Haven Forums

I changed my mind.

Haven probably needs to be redone, with new mechanics AND a rebranded game in a different setting. The core game can almost certainly stay. But moving the game to either a different Real World setting, or keeping it in Haven but making the grid more diverse would be great. Ideally, we shouldn't really NEED to fly off all over the world, or do cool psychic dream battles, or go off into Totally-Not-Arcadia-Land. That should be the exclusive territory of Storytelling. Or even hunt monsters in the Forest. The Nightmare and the Forest could be totally taken away, and replaced with something else entirely.

Were I writing out the Lore and the Setting, I'd have the vast bulk of the game take place in a Mirror Version City of Haven, which is where all the most powerful supernaturals hang out. Probably with a malleable grid, because of Supernatural Gubbins, that changes up the roads and territories; I'd also make it larger than Haven Prime. Keep Haven Prime as a pretty basic, small town to allow for Spooky Stuff ™ to occur. Allow the Mirror Havenites to run schemes/events/rituals/whatevs to try to breach into Haven Prime, thus creating Spookums. Something more like that.

As for the theme, I really don't think a Horror MUD can be coded very well, if it's a competetitive MUD. Or, really at all. Horror is so subjective. I don't find torture-porn and gore to be particularly spooky. Just gross and tiresome. Whereas other people don't like Surrealist/Psychological Mindfucks to be very scary. So, I'd just rebrand it to be Grimdark Urban Fantasy. "In the grim darkness of Haven, there is only Shadows and Mist..."

I think the game is overall just too much of a contest between people. It'll never develop into cooperative storytelling, if you give people coded incentive to just treat other players like shit. I also don't think we should reward people that play Standard Naturals, with the ability to play the Monsters. But, tbh, I also think we should just separate out the Monsters from the Naturals, and let the Naturals who WANT to be victimized, go into the spooooky Mirror Haven. Let people do their circle jerky w/e sex home RP, in an area where it can't really have any impact on you. But, that would be the best way to ensure you were getting quality victims that WANTED antag RP. Let them come to the Antag Zone, or whatever. Reward Naturals that take part in the Mirror 'Verse RP and get picked on. Something like that. And most people win.

And, just change up the code. Make territories more localized, instead of going off to Lima, Peru to build a fortress that noone will care about in 2 months. Put hard lifetimes on characters (I'm fond of making characters more monstrous the more powerful they get, through coded means; IE, allow some of the low level Boogens slip freely between Haven Prime and Mirror Haven, to do spooky type stuff), and just make life harder on the stronger guys. No one NEEDS to be the strongest. If they need specific powers, they should have an idea for a story arc, and they should find ways to wrap it up after a certain period. To let other people have a chance to shine.

That's all mostly just train of thought word vomit. I really admire Tyr, as a game creator. I think he kind of lacks in the Lore/Setting department, and he can definitely be bullheaded and stubborn about certain things. But despite how much I'd have decried him ten years ago (I was pretty awful on the Interwebz 10 years ago too), I do genuinely think he's just trying to make a cool game, with cool features, that play to the theme. I just think he'd merit from getting someone outside of his current Friend Group to help him out with the setting and lore of Haven, and writing code to MATCH that Lore.


Also, I'd posit that Inferno failed because it was a really watered down, poor man's version of World of Darkness in terms of the setting, but with Super Power Code, and it wasn't very intuitive. Haven's a lot cleaner and more intuitive, with a much better set of available Lore compared to Inferno. Inferno was a pretty cool concept, but when I tried it out, it was pretty Empty-Ville. Zane was kicking around, giving away free drinks or something. And some Vampires were fighting some Werewolves were fighting some Wizards I guess.

I disagree with Crayon about naturals and karma earning.

I would say an overall cap of karma per week, from all sources, might help to mitigate the issue Crayon is worried about though. I'd also love if there were karma rewards for being a 'good' victim or a 'good' antagonist.

