Anyone Interested in Online RPing?

[number473]

If I might make a suggestion for a possible way to roleplay it as a VN (using Ren'Py code):

Each player has control over say statements for their character, and show/hide for their 'character sprite'. The moderator can do scene, etc too. The only problem is who is the narrator, and the fact that there would probably be millions of sprites on the screen at one time. But it would make for an interesting flavour, and we could just sort that out if ever in the future we actually wanted to make it into a game. You can use comments too to make side remarks. Depending on the amount of action involved, may need players to be able to narrate their own actions too.

An example, for example:

scene bg room_statue
"The group arrives in a room with a statue in the corner."
"It is a statue of a large duck."
"There is an ominous wailing in the distance."

show joe angry
joe "I hate ducks"

show bill smile
bill "Now, now, Joe. It doesn't do to go get all distracted by something like that."
bill "We've got treasure to find."

[LVUER]

This could be discouraging for those who couldn't do RenPy codes.

[number473]

Oh well, I thought I'd just throw it out there.

[mysterialize]

I'm finally back in town, and able to actually get some work done on making this happen. I'm talking to Voight-Kampff now about the forums, and will be posting it as soon that's all up and running.

Play-by-chat is the only other thing I can think of doing, and it tends to be a problem with a group of people who aren't in the same time zone. I really don't think it would work here, since we're split up all over the world. It's almost a little surprising how many countries are represented on this forum. *Sits in her boring US*

Again, the Ren'py code seems like a good idea, especially with stuff you mentioned to make it work, but there are still a few problems with it that would complicate matters.

1. As LVUER said, not everyone will be comfortable with the code. However, this one can be evaded by just making the Ren'py bit of things a side story, and have it be done in a separate board, with only people who want to deal with it. The main part of the story would be done in typical forum style. However, we would need to work out the other kinks first if we were going to do it.

2. As you said so yourself, the number of sprites that would need to be on screen would get ridiculous. You could have people appear and disappear depending on if they're talking/being talked to or not, taking away the clutter problem, but it would run the risk of being really hard to follow because of it.

3. Where would we get all of the art assets? Would we have one person make all of the sprites? What about backgrounds? Filtered photos won't work too well with a cyberpunk setting, simply because there's very few real life places that could pass. I'm somewhat capable of making my own background, but doing so would delay my own project quite a bit. I'm sure other people would have similar problems.

4. How would we handle OOC? If a situation comes up where OOC discussion is needed to figure something out, or deal with an RPing issue, which will definitely happen, then where would we discuss it? There could be a separate board for it, but immediate questions and concerns related to things directly in people's posts would be hard to get across when people have to check a different board every time. It's not a big deal, but it would be a little frustrating.

5. The thing would be a mess, and would probably result in something pretty bare bones, due to so many people editing. Extra features, cool CG events, and things like that, would be really hard to deal with in the format we're going for. Someone would have to be willing to put a ridiculous amount of work in at the end to turn it into something playable. I'm not sure how many people would be up for it.

The narrator issue is actually pretty easily dealt with. We could just put small cues at the beginning of the text, when we're first writing it, to indicate who wrote the narrator's text that time. When we put it all together in the final version of the game, we could probably just remove the cues, since they won't be necessary anymore. Again though, that makes even more work for the poor soul who deals with code clean up.

[number473]

Regardless of how we end up doing it, it we do in fact end up making an actual VN out of it in the end, it won't really be a traditional VN at all. More of a historical record ^^. I was also thinking that it might just be a nice way of formatting the entries, because it makes it more dialogue focused, rather that anyone being able to ramble a paragraph.

But I can make some recommendations on some of the points:

2. As you said so yourself, the number of sprites that would need to be on screen would get ridiculous. You could have people appear and disappear depending on if they're talking/being talked to or not, taking away the clutter problem, but it would run the risk of being really hard to follow because of it.

We could use a really wide background (wider than the screen) and then pan the screen rather than just having the sprites pop on and off. This is something I've been thinking about as a way to get around how awkward it is to have more than one sprite on screen at the same time in a VN, which usually doesn't end up aesthetically pleasing. It would mean a bit more editing work to the show statements afterward.

