27 May, 2010, Asylumius wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
Asylumius said:
I liked what MudMagic was doing, but between the people who aren't interested, don't have time, etc. in an already small and niche community, it apparently just doesn't work. Like Kavir pointed out, if money can't get people motivated, I don't have a better idea.

For people with full-time jobs and outside activities (I know, I know) it's extremely difficult to lay aside chunks of time for short-duration, intensive work on a project. So any competition that involved, say, a week of work, would basically be impossible for me to realistically participate in, even if you were to increase the prize money (you'd have to increase it a fair bit before it became worth sacrificing other things (like work…) for that week). So it's not that I'm uninterested in principle: it's that practical reality just doesn't make this very feasible, even though I think I would enjoy participating.


Yeah, I wasn't unaware of the reason behind it, just pointing out that it's unlikely to work.

One of the MUDs I still play has gone through and is currently suffering from the fact that all of the developers have transitioned from the "college guy with an abundance of free time" stage in their lives to the "wife, kids, mortgage, busy-as-f*ck" stage.

I suppose that's just a symptom of a dying genre.
27 May, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
Asylumius said:
I liked what MudMagic was doing, but between the people who aren't interested, don't have time, etc. in an already small and niche community, it apparently just doesn't work. Like Kavir pointed out, if money can't get people motivated, I don't have a better idea.

Personally I was more interested in the promotional benefits for my mud - the first competition I won, I chose a banner placement rather than the cash, and I was rather disappointed that the MudMagic "competition winner" link was just a small mention at the bottom of the front page. MudMagic wasn't really that big, but I still had a fair few new players come over to see what sort of mud the coding contest winner ran. If a contest were to have the backing of (and be promoted by) multiple mud sites such as MudBytes, TMC and TMS, I think it could provide a very tempting promotional opportunity for mud developers.
27 May, 2010, Runter wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
If a contest were to have the backing of (and be promoted by) multiple mud sites such as MudBytes, TMC and TMS, I think it could provide a very tempting promotional opportunity for mud developers.


I agree with this.
27 May, 2010, Chris Bailey wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
I would like a "feature" competition, like what was mentioned. OLC sounds like an interesting start as well, I wonder what some of you guys could come up with? :P
28 May, 2010, Tyche wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
Well there hasn't been a16K mud client competition yet.

I kind of like the idea of small feature competitions. I don't know about OLC though.
I was thinking along the lines of character generation, magic system, combat system, quest system, description system, navigation systems, etc.
28 May, 2010, Runter wrote in the 26th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
Well there hasn't been a16K mud client competition yet.


I think that would indeed be interesting if there were enough people interested in such a thing.


Sounds like what we need is a mudconteststandards.com so we can define community accepted contest standards.
28 May, 2010, Mudder wrote in the 27th comment:
Votes: 0
Tyche said:
I kind of like the idea of small feature competitions. I don't know about OLC though. I was thinking along the lines of character generation, magic system, combat system, quest system, description system, navigation systems, etc.


x2
28 May, 2010, Igabod wrote in the 28th comment:
Votes: 0
@Scandum regarding cooperation, what do you think the RaM project was? What do you think the various FUSS projects are? How about circle, isn't there a group responsible for that codebase? I think you may have been hasty in that comment.

@Kavir I too think that we'd get more participation if the various mud related forums and sites cooperated and offered advertising(that doesn't suck) on all of the participating sites. In fact, if all of the major powers got together they could advertise the competition on non-mud sites and draw other programmers and gamers into our little world. I don't think money should even be offered as a prize. I think the top 3 entries should be offered a banner rotation or something on the major sites.

@Tyche regarding char generation competion, what exactly did you have in mind here? There isn't too awful much that can be done with character creation except in the case of RP muds where you can choose aesthetic attributes that have no real function within the game. Or were you thinking of a competition to make a clean more legible nanny type function?

still @ Tyche: I love the idea of a quest system competition. Quest systems are severely un-fleshed out in every diku-derived mud I've played. But the navigation systems would probably make for more interesting code in my opinion. Kavir gave me the first glimpse of a non-standard nsewud navigation system with his 16k entry. I was utterly confused by it at first and I admit that I still have difficulty with it a little. But I like the creativity that went into it. In fact, that's just about the only real feature of any of those entries that I can remember to this day.
28 May, 2010, Runter wrote in the 29th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
@Tyche regarding char generation competion, what exactly did you have in mind here? There isn't too awful much that can be done with character creation except in the case of RP muds where you can choose aesthetic attributes that have no real function within the game. Or were you thinking of a competition to make a clean more legible nanny type function?


