[MUD-Dev] Proposed Law

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

Matt Mihaly wrote:

> Obviously almost all current MUDs are dominated by violence and
> sex.

Well, not really sex per se?

Anyway, worlds are different, due to the _unlimited space_
available.  The web is not dominated by violence or sex, even if we
pay a lot of attention to sex stuff because it is taboo in our
culture. People on this list read slashdot and gamasutra. Conflict,
outrageous events and peeks into the future, what the world really
is about, would be better abstractions (e.g. news on Microsoft,
inventions, visionaries etc).

In the more linear or space limited broad tabloid media you will see
the universal spectacular stuff (violence and sex) because that hits
broadly and instantly, but you also get comedies, romantic stuff
etc. Violence and sex seems to work in media with very limited
marketing opportunities and attention spans IMO. Basically, if you
are to sell your useless product to the faceless dude in 2 seconds,
then you need to project the image of something broadly spectacular
and a recognizable genre.  A.I.  sells too. (spectacular and known
genre) Tragedies used to sell well.  etc etc.

There is no reason for why MUDs with user-building and mechanics
that allow complexity should not allow the heterogeneity found on
the net.  The problem with the large MUDs as of today, is that they
are awfully limiting (not all that much better than TV + telephone
in terms of interaction), thus your audience is very very limited.


--
Ola  -  http://folk.uio.no/olag/


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev