Pokemon MUSH (PokeMUSH) Pre-Development Research

[Vchat20]

Pokemon Adventures MUSH (Roleplay Enviro/Playtesting)

>> UPDATE << Check the latest update post: https://www.pokecommunity.com/posts/4600249

Hi there. Some of you may remember me, some may not. I used to be staff and webmaster for the Pokemon Online incarnation created by DeathChill and DeltaSuicune and of which seems to have filtered over into Pokemon Treasures which I have no current involvement in.

I have been away from the community for some time due to my habit of wildly changing interests and hobbies. Since the last active period I've been here, I have settled into a small MUSH Administrating group (For those not familiar with the MUSH term, wikipedia works for starters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSH ) which currently has an active MUSH based around the tv show 'Code Lyoko' called LyokoMUSH. For some time now we have been considering a long term roadmap as far as a focused theme and target audience is concerned. This need has become escalated as of late due to lacking activity on the MUSH in it's current form encircling the Code Lyoko theme.

Due to a number of our co-admins being either past or current Pokemon fans with either the show or games, the idea cropped up to create a MUSH based in the Pokemon universe.

Now before anyone asks, it's probably going to be some time before anything appears from this in a usable form. This thread is mainly here to get a general consensus from the community on the idea and if it's a positive one, we would discuss the idea amongst the group and decide whether to put it into motion.

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Now if you don't yet know what a 'MUSH' is and haven't looked into the above wikipedia link, a MUSH is a purely text based environment with no 'natively' supported graphics aside from real basic ASCII graphics. For all intents and purposes, the whole system is telnet based so no new clients need to be downloaded since any modern OS has a built in telnet client. Though for most, a MUSH-designed telnet client is preferred. This is a good thing though as it fosters good use of the imagination and, in an indirect manner due to the roleplay-centric nature of the MUSH system, proper grammar and spelling along with reading skills.

Now before anyone says anything, this is nothing like a generic forum roleplay. By the pure design of the system, the whole pokemon universe can be built in a complete fashion with all the towns, routes, etc. all separated into functional 'rooms' so players are, indeed, kept separated depending on their locations. This also allows for more enjoyable wandering and traveling to different areas and getting to meet other players from all around. Depending on the situation, we may be able to include every region from Hoenn, Johto, Orange Islands, Kanto, etc. and be able to add more as they come up with not much difficulty.

One great feature of this system is that during the initial stages of development, the game can be open to the full public due to any and all development work being self contained server-side with no custom built clients required. Starting out, there will probably be no game mechanics, battle systems, or pokemon training of any kind. Players that wish to participate in this 'beta' mode would have to rely purely on roleplaying with other players for activity. Later on in development, systems like battling, pokemon management, and all other required game mechanics will slowly be weaved in as they are coded and tidied up.

Now like mentioned above, this is purely text based. But depending on the outlook of things, we may work on a web based client that could incorporate visual aids of sorts. Though this is mostly a superfluous feature and would be set aside till the core game is finished or near finished.

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The primary goal in this thread is to judge the overall approval/disapproval by the community at large for such an idea and gather any possible ideas/improvements/adjustments that may come up from the general public.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask and I will attempt to answer them as best I possibly can.

 

[Me™]

Isen't MUSH similar too MOO ?

 

[Vchat20]

Isen't MUSH similar too MOO ?

Very similar. But not the same, no.

 

[The Dash]

I like, I like very much.
Text based games are far and few these days unfortuantly.

 

[Gregora]

Sounds interesting, I tried one of those once and I got lost due to the fact I had no idea what I was doing. However, one being set in the pokemon universe does seem promising.

 

[Vchat20]

Sounds interesting, I tried one of those once and I got lost due to the fact I had no idea what I was doing. However, one being set in the pokemon universe does seem promising.

Yeah. For the most part when it comes to most MUSH's, they require some amount of intelligence and reading to get started due to a steep learning curve. We hope to alleviate this somewhat by introducing, for example, a total web based registration system for the game which will pretty much emulate that of a forum registration. This amongst some other web-based player management features which a co-admin has already been developing and testing for our current system.

And a small update, it seems one of the co-admins of ours isn't taking too well to the idea of totally converting LM over to PokeMUSH. So as it stands in this current point in time, it may very well be that we'll make the two separate entities altogether. Even now we already have PokeMUSH running on it's own in a 'closed to the public' state with some minor development done. Most notably half of palette town is built and a small set of required global functions are set up.