The reason I disagree with Crayon about naturals is because naturals suck. I spent almost all of my time on 3.0 as a human, until Lou got turned into a werewolf near the end of 3.0. It sucked. He was tier 3 and he still got his ass handed to him almost constantly. He couldn't path or do any uber-super powers and it was boring.

Alternatively or in addition to giving naturals karma again and/or giving good antagonists(super or not) and victims (super or not) karma rewards, I think something that could be good would be to make human-exclusive stats and abilities. I think Gun Disciple should be dismantled. If supernaturals and technology don't get along then that should follow. Maybe Advanced weapons and armor have no benefits to supernaturals because their magic juju interferes with them, somehow.

I'm open to other ideas as far as making humans more appealing. Maybe lower tiered humans could generate more karma, or only T1 and T2 naturals.

I also think the game is really more dark urban fantasy and should just embrace it. Basically because horror is subjective and people are assholes. To make a good horror game you'd have to have a lot of OOC trust and mutual respect and I don't think there's much of that currently.

And that to me is the central issue. Coded or not, there's a problem with the player base, maybe me included. I still don't know how to solve it other than (trying) to not be that way and hoping enough others do the same.

Of course, there will always be trolls and people who sincerely don't give a fuck about anyone else's experience on the game, but it would be good if those people became the exception, rather than the rule.

Why is every game with vampires and/or werewolves compared to World of Darkness? It's almost worth leaving out vampires (it's definitely worth leaving out werewolves) just to avoid this superficial badness. This is a warning to any would be game creators out there. Don't put vampires or werewolves in your games. White Wolf doesn't even need copyrights. The fans are bad enough.

Inferno was about demons invading Earth.
Haven is about gateways to other worlds.
World of Darkness is about wearing plastic teeth and being angsty.

Buffymud was about furrysex, iirc.

(03-14-2018, 10:23 PM)Amatsuka Wrote: [ -> ]Buffymud was about furrysex, iirc.

I think you mean mpreg. Hey, wait a minute...

Oh, the irony of what I see here. People bad mouthing my opinion about the wipes being repackaging and clearing the table. "Oh, the game's been bad for years?" Almost like every wipe, nothing really changed, making them useless. "Oh, they're needed to chop off e-peens." Please, keep telling yourself that deleting everyone's hard work as opposed to fixing the balance issues in the game is a good thing. Obviously, I'm the one wrong here. "I like it when we all start over because we're all at the same level." You know, instead of making the game fair and balanced in the first place, since the game can't pick an identity between a grind happy game and a RP focused game.

You want to see the fake news? Look at the lies you have to tell yourselves to believe the nonsense. I believe Amatsuka said it best when she was being an ass hat on the other thread, commenting about not being able to see the forest because of the trees. This is actually the proper use of that, because you're all having to tell yourselves to just willingly accept such poorly planned, half ass patchwork.

Now that that's aired out, let me come forward and say this... I'm not saying the staff should give up. Or quit trying. I just don't think they should be trying to justify a wipe every time they change two lines of code which moves a variable on a pfile by two spaces and changes the name of a flag. And I also don't think that chopping down the player files on the regular is a fair way of resolving issues with power creep. Mostly, I think it should be up to the staff to: A> Properly code right in the first place so that player files can withstand mild changes, B> Create code to clean up the player files for reuse when significant changes occur, C> Balance the game better so that 'e-peen chopping' shouldn't be required on the regular, and D> If said wipes are required, do a far better job of ensuring that people know well in advance when the decision is made, anywhere up to six months to a year in advance while making the current story more involving during that time so that people don't feel like they're shit on for just existing during those last few months. I'm not asking for blood from stones, here. I'm asking for responsible game design, responsible story telling, and respect to the players as a whole. If that's too much to ask, then please. Feel free to continue shitting on my personal beliefs on the wipes.

