Eight months: Those who were severely and firmly hooked have now done it all. They start to look for expansions, new things – and end up wandering off to elsewhere in pursuit of those things.

Forever: And finally, there is a core group of players who have found a home. Nothing short of pulling the plug on the game will get these guys to move on.

Launching a game is the easy part.

@Faraday said in Why MUSH?:

@Jumpscare said in Why MUSH?:

Yeah, at least with Ares games, it takes 3 months for the story to be abandoned.

I kid, but I really have played so many Ares games that fizzle our within 3 months.

Sure, but I’ve played on so many PennMUSH games, TinyMUX games, etc. that fizzle out within 3 months too. For as long as the hobby has existed, the vast majority of MUs have never really taken flight. Ares just helps more at least get to the “open” phase.

That’s a good point! And I think Ares does a great job of it.

Is three months the sweet spot for a MU?

IMHO 2-3 months is just the time you have to “hook” your playerbase. There’s a honeymoon period when a game first opens. If you don’t build critical mass during that period, the game will fail. So rather than plan for a game that only lasts 3 months, I would plan things that will build momentum during those first months.

Like, if enterprising people were to build a MU for a very specific story, and plan to try and tell the entire story from start to finish in 3 months (give or take a week or two), would it be a success?

Yeah, at least with Ares games, it takes 3 months for the story to be abandoned.

I kid, but I really have played so many Ares games that fizzle our within 3 months.

Sure, but I’ve played on so many PennMUSH games, TinyMUX games, etc. that fizzle out within 3 months too. For as long as the hobby has existed, the vast majority of MUs have never really taken flight. Ares just helps more at least get to the “open” phase.

The trailing off without resolution is why I don’t RP on forums anymore. At least in a MUSH people don’t start and abandon a story a week.

Yeah, at least with Ares games, it takes 3 months for the story to be abandoned.

I kid, but I really have played so many Ares games that fizzle our within 3 months.

@Faraday Did Storium happen to inspire Ares at all?

Ares had been underway for a long time (since 2007) before Storium existed (2014). The first Ares alpha game had already opened before I even learned about Storium. But as I was designing the web portal, I did look at a lot of different online RP styles - some of the big forum/PBP sites, commercial MUD websites, Storium, Roll20, and more. One concrete thing I adapted from Storium was showing the character icons next to the poses in the web scenes. The earlier versions looked more like wikidot logs - just all text. You can read a bit about the early web prototyping on the Ares Developer Blog.

That’s also what’s kept me from getting into PBP and Storium RP.

I too gave Storium a try and didn’t make it past setting up my first game before I gave up, and I Kickstarted it way back when.

The odd part about this is that I cannot do asynchronous RP at all. As much as asynch is definitely for people who don’t have a stable schedule, it causes me anxiety that I still don’t really understand.

I don’t think that’s so strange. Despite all the effort I put into letting Ares support async RP for those who need it, I don’t like to RP asynchronously. The constant context switching, the long delays between poses (which also tends to lead to longer poses that are harder to react to), and the fact that many of them just trail off without resolution… not my jam. That’s also what’s kept me from getting into PBP and Storium RP.

To try and prove I can write.

I don’t think that’s a selfish reason at all. Trying to write in any format is often a scary thing for people attempting it, so finding a format and venue in which you feel comfortable enough to actually let words flow to page or screen is nothing to be ashamed of.

There are plenty of styles of online RP, from forum PBP to freeform discords to hybrids like Storium. What do you like about MUSHing specifically?

It’s a very selfish reason, in my case:

To try and prove I can write. I like the imagination component and the dynamic nature of RP with other people. It’s very stimulating to my brain when I really get into things.

Unfortunately, it has also made me something of a snob.

I prefer roleplaying where what matters most is the interactions between characters, and MUSHes are right in that sweet spot.

I love writing, and MUSHes are my favorite medium.