3. Where would we get all of the art assets? Would we have one person make all of the sprites? What about backgrounds? Filtered photos won't work too well with a cyberpunk setting, simply because there's very few real life places that could pass. I'm somewhat capable of making my own background, but doing so would delay my own project quite a bit. I'm sure other people would have similar problems.

Not sure about the backgrounds, but we could simply take a bunch of free sprite sets, customize colours etc for each player, and those could be our general but customized cyberspace personas. (If at any point I reveal my ignorance of what cyberpunk actually is all about, please just let me know)

4. How would we handle OOC? If a situation comes up where OOC discussion is needed to figure something out, or deal with an RPing issue, which will definitely happen, then where would we discuss it? There could be a separate board for it, but immediate questions and concerns related to things directly in people's posts would be hard to get across when people have to check a different board every time. It's not a big deal, but it would be a little frustrating.

You can use comments (lines starting with a #)

5. The thing would be a mess, and would probably result in something pretty bare bones, due to so many people editing. Extra features, cool CG events, and things like that, would be really hard to deal with in the format we're going for. Someone would have to be willing to put a ridiculous amount of work in at the end to turn it into something playable. I'm not sure how many people would be up for it.

See above. And also we can write it down as 'recording a social experiment' or something and then justify away that there are no flashy CGs or other features but there is real human interaction.

[Meems]

Wouldn't role-playing in renpy code leave us with a very un-descriptive rp? I mean, in an actual visual novel, the backgrounds and sprites are right there, so they don't need to be described. But we won't have any art assets yet.

[Ghurdrich]

I almost think it might be better for one person to record everything into a VN that we might do on, say, a forum. Instead of having multiple people editing the same VN, you could have one volunteer who can keep up with what is happening with the RP and making it into a VN that will probably be less chaotic. Maybe if there's an interested party that doesn't mind delaying/multitasking with their own project. It probably wouldn't take all that long, just every evening or something write down what happened. The hardest part would be to get all the graphics in order. Unless we tone down the grit of cyberpunk, I think it might be a bit difficult to find suitable sprites, but I'm sure it isn't impossible. The backgrounds might take a bit of work as well, but again. If someone has an idea, it's far from impossible.

[mysterialize]

Sorry for disappearing the past couple days. I got my hands on FFXIII, and I'm sure the rest is obvious.

I feel that, if it's going to result in both a dumbed down game and RP as a result of combining the two, it's not really worth doing anymore. It would make it so that the only charm is the novelty of it. Also, I refuse to ever have anything to do with recolored sprites. The very mention of such a thing should be illegal. *Shivers* Plus, it really, really cuts down on the customization of characters. In an RP, more freedom is better.

So I agree with Ghurdrich. We should probably just wait.

Anyways, we have a forum now. There's nothing in it yet, but people can start signing up.

http://www.errantheart.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=4

I'll be populating it over the course of today and tomorrow, assuming that FFXIII doesn't sneak into my room and use it's mind control on me again.

*Starts boarding up the doors and setting up security cameras* You'll never win, Square-Enix!

[lepapillonrouge]

Hooray!
I can't wait! I've already signed up

[mysterialize]

I feel bad for bumping this about information on the other forum, but I feel I should say that stuff about the setting has been posted now, and people can start posting characters.

[CaesMRaenes]

Do we send a PM to you before posting characters (I ask even though I don't know how to message on the board) or do we just post directly on that forum anyways?

[mysterialize]

Just post directly on the forum, and I'll just mention on the board if there's anything that would have to be changed. It's not too likely that there would though. If anything, it would just be skill point worth, unless for some reason you made your character Zeus or something.

[LVUER]

I've registered ^_^ Now in the process of making the character.

BTW, at which forum will the RP be hold? Here? There? Or at new forum?

[mysterialize]

The RP will be held on the new forum.

[Tsundere Lightning]

Sure. I'm always up for a game, and I have offered to run Play-By-Chat Bliss Stage for Lemmasoft regulars before.