[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

[J C Lawrence]

On Wed, 01 Jul 1998 09:06:53 -0700 
Mike Sellers<mike at bignetwork.com> wrote:

> At 08:42 PM 6/29/98 +0100, Marian Griffith wrote:

>> In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Mon 29 Jun, Koster, Raph wrote:

> No, freedom is not a myth!  In fact, I would say that the single
> biggest reason why people are dissatisfied with UO today (or M59
> last year) is because these games unexpectedly constrain their
> freedom at every turn.  

One could have a very fun time determining exactly how UOL reached its
touchstone value in this list.  While I'll freely admit I had more
than a hand in it, the depth of penetration of UOL as a reference
point in MUD-Dev is astounding.

One hopes that Raph can sleep at night without nightmares of spinning
in his grave down the centuries..

> So here's my hypothesis: the more persistence a game/world tries to
> have; the longer it is set up to last; the greater number (and
> broader variety) of people it tries to attract; and in general the
> more immersive a game/world sets out to be -- then the more breadth
> and depth of human experience it needs to support to be successful
> for more than, say, 12-24 months.  

Nail.  Head.  Hit.  

A point to note (if not to watch out for as I doubt we're up to such
extremes) is that *too* broad a game world will lose its playing
public as they have not grown up thru the other lower forms.

> If you try to create a deeply immersive, broadly appealing,
> long-lasting world that does not adequtely provide for human
> tendencies such as violence, acquisition, justice, family,
> community, exploration, etc. 

My current favourite if fictional example is the Walled City from
Gibson's Idoru.

> Finally, running things this way quickly becomes quasi-Stalinist
> when control is entirely centralized and the penalty for stepping
> outside the lines is swift, severe (IC death or OOC banishment from
> the game), and hugely imperfect, being based on imperfect algorithms
> and/or sysop preference.  This is, I believe, an adequate
> description for how the majority of online worlds are currently run.

A simple metric for when we can safely sit back, count our laurel
leaves, and sigh, "We've done it!":

  When the invading hordes of hormonally challenged genitalia
measuring masses (or any other demographic of choice) can trample into
an existent and populated game world and be simply absorbed and
digested whole-cloth by the established social systems in the game
world.

A reasonable comparitive, as well as assorted models, may be the
attempted handlings of the Mongols by the Chinese.  The most
interesting of which to me was when they just let them invade
uncontested, yielded power, married them, bred with them, and utterly
consumed them to the point of indistinguishability within a few
generations.

--
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...