[MUD-Dev] NEWS: Why Virtual Worlds are Designed By Newbies -No, Really! (By R. Bartle)

[J C Lawrence]

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 20:48:47 -0800
Raph Koster <Koster> wrote:
> J C Lawrence wrote:
>> On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 19:32:09 -0800 Raph Koster <Koster> wrote:

>>> ((waiting for JC to kill this thread per the list charter, but
>>> hoping he doesn't))

>> I try to not kill threads that look like they might get somewhere.

> In that case, I will offer up my original definition, which I think
> has a lot in common with your other post:

Ha!

> A mud is a spatially based depiction of a somewhat persistent virtual
> environment, which can be experienced by numerous participants at
> once, who are represented within the space by avatars.

I'm uncomfortable with this for other aspects of persistence than you
mention.  Specifically I'm uncomfortable with the requirement that the
persistence must be of the logical representation of the persistent
entity as versus the persistence being of the impression or continued
effect of the persistent entity in the minds and viewpoints of the
participants.  (I'll pause while you'll diagram that out and accuse me
of double-speak) AKA: Something is persistent if it persists in the
minds or viewpoints of the people aware of the thing, it isn't
persistent if nobody sees the tree fall in the woods (partial caveat for
abstracted "seeing" in simulations).

I'd quibble on the spatial bits, but its not a criteria I see as being
important to argue about either way.

>   - "spatially based" does not mean Euclidean space by any stretch--it
> includes quite non-standard geometries.

As an example there are a social network constructs which represent
interpersonal space as a function of one's degree of connectedness with
other nodes.  Thus the nodes to which you are well or heavily connected
are closer than the nodes to which you bear only faint connections.
Extend the definition of nodes to also enclude objects as well as other
"people" and you can approach a rather curious and useful mapping of our
current "reality".  I could easily see such a subjective
viewpoint-sensitive spatial construct being used for an interesting
MUD-form.

>   - "somewhat persistent" in that the environment must persist, but
> elements within it may not... but then, this can get vague with
> features like instancing. Many muds did full world resets--does that
> mean that Diablo which does a full world reset in each instance is a
> mud? To my mind, it should not mean that...

Diablo fails for me in that the social/cultural aspects of the player
intersections are not critical.  Ditto Quake.  While there are social
interactions and even cultural forms among player guilds, they tend to
be a rather abstracted form, divorced from their games except as venues
of opportunity.  What's missing is the social and cultural activity
being critical to the service.

  It ain't real until people believe in it enough to build an intimate
  part of their life there.

>   - "at once" does mean, to my mind, synchronous communication

Yup.

> Lately, I've grown somewhat dissatisfied with this definition, because
> it doesn't pin down some of the above with sufficient clarity. It
> seems to me that there should be some way to pin down what
> "persistence" means a bit better, for example.

That's where the above re-definition hit me.  At the end of the day
we're talking about mental constructs that people build, inhabit and
then manipulate as if they were in fact real.  Just ideas.  Heck, who
are we to argue that they are not real?  (cf the LambdaMOO rape).  Are
we really about to say that an arbitrary byte arrangement in a server's
core takes precedence to a set of human's beliefs in regard to a MUD
definition?

The other spanner in the works of course are the fully consensual MUDs
whose game- and world-supports are tenuous at best leaving them in some
ways as glorified talkers.  I'm not about to classify them as non-MUDs.

Of course this ends up circular and sophist: It is a MUD because I
believe it to be a MUD, but then people are like that.

--
J C Lawrence
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.

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