Still mostly gonna be a matter of getting a public opinion on this even though those of us working behind the scenes on it wanna see it happen.

 

[Purplepen]

I actually found this thread while Googling 'pokemon mush', and I'm somewhat surprised that it's so recent. I was only just speaking with my friends about Pokemon MU*s, and how all but a few have disappeared altogether. (I can count the number of open games on one hand, and all but one of those have a Pokemorph theme.)

I am genuinely interested in this project, and would love to see a new MUSH come into being. Being so close to the D/P release date, I'm certain it'd receive more players than some of the more recent, failed Pokemon MU* projects have.

If you'd have me, I'd love to assist in the project (or just get some RP rolling once you reach that point). I'm not entirely reliable (lazy, lazy, lazy), and my online hours are limited during the week, but I have no lack of creativity. As well, I have assisted in the creation (and probably the decimation of, though that was likely from neglect on everyone's part) of several Pokemon MUCKs, so I do have a little experience. My knowledge of MUSH code is lacking, but I would be willing to learn to build if you need any assistance with that.

If you're interested, send me a PM. Heck, send me a PM if you're not; I just want to hear more about this project and what you're planning to do with it.

 

[Vchat20]

Well, to be honest the major help we need right now in the preliminary stages is in the mapping department. Though our resident mapper is fairly capable, the fact that we are hoping to get every region built according to the show rather than the game (so, for example, rather than having one route be it's own room, different sections of that route will be separated into different rooms depending on the layout. Buildings, houses, and towns would be the same way.), It's probably gonna bog her down a bit. If someone with extensive knowledge of the anime geography can prove their skills, we may bring you on if decided it's needed.

Later down the road when the first region is close to being completed, I may be looking for someone with good knowledge of mushcode to help in coding all the mechanics and the battle system. Though between of myself and a few other admins, we've got some fairly competent coders to get this step started.

 

[Purplepen]

I understand where you're going with that, but I wouldn't rely too heavily on the anime's geography, 80% of which appears to be made up of maze-like forests. I may be misreading you or failing to see the whole picture, but wouldn't it be simpler to loosely base the grid off of the game and only bother with the anime when it's time for descing, or when there are significant differences between the two? I personally find the anime somewhat lacking when it comes to the scenery--there only seem to be a few differences between routes, and they fail to pull through with varied landscape types. I suppose what I'm asking for are specifics on how you plan to pull this off. I have seen it done on other MUSHes, but they always resorted to original content in the end.

Out of curiosity (and somewhat off-topic), did you or another on your staff happen to be involved with one of the first few Pokemon MUSHes? I find it interesting that you're basing it off of the anime, since those did the same, and few games have followed that theme since. (Excluding the inclusion of anime-specific FCs, anyhow.)

I hope I'm not bothering you with all the questions.

 

[Vchat20]

I understand where you're going with that, but I wouldn't rely too heavily on the anime's geography, 80% of which appears to be made up of maze-like forests. I may be misreading you or failing to see the whole picture, but wouldn't it be simpler to loosely base the grid off of the game and only bother with the anime when it's time for descing, or when there are significant differences between the two? I personally find the anime somewhat lacking when it comes to the scenery--there only seem to be a few differences between routes, and they fail to pull through with varied landscape types. I suppose what I'm asking for are specifics on how you plan to pull this off. I have seen it done on other MUSHes, but they always resorted to original content in the end.

Out of curiosity (and somewhat off-topic), did you or another on your staff happen to be involved with one of the first few Pokemon MUSHes? I find it interesting that you're basing it off of the anime, since those did the same, and few games have followed that theme since. (Excluding the inclusion of anime-specific FCs, anyhow.)

I hope I'm not bothering you with all the questions.

Not at all.

Mostly for basing it off the anime, it's for stuff that has shown detail in the show moreso than the games. Great example being Palette town with oak's lab and whatnot. Not to mention that areas such as the orange islands for example were not included in the games and we plan to include those as well somewhere along the line. But I do see your point with the routes and all though we plan to keep those somewhat intriguing and not like single room connections between towns so people can fly through in like 2 seconds from one town to the next. We (I actually should be saying I at this point since it's mostly been my brainstorming on the subject, but im sure the others involved in the project would agree on most of this.) are trying to make things as enticing, enjoyable, and stimulating of the imagination. Needless to say if all goes to plan when all the regions are fully built, there should be a few thousand rooms at the very least.

