[MUD-Dev] The 'Socialiser' problem

[Nathan Yospe]

On Sat, 9 Aug 1997, Greg Munt wrote:
:On Fri, 8 Aug 1997, Nathan Yospe wrote:

:> Everything you mentioned is available from (and only from, OOC) the shell
:> account and OOC chatrooms outside of the game itself, for me. It makes it
:> possible to, for example, chat with the guy from the opposing side after a
:> major clash between factions of the radical elements of the war (all PCs
:> are technically on the same side, but that doesn't stop them from
:> fighting, as I have learned.) in the "dressing room" or "backstage", or to
:> just hang out in the "singles room", the "bar", or learn something
:> (possibly useful for the game) in the "tutoring rooms"... Email and
:> newsgroups, fingers and pages (that get through to people in the game if
:> not blocked) are all possible from the shell.

:Seperating the game into two is a possibility. However, this falls into 
:the 'two muds in one' trap. In some aspects, it can appear rather 
:contrived, and only existing as a means of attracting pure Socialisers.

I suppose so. I never really thought of that as a bad thing... I have
competitive chess and bridge, two competitive tetris style games, and
various other online competitions worked into the shell, along with at
least one (so far) mud and the chatrooms. The shell also accesses admin
accounts, which are _not_ player accounts plus stuff... there are three
kinds of admin account... the coder account is a protected access to the
unix shell with its own source control system... the builder (admin level)
account gives access to the game building facilities on several levels,
ranging from the golem (essentially, build as character that points and
redescribes objects) to the softcode source level editor...

:The feature that you refer to, allowing OOC players to page IC players, 
:would that not disrupt the 'immersion'? If you are going to allow this, 
:you may as well integrate the two areas into one. I can see no effective 
:difference - and my unwillingness to integrate abstraction with 
:virtual pseudo-reality (and the resultant problems) was the motivation for 
:the original post.

Pages can (of course) be blocked, and do not communicate any information,
save that "(shell acount name) has paged you". There is no way to ID the
in game id of whoever you have paged, as you are paging the shell acount.
Its minimum disruptions... sort of like a "call me when you can" message
when at work.

"You? We can't take you," said the Dean, glaring at the Librarian.
"You don't know a thing about guerilla warfare." - Reaper Man,
Nathan F. Yospe  Registered Looney                   by Terry Pratchett
yospe at hawaii.edu   http://www2.hawaii.edu/~yospe           Meow