I could maybe imagine different creation systems. Some are menu driven. The most basic just ask for fields as you go. IMO, it might be worthwhile if the competition was to create an enjoyable creation experience judging both code and the interface exposed. I bet there's solutions out there people haven't even explored. I think a problem is that you'd run into problems where the creation process someone wants to developed may be highly coupled with a specific games. I.e. it's not self contained and would require the context of a full game. Like creating your character as you play the game based on quests/criteria, etc.
28 May, 2010, Igabod wrote in the 30th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
Quote
@Tyche regarding char generation competion, what exactly did you have in mind here? There isn't too awful much that can be done with character creation except in the case of RP muds where you can choose aesthetic attributes that have no real function within the game. Or were you thinking of a competition to make a clean more legible nanny type function?


I could maybe imagine different creation systems. Some are menu driven. The most basic just ask for fields as you go. IMO, it might be worthwhile if the competition was to create an enjoyable creation experience judging both code and the interface exposed. I bet there's solutions out there people haven't even explored. I think a problem is that you'd run into problems where the creation process someone wants to developed may be highly coupled with a specific games. I.e. it's not self contained and would require the context of a full game. Like creating your character as you play the game based on quests/criteria, etc.


Ah, I didn't even consider the fact of menu driven vs mobile script driven vs whatever else.

The only way I can think of to fix the problem you mention is to just make the competition to turn a simple character creation into something better. So for instance the competition could be to take the old diku codebase and make the best char creation process using that code as a basis. This would limit the entries a lot though cause not everybody even KNOWS the diku code let alone wants to restrict themselves to that antique. You could use a different code as the base but you'd still get the same problem.
28 May, 2010, kiasyn wrote in the 31st comment:
Votes: 0
kavir said:
If a contest were to have the backing of (and be promoted by) multiple mud sites such as MudBytes, TMC and TMS, I think it could provide a very tempting promotional opportunity for mud developers.


i/we would support this, but we already run free ads anyway, not sure how we could make it different?
28 May, 2010, Runter wrote in the 32nd comment:
Votes: 0
kiasyn said:
kavir said:
If a contest were to have the backing of (and be promoted by) multiple mud sites such as MudBytes, TMC and TMS, I think it could provide a very tempting promotional opportunity for mud developers.


i/we would support this, but we already run free ads anyway, not sure how we could make it different?


It would if you rotated 1 free ad, and 1 featured add instead of 2 free ads. Having a perm featured ad is much better than being one of the many from the bucket.

Of course, if you were to just throw a tiny footnote of an ad at the bottom of the page that wouldn't be worth anything.
28 May, 2010, 3squire wrote in the 33rd comment:
Votes: 0
The problem with the reward seems parallel to the problem of the competition - there's no alignment of incentives. Everybody wants one thing - players. Particularly, players who share the tastes of the mud creator who has in his mind his "ideal" player. Every mud admin wants thousands of players who are overjoyed by the tiny tweaks he coded in because they are the sorts of things he himself always wanted in a mud. But an ad cannot make players play your mud, and money is well, it's only money and the time required to code a mud often drives the dollars per hour into the toilet even for $500 competitions (which to me is a generous first place prize).

The whole point is to show off. The competition is about praise. That's worth more than banner ads and it's worth more than money – it's to get somebody else looking at your code and saying "Ha, that's awesome, just awesome." Here's why I'm all for OLC / Object Interaction.

http://emshort.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/... said:
A recent RAIF thread brought up the Magnetic Scrolls games, and the fact that they used a simulationist system that could produce puzzle solutions that the game authors hadnt thought of:

Talk of current IF development drifted on to whether its possible to create a game in which the player is not really constrained by the authors intentions. Michael noted that Magnetic Scrolls games were kind of like this-for example, if an object had the sharp shards bit set, dropping or throwing the object would cause it to shatter into many sharp shards. In total, 128 bits were used to describe a more or less working universe that the player could interact with in ways that hadnt been anticipated. As an example, Michael described an unintentional situation in which one could put a rat in some liquid nitrogen, snap off its tail and, for a few turns, use the tail to puncture feed sacks and obtain food.

This raised a fair amount of interest (most of the ZOMG that would be GREAT!! kind). This yearning to do something the author didnt think of is something I hear a fair amount of: Mark Bernstein has complained that, because IF games anticipate solutions, the IF player is always robbed of the pleasure of having invented a novel solution because he always knows the author was there first. Emergent-solution design might address that complaint. It might also address the frustration players often feel when a logical-seeming approach is either forbidden or not recognized by the game at all.


One of the interesting tragedies of lost potential in a world constructed only of text that exists only in player imagination is that we aren't constrained by physics, and yet we have always managed to make games that conform to similar limitations to 3D RPGs. Isn't it strange how difficult it is to even imagine snapping the tails off rats and pulling twigs off of trees? Because that level of interaction is hard to code - freaking hard to code - but that doesn't mean there's no room for innovation and cleverness and a way of generating maybe whole dungeons procedurally and evolving new organisms algorithmically and interacting with items realistically. There's a limit to complexity absolutely, but we aren't anywhere near it and we haven't even tried to come close.

