[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: Friday, May 01, 1998 5:42 PM
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: Supporting articles found for UOL play style


>On Wed, 29 Apr 1998 22:36:16 -0700
>John Bertoglio<alexb at internetcds.com> wrote:
>

<SNIP brilliant prose on erzatz orc clan in UO>
>
>It is this single characteristic of UOL that I find both so
>fascinating and so valuable.  UOL is fostering experimentation with
>social and cultural models.  Its a lot cheaper than Cuba, cleaner than
>the endless 5yr plans, and potentially a *LOT* more varied than
>Americana.

There is one thing that will set the successful commercial online world
apart from even the best hobby run systems: numbers. Few muds have
assembled a player base that was large AND divirse enough to even begin to
create meaningful behavior models. Virtually every pc has a telnet client
(because it is win95 or nt machine, sorry JCL) and I would be suprised if
more than 1% even know it is there with far fewer ever having used it. Get
50,000 close, personal friends in a room and you have a world worth looking
at. (BTW, the resource links on MudConnector point a sites where various
commercial muds are being developed. UO and M59 get most of the press
around here but new kida are coming onto the street. Some have interesting
ideas. Everlight for example has no NPC's...Sony's Everquest has reacted to
the anti-pk in UO by installing a pk switch...hardly a new idea but other
things they are doing are.)

>Its also the single point which challenges the most
>un-examined assumptions in players, and which they thus find
>uncomfortablely alien; to whit, "Its not fair!"

Quoting myself : "If (or perhaps when) the epitath of America is written
the engraving on the headstone will read: 'Here lies the remains of a great
experiment, killed by two words, Rights and Fair.'"

>--
>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.