[MUD-Dev] Ray Feist interview

[Fredfish {E. Harper}]

<EdNote: Not sure what happened to your paragraphs/margins, but I
fixed 'em>

> > start quote--->  [Raymond Feist interview as quoted by Raph]

[snippity snip snip]

> I think the biggest flaw with this interview is that Feist, while a
> respected author, doesn't quite understand MUDs.  For example:
>

>> 2. Do you feel that an MMOG is capable of telling an in-depth,
>> quality story on the level of one of your novels?
>>
>> No, nor would you want to. RPG's and novels serve two different
>> functions.
>
> RPGs and novels both serve the same function, to entertain.  The
> difference is the interactivity.  So far, it's been a struggle to
> tell a compelling story in an interactive medium.  It's important to
> remember that storytelling medium has its particular strengths and
> weaknesses.  Novels that are literally transcribed into movies
> generally make poor movies.  Sometimes the elements that make a
> story in one medium a great experience makes that story's
> translation to another medium difficult.

Perhaps i'm just an old (actually, very young) cynic, but I just don't
feel that the term 'storytell' applies in a meaningful way to the
context of a [MUD/MMORPG]. A story, regardless of how entertaining or
engrossing, is an activity in which the reader (or equivalent in oral
storytelling) is fundamentally /outside/ the story. It is up to the
author to shape the imaginary world within the story, to direct the
events and allow the characters - which are really creations of the
storyteller's own mind - to act upon and react to the plot. I, as a
reader, have no control over whether the President's plane crashes or
doesn't crash - it's all up to Tom Clancy.

For that matter, I have no control over whether a gun-toting penguin
from Jupiter bursts into the cockpit, kills the terrorists, and flies
the plane to safety.  (That would actually be a pretty dumb story, now
that I think about it.)

On the other hand, the players in a [alphabet soup] are not
independent of the story. They are active participants in the flow of
events - or at least they should have the opportunity to be. The
reason it's been a struggle to tell a compelling story in the
interactive meaning is that people don't want to have the story 'told'
to them. They want to be /active participants/ in the events.

Now, unfortunately, this can play havoc with the dramatic best
interests of storytelling. If Obi-Wan scores a critical hit and kills
Vader, where the hell does Star Wars go from there? For that matter,
if the Imperials capture and execute Luke, Leia, et al., what do we do
now? For that matter, if '5t0rMtR00p3r-d00d' uses an exploit - or even
just a long history of power- gaming for xp - to turn the Death Star
into a giant disco ball, we're pretty much done for in terms of this
story.

To put it another way - the problem with 'storytelling' in the
interactive medium is that it's kind of like grabbing a drunken stage
actor, a semi-literate 13 year old, and a librarian/SCA buff, giving
them a situation, and telling them to act it out from there. Sure,
/something/ will happen. But it might not make much sense, and it's
very unlikely to be an interesting story.

Did you ever play the game where you have a bunch of people write a
story, one line at a time? It usually winds up as 'Bob walked out of
his house.  Bob was struck by lightning and died. But then he was
resurrected and went on to become a mud farmer in Kyrgistan. At which
point, a cow fell on his head, killing him.' Etc, etc. Each person has
his or her own idea about how things should go, and putting them
together usually results in chaos.

Maybe I'm missing something real obvious here, or maybe I'm just
proceeding from the wrong assumptions. It /is/ 1:30 in the
morning. Let me know.

> In all, I disagree that you cannot tell compelling stories in the
> online medium; however, I think there are a lot of challenges we
> have to face in order to tell stories like those that one finds in
> other media.  This challenge is what makes me get up in the morning
> and love my job. :)

Jerk. I want a cool job. Actually, I just want /a/ job. :)

--
-= Fredfish (E.Harper) =-

Found 9768220 matches for "information overload".



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