[MUD-Dev] Defining a community

[Jeff Freeman]

From: "Dave Rickey" <daver at mythicentertainment.com>

> Since there's a sizable minority (including me) that will argue that
> "The game is the community", I would be *very* interested in trying
> to establish a better working theory for communities.

Elobarate, please?

I can't imagine how "the game is the community" considering that the
online communities of which I am currently a part of, span pretty much
all the commercial MUDs at this point (with users travelling from one
to the other as the spirit moves them), as well as some non-commercial
MUDs, plus some folks that I'd consider part of these communities that
aren't playing anything at all right now.

As far as I can tell, MMORPGs (or whatever freaking abbreviation is in
vogue today) are made up of many sub-communities that are mostly
*independent* of any one game.  And they do center around message
boards (actually, it seems to me they center around one person more
than the message-board or group itself).

Smaller MUDs seem to be different.  I don't get the impression there's
as much cross-over between them, so I don't see that MUD communities
are all sub-communities of a larger whole (but then, I'm not a member
of (a) MUD community(ies), so I wouldn't know).

I do get that impression about MMORPGs, though.


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