Status of the MUCK

[Maiza]

... Believe it or not, I'm not dead though by all rights I really should be!

Ok, here's the deal y'all. I got tied a wee bit up with the Navy and once I finished my tour of duty there, getting out and doing the College thing... Ironically where I am now actually. Just have a year left before I graduate at this point.

Here's where things stand. As far as I'm aware, all the supporting staff have disappeared into the ether again. If we wanted to revive the MU, I could do that simply enough. I still retain the website and the MU* name at this point. (Though why I didn't stop paying for it years ago is beyond me...) Administration at this point should be easier - I'm actually not disappearing under the ocean for months at a time now that I'm a civilian again. Imagine that. As for a programmer... my girl can likely cover much of that as need be if I ask her to. (Shock! Maiza actually found himself a GF! What is the world coming to...?) For that matter, I could probably finally give in and sit down to learn MUF myself. I'm a CS major and have been avoiding it like the Plague to this point successfully over the past decade but...

... I'm rambling. I do think there is something to be said for letting SunRise itself lie as a MU* name to a degree, though there is also something to be said for building off the existing history. As for adult-themed... I could go either way on that.

Anywho, all of that will depend on the amount of interest/support and activity/participation of folks. I know there's a dedicated group of folks out there who would enjoy seeing SR return, but they're a minority. Most of us have moved on, and enticing them back will be a challenge. On top of that, there is the issue of getting new folks involved.

Poke me with thoughts/suggestions/ideas. I'm open to them.

EDIT: Cleaned up some of the post to be more coherent. Yay for 2am ramblings...

[Elimnyama]

Oh wow... Hey Maiza.

It's kinda trippy to hear from you again! In a good way, obviously! Good to hear you're doing well. Big thank-you's for your service, too.

As you can see, there are still a few of us hanging around and refusing to die (i.e., myself, Msasi/Anubis, and Shomoro). Apart from us three however, I don't think this forum gets much traffic anymore. There could be some lurkers, I suppose, but I think one of them would've said something by now!

Nov 8, 2011 1:19:06 GMT -5 Maiza said:

If we wanted to revive the MU, I could do that simply enough.

Wow, that's kind of a mind bender. On the one hand, it's always been and it's always going to be a big temptation and I've never been good at that whole self-discipline thing. On the other hand, I've seen the build-up and failure of too many MU*s to be able to muster up a lot of enthusiasm... I BEEN SCORNED, Y'SEE.

My thinking is this: as I've said before, I am a permanent advocate of leaving Sunrise's legacy alone. It had an amazing run, but it's been 17 years since The Lion King was made (LOL I AM SO OLD KILL ME). I would be happy to support an African-wildlife or a lion/hyena-centered game, but puh-leeeeease don't try to revive Sunrise. The word "Kivuli" literally makes my creative glands shrivel up.

With that said, I would also be happy to help brainstorm and evaluate different ideas for games, but I think if we're going to go about this we should try to do it the right way.

First things, let's take it slow. This forum's been dead for some time and the folks who used to frequent it will probably not be persuaded to return on the mere promise of a new MUCK starting up. Personally, I think the wisest thing to do would be to go about the whole process very slowly, really talk it out together, determine what factors (besides an active playerbase ) we would need for a successful game.

I think the first question we should discuss is, as Maiza said, do we WANT this?

A MUCK can't survive on the passion of two or three people, especially when the passion is forced to be sporadic because of our real lives. If we start down the road of "OMG THAT WOULD BE SO AWESOME LET'S START TODAY IMMA DESC TWENTY BAZILLION ROOMS" ... let's just not. 'Cause five days later there'd just be a big dead MUCK with a thousand rooms and nobody in them.

Also consider: How much time and effort would we want (or even be able) to give this?

We're all grown-ups now (y'know.. physically speaking) and we all have lives and jobs and obligations that we didn't have back in our teenage RPing heydays. I don't say this to turn anybody off. Building and administrating a small game doesn't HAVE to be a big deal. It doesn't HAVE to suck up our lives or stress us out. In fact, considering it very well might be just the four of us sitting around RPing together, we wouldn't really need to bother with rules and RP guides and complicated plots and big orchestrated scenes of stress and woe.

(I meant that last sentence to sound sort of pathetic... but the more I think about the more I go "huh.... that wouldn't be so bad, actually, 'cause these guys are all really sort of amazing. Huh.")

And the other important question I think we're facing: what would we actually WANT to RP about? I'm thinking beyond "I like sea lions so we should set it in the Antarctic!" or "Hey, that Puss in Boots movie is popular for some reason! Let's base the game on that!" Because lol no. So. What sorts of themes do we like that have some sort of longevity to them?

The Lion King was like the perfect storm of a theme because it combined so many elements people are naturally drawn to in movies and books: lovable characters, cartoony cuteness, animals, nature, death, drama, exotic settings, love, baby-makin'... I mean, there was just so much THERE! No wonder TLK MUCK still exists.

(I shit you not, it totally does. They just announced some kind of re-launch on Oct 1st. FML).

So, what other games out there have had a long history of success? What themes could we explore that we wouldn't get tired of five minutes later? If the idea of African-style RP is still intriguing to the rest of you, I'm in full support, but I'm not married to the idea. I think we should all think about it.

So. I'm done rambling, for now. Thank you, Maiza, for getting this ball rolling with your post.

BRAINSTORM PARTY GO.

Edit: Lol, check out my new avatar. He's perpetually judging the post above him.

[Elimnyama]

........................................ really?

[Maiza]

*ducks back in...*

... Really.

RL has a tendency to rear it's ugly head at the most inopportune times. -.-;

Anywho, I tend to agree overall. SR is best laid to rest.

From a server administrative side, setting up a new MU* isn't difficult. Got it down pretty well at this point and managing such is a snap. If I can't handle anything coding wise, my Girl Friend knows MUF inside and out. She can generally run circles around me when it comes to coding, but when it comes to system administration and hardware/networking, that's where I shine.

The downside to using a MUCK or other codebase is that architecture is extremely dated by today's standards. Most folks don't know what a MUCK or even Telnet is. It may be wise to consider a Java front-end/client or even a complete solution to counter this. This is a bit of work, but is possibly within my coding capabilities.

Where I'd need assistance mostly is on the Creative and Administrative sides of the house. I can't handle 100% of that, and someone else would really have to handle the day-to-day player relations, directing plots/scenes, finding players, advertising, etc. Perhaps even a website admin, though I could probably cobble something together if pressed (Not a fan of coding, though can do so if required).

In any case, sorry for the delay. Pops fell off the roof and broke his hip + elbow, so been taking care of him + finals. Kinda let this fall by the wayside for a bit.

Aside - I didn't realize you were from VA as well Elim! (Or if I did, it's been ages since I last thought about it!) I'm over in Roanoke/Radford, VA. Give a hollar if you ever want to try meeting up at some point. :P