[MUD-Dev] Re: Supporting articles found for UOL play style

[John Bertoglio]

-----Original Message-----
From: J C Lawrence <claw at under.engr.sgi.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Wednesday, April 29, 1998 6:41 PM
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Supporting articles found for UOL play style


>
>The following paint a fascinating overview of the cultural effect that
>UOL is engendering.  Note that this is from an Australian-centric site:
>
>  <URL:http://uoc.newsninja.com>
>
>Clippings from the above URL below.  Anybody want to argue the
>feasability of team play in MUDs?

Not me ;) .

Another example: The ShadowClan Orcs have found a home one one of the east
coast servers (Catskill, I think). These folks have build a player
construct absolutly outside of anything that comes on their CDROM disk.
They have formed into tribes of Orcs. They wear orc masks and have build a
social structure around their idea of orc culture. They hang out in orc
areas. When the "real" orcs spawn, they treat them as an invading clan.
They warn off human players but engage in the occasional battle royal.
Totally inventive and well beyond what any reasonable person would expect
to occur. There are also elf groups, etc. on other servers, again, outside
of the "rules" of the world.

There was an interesting response on the rec.game UO board to a question
about why guards couldn't be killed. The original post argued for at least
a 1% chance to kill the currently invunerable guards. Another poster
answered with the point that when you have 50,000 or so players... 1% =
100%. That is, within minutes after guards become vunerable, they all would
be dead. This is why the UO venture is so important. Think of the players
as Raph's fruit flys. Researchers use fruit flys for genetic and other
research because of their rapid life cycles (and ease of chromosme
analysis). Things, good and bad happen faster in a world like UO. The
results of experiments are quickly known. It might take 200 to 300 skilled
mud players a few months to discover MOST of the bugs in their favorite
world. In UO, the players have become so savvy that virtually all bugs in a
new patch are discovered in a matter of minutes. Within an hour they are
posted on a hundred websites a propagated throughout the internet.

One of these days, I fully expect UO patch status to be on the nightly news
right after sports ;).

>
>--------------------------------------------


<SNIPED examples>
>--
>J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
>(Contractor)                               Internet: coder at ibm.net
>---------(*)                     Internet: claw at under.engr.sgi.com
>...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...
>
>--
>MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.
>



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MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.