And no, none of us were ever involved in any of the previous MUSH's. As a matter of fact, all but two of us only began MUSH'ing since first joining the aforementioned 'LM' sometime back in February '06. The other two have been at it for a combined 15 years or so.

 

[Purplepen]

Mostly for basing it off the anime, it's for stuff that has shown detail in the show moreso than the games. Great example being Palette town with oak's lab and whatnot. Not to mention that areas such as the orange islands for example were not included in the games and we plan to include those as well somewhere along the line.

I see what you're getting at, now. Does this also mean you'll be adding the anime-exclusive towns, such as Gringy City and Porta Vista?

But I do see your point with the routes and all though we plan to keep those somewhat intriguing and not like single room connections between towns so people can fly through in like 2 seconds from one town to the next.

I had been wanting to do something like that [multiple rooms for a single route] on previous projects, but the way ProtoMUCK lists exits and the fact that the maps were usually already built by the time I signed onto a project deterred me. Will you be using cardinal directions?

And no, none of us were ever involved in any of the previous MUSH's. As a matter of fact, all but two of us only began MUSH'ing since first joining the aforementioned 'LM' sometime back in February '06. The other two have been at it for a combined 15 years or so.

That's too bad, since despite issues with the staff and some players being cliquish or elitist, the second PokeMUSH was possibly the most complete Pokemon RPing experience I have ever had. I almost wish I could somehow convince the former headwiz to hand over the database to you guys, since it already comes complete with a massive map of Kanto and an extensive yet simple (when you're not dealing with the code!) battle script. But I digress.

I'd love to help out with building and descing once you get to it, and I can even turn in a resume of sorts. Descing is honestly the worst and best part about building, and I take pride in sculpting scenery with w...you know, honestly, it's very late, and I think I'm going to hit the hay before I say something exceedingly silly.

 

[Vchat20]

Does this also mean you'll be adding the anime-exclusive towns, such as Gringy City and Porta Vista?

Yes, given time and sufficient details from the show.

Will you be using cardinal directions?

Most definitely. About the only places cardinal directions are not gonna be used are for like doors into buildings for example and indoors.

I'd love to help out with building and descing once you get to it, and I can even turn in a resume of sorts. Descing is honestly the worst and best part about building, and I take pride in sculpting scenery with w...you know, honestly, it's very late, and I think I'm going to hit the hay before I say something exceedingly silly.

Well, if you can provide said resume or some form of examples of your work, I will at least look into it and when help looks to be needed, it will be considered. And this goes for anyone else who may be interested.

 

[Vchat20]

New Update

Sorry for bringing this back up after a long while, but thought I would just update on things here.

First off, I have not completely forgotten about it. As I have stated to Purplepen in an old PM, the primary MUSH project at hand has taken a priority recently overtop getting PokeMUSH finished so since about the beginning of april, it has went totally dormant as far as development is concerned.

Only recently has development of the primary project 'Lyokomush' settled down a bit so development of pokemush has slowly been returning over the past few weeks. As of this point it's largely been building and a good deal of the kanto region has been built. From Pallette all the way up to the entrance to Mount Moon has been built up extensively.

As previously mentioned, if anyone feels like they could provide a deal of help in the area of building, let me know and I will greatly considering the option of bringing new people on to help offload building tasks. As well, a note to Purplepen: If you are still interested, get back to me in a PM and I'll let you know more once I get a solid idea from my co-builder on what she has up her sleeve.

 

[Glitchfinder]

Sorry for bringing this back up after a long while, but thought I would just update on things here.

First off, I have not completely forgotten about it. As I have stated to Purplepen in an old PM, the primary MUSH project at hand has taken a priority recently overtop getting PokeMUSH finished so since about the beginning of april, it has went totally dormant as far as development is concerned.

Only recently has development of the primary project 'Lyokomush' settled down a bit so development of pokemush has slowly been returning over the past few weeks. As of this point it's largely been building and a good deal of the kanto region has been built. From Pallette all the way up to the entrance to Mount Moon has been built up extensively.

As previously mentioned, if anyone feels like they could provide a deal of help in the area of building, let me know and I will greatly considering the option of bringing new people on to help offload building tasks. As well, a note to Purplepen: If you are still interested, get back to me in a PM and I'll let you know more once I get a solid idea from my co-builder on what she has up her sleeve.