In other news, games with vampires and/or werewolves are often compared to World of Darkness because it's done well, and right. It's a simple system, which works very well in a MUD format, and has been honored by many for longer than you've probably even played MUDs. And, if you want the truth about Haven? It really is Vampire: The Masquerade meets American Gods to the point where instead of Masquerade violations, you have Sanctuary. No matter how you slice it. Even down to the goth atmosphere, the dick waving, and the five versions of Jesus, including Mexican Jesus and Black Jesus.

There's a lot of good, even great ideas in this thread, and despite the location of it, I do hope that staff see and maybe even consider a few of them.

Personally, having played since 2.0 and having seen high tier characters wiped at the end of the versions, it kind of does suck, but more in the way of not wanting to let go of a comfort object, of something I've grown attached to. But when you step back and look, after awhile it IS good for the game to get that refresh, for a new focus to be brought in, and for the playing field to be cleared. I won't say leveled because we all know that some players will always surge upward faster than others with new characters.

Some of my favorite parts of Haven's versions are the beginnings, when lower tier chars actually can be the movers and shakers until the first rumors of a high tier showing up arrive. Those moments are ICly scary! They're motivating. They're fun. Now that half the grid is a T4-1 or a T4, it's normal. The thrill of it's gone. The thrill of being powerful is gone too. At this point, can a T2 shake up the grid? T2s are all but laughed at. They're not important, they're almost useless except for boosting secrecy and being fed on. They're even limited as slaves by code in a lot of societies. Can even a T3 really stir things up, now that most of the 'evil' out there is T3 or higher? They feel normal. Not scary. When games progress too far along this line, when the power creep becomes this significant, things do get stale. All you have to do is read the logs of pred patrols and watch T1s and T2s mouthing off at the predators that chase them, saying things like 'Oh gee, not again, really?' to see that there's a problem with staleness.

I'm playing a fairly high tier. Part of me hopes the end to this version isn't coming any time soon. But if it does and it involves a pwipe, I won't be walking away. I am eager to see where it comes next, whether it's new plot to stir things up or new code or something of a mix. I'm also dying to see what Tyr's 'Something' is that's on the calendar.

I'll join the others in saying I like the pwipes - legitimately do, and they were part of the draw that kept me playing when I was first checking it out. I've played games where the same people occupied organizational leadership for ten years. It sucked. I prefer stories with an end.

(03-14-2018, 11:49 PM)Silver Wrote: [ -> ]Oh, the irony of what I see here. People bad mouthing my opinion about the wipes being repackaging and clearing the table. "Oh, the game's been bad for years?" Almost like every wipe, nothing really changed, making them useless. "Oh, they're needed to chop off e-peens." Please, keep telling yourself that deleting everyone's hard work as opposed to fixing the balance issues in the game is a good thing. Obviously, I'm the one wrong here. "I like it when we all start over because we're all at the same level." You know, instead of making the game fair and balanced in the first place, since the game can't pick an identity between a grind happy game and a RP focused game.

You want to see the fake news? Look at the lies you have to tell yourselves to believe the nonsense. I believe Amatsuka said it best when she was being an ass hat on the other thread, commenting about not being able to see the forest because of the trees. This is actually the proper use of that, because you're all having to tell yourselves to just willingly accept such poorly planned, half ass patchwork.

This may come as a shock, but it's actually possible for people to disagree with you without having any kind of delusional agenda in doing so.

This is the DMZ. Shitting on staff is a time-honoured sport. We all do it. We don't have a problem criticising the game. We just don't agree with this particular complaint of yours.

Pot, meet kettle. Trust me when I say that I don't take this aggression with me. Also, it may come as a shock, but I can disagree when people disagree with me. And I can also choose to be an asshole.

This is the DMZ. Me ignoring your opinions and assuming mine are always right is just part of the environment. I don't have a problem with you thinking that you hurt my feelings. I just find it funny when you take this whole thing far more serious than I do.

You're so cool. We're really impressed.