Many people would say that it's all a matter of priorities, that people are just in it for the levels – and they are, sure. It's a game. But people start a game for the levels and stay for the exploration, the sense that they haven't done everything there is to do just yet. So many muds, especially those getting up there in years kept building new areas and new rare items and new "quests" (if you can call them that) but within the same old mold - and so muds are still frozen in 1992.

I think a "break the mold" competition would get my vote - make a mud that feels like no other mud you've ever played. Then once we all compare notes playing each other's games, we could actually get somewhere as a community toward something more innovative than we've yet seen. Saying it's all been done is probably an overstatement.
28 May, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 34th comment:
Votes: 0
3squire said:
But an ad cannot make players play your mud

An ad gives your mud exposure, and draws the attention of players, particularly if it's based on an achievement rather than something you just threw money at. It won't make the players stay, but it will get them in the door.

The article you referenced is the same one that was posted the last time a programming contest was ..., and my view hasn't changed - I think it's too open-ended for a contest, and would probably end up being codebase-specific.
28 May, 2010, Igabod wrote in the 35th comment:
Votes: 0
kiasyn said:
kavir said:
If a contest were to have the backing of (and be promoted by) multiple mud sites such as MudBytes, TMC and TMS, I think it could provide a very tempting promotional opportunity for mud developers.


i/we would support this, but we already run free ads anyway, not sure how we could make it different?


Well, this would be a special advertisement that is posted in a prominent place on ALL of the top mud forums and listing sites. It would say something to the effect of "2010 Mud Developer Competition Winner" Under the banner or something that would allow potential players to recognize that the person who runs the mud being advertised is a community recognized highly skilled programmer. If a player knows that the entire developers community has voted and said that JoeSchmoe is a good programmer then said player is more likely to at least check out the mud to see what all the fuss is about. It's true there might need to be some re-arranging of the top banners on this site and possibly others but I think this could all be worked out.

This is all assuming of course that the individual admins of the various sites would be willing/able to work together for this. Though I assume they would be seeing as how this could only be seen as good advertising for each of them.
28 May, 2010, shasarak wrote in the 36th comment:
Votes: 0
I'd like to see a contest for the most interesting NPC AI.
28 May, 2010, Orrin wrote in the 37th comment:
Votes: 0
I agree with the idea that a competition judging particular features would be more interesting than a repeat of the original 16k format. Perhaps entrants pick one feature from a set list (eg. OLC, character creation, NPC AI, questing etc.) and are then judged on how far they advance the art in that particular area, rather than simply on programming style.

I'd also like to see each entry use a stock codebase, again perhaps a list of "approved" bases could be determined (eg. Smaug, Nakedmud, Dead Souls, Teensymud, Coffeemud would cover most major languages). This would provide everyone with a basic starting point and hopefully we'd see some of the entries subsequently expanded and incorporated into existing games or codebases.

As far as prizes go I'd be happy to offer a banner or something similar on MudGamers.
28 May, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 38th comment:
Votes: 0
I'd prefer to see a contest that wasn't tied to specific codebase/s. My MudMagic entries could be compiled and tested as standalone programs, for example, meaning they could be easily added to any C or C++ codebase. This provided me with a second incentive for participation - my entry was something I could use in my mud, so I didn't feel I was taking time away from my own project.

Not sure about mob AI, but something I think would be rather fun is a CRobots-style bot-writing contest. Each participant creates and submits a bot, then the bots are all set loose within a mud and their progress monitored. It could be a straight-up deathmatch, or it could be the first bot to reach a certain level or achieve a certain number of objectives.

The submissions could provide the basis for smarter mobs, or even be used by mud owners to stress-test new areas. And because they're separate from the mud, there wouldn't need to be any language restrictions. You could even provide the basic connection framework in a few languages, giving contestants a starting point if they didn't want (or know how) to write their own - so the entry barrier would be pretty low. The simplest bots would be no more complex than a Diku spec_proc.
28 May, 2010, Igabod wrote in the 39th comment:
Votes: 0
I too am thinking that using stock codes would be a bad way to go. Kavir is right, we'd spark more interest if every entry could be used with any codebase with little to no alterations. This way, even the people who don't participate can gain something out of it, thus increasing interest. So I guess the OLC contest wouldn't fit into what I just said, but I think it would still generate a lot of developer interest. The quest system would probably generate the most interest from both developer and player out of the options so far.

I like Kavir's idea of a bot writing contest, but I don't think this would be as big of an attention getting contest as some of the other options that have been mentioned.
28 May, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 40th comment:
Votes: 0
Igabod said:
I like Kavir's idea of a bot writing contest, but I don't think this would be as big of an attention getting contest as some of the other options that have been mentioned.

There are a lot of scripters out there that are likely to give it a shot, so the event could be massive.
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