I can't help but wonder, is "lyokomush" based on the show "Code Lyoko"? Also, this sounds like a great idea! (Oh, and it's actually Pallet Town, despite the fact that you spell the word Pallette or some such way)

 

[Vchat20]

I can't help but wonder, is "lyokomush" based on the show "Code Lyoko"? Also, this sounds like a great idea! (Oh, and it's actually Pallet Town, despite the fact that you spell the word Pallette or some such way)

Aye. It is. LyokoMUSH is based on the show Code Lyoko, though right now it's going a more 'Alternate Universe' route in comparison to the show due to a major lack of inactivity in the original Kadic centric plot we had going to stay canon.

And yeah, sorry about the mis-spelling. That word was never one of my favorites to try and spell right unfortunately. ><

 

[Glitchfinder]

Aye. It is. LyokoMUSH is based on the show Code Lyoko, though right now it's going a more 'Alternate Universe' route in comparison to the show due to a major lack of inactivity in the original Kadic centric plot we had going to stay canon.

And yeah, sorry about the mis-spelling. That word was never one of my favorites to try and spell right unfortunately. ><

I've never been sure how to spell it, but I knoiw the Pokemon town is "Pallet". Also, I like the idea, it sounds cool.

 

[Vchat20]

Just wanted to make another note here that once again I have not forgotten about this project. In fact, over the next few weeks I plan to open it completely to the public in a beta state with an incomplete grid to slowly bring in a beginning playerbase. Once this is done, I'll make any notes here about what's gonna happen.

 

[mattgcn]

Oh hey VChat! This project sure seems interesting, very unique! Glad to see you're still up and in the Pokemon Community.

 

[Vchat20]

Ok. First off I want to apologize for not updating this in eons. I haven't forgotten about it, just has taken lesser priority with other things and life and such. Not to mention the other mush projects which had higher priority and trying to keep them afloat.

Over the past couple months between of the aforementioned mushes closing down and more free time opening up, this project has come back to full focus.

I'll let our recent ad speak for itself:

Pokemon Adventures is a roleplay focused Pokemon MUSH based mostly on the anime with some occasional features ripped out of the games. In playtesting mode we have a small subsection of Kanto built from Pallet up to Cerulean through routes 1, 2, 3, and 4.

The amount of rooms contained in these areas is more than ample enough to contain 6-12 simultaneous players and keep roleplay and plots active and enticing. Once we get more players and player involvement, more areas will be built out hopefully to completion of both Kanto, Johto, and possibly other regions.

As always, we are run on word of mouth advertising and encourage everyone to invite their friends to join. As well, suggestions for improvements and additions are greatly appreciated during the playtesting phase.

Additional newbie liaisons will be a must in the coming weeks/months as we transition out of playtest mode and plot suggestions are welcome from all sides and avenues for such will be provided in-game.

With pretty much everything set up, we have recently opened up in a playtest mode where most of the kinks are worked out and sufficient enough for regular roleplay activity, but we're relying on the players to clue us in on remaining bugs, missing features, etc. that we have missed.

As has already been mentioned probably (and is at least summarized in my sig), [PAM] is built around the idea of a centralized and structured (with the help of separated rooms and a more engaging environment that aids the imagination) roleplay environment that also offers every player that comes through our doors the ability to collaboratively add to the overall storyline of the mush as well as their own character.

One new addition we have made since I last updated is we are also now accepting pokeplayers (player characters are wild pokemon or captured pokemon given mutual agreement with another trainer) if that fancies your interest.

Once again, [PAM]'s focus is on the roleplay aspect. There's no coded systems related to the theme such as a battle system for example. Though we may add one at a later date given the assurance it will not turn into a button mashing hack'n'slash mess.

Anyways, hopefully I haven't alienated TOO many of you with the wait. ;) Come check us out and give your opinions. And as always, our advertising is largely by word of mouth so invite any of your friends who may be interested. The more players, the more roleplay. And the more we can build out to other regions. :)

Web: https://pokemonadventures.game-host.org/
MUSH: pokemonadventures.game-host.org:4202

(PS: Sorry for bringing up a nigh-ancient and crusty old thread. If it's better moved to a new thread, lemme know. )

 

[Vchat20]

Improfane, you may be thinking of muds which are largely coded combat and everything controlled by the game itself. This is not the case. We have very few coded systems except where necessary (a weather/time system is about the largest thing on here right now. And also have a random pokemon appearance system which is merely for cosmetic purposes.) The focus is primarily roleplay. And unless a good enough reason is given (or we get to a large number of active players and build out more to at least one or two full regions), more coded systems such as a replica of the pokemon battle system are out of the question.

All of my sources of inspiration were roleplay focused mushes. One including PokeMorph.