[MUD-Dev] Genuinely brief intro

[Koster]

On Wednesday, June 11, 1997 4:07 AM, Dr. Cat[SMTP:cat at eden.com] 
wrote:

> If this sort of thing is a problem for a lot of the people on the 
list, I
> could just leave.  I have more than enough ideas to keep me busy
> implementing stuff for the next few years just trying to implement 
them
> all in code, and I always think up new ones faster than I can get 
the old
> ones done.
>
> I guess the trick is in picking which ones to do first.
>
>
>         -- Dr. Cat

Absolutely, and I couldn't agree more with Dr. Cat that ideas are 
cheap. Some ideas, granted, have more substance than others, and thus 
are less cheap, perhaps. But in general, ideas are cheap, specific 
design methods are less so (and probably the cut-off point for those 
of us discussing specific implementations of our work in a 
professional arena) and implementations themselves are very expensive, 
and where the real value lies. (This is often a difficult thing for 
those who have the ideas to accept...)

"Let's have an active battlefield!" - cheap.

"Let's have an active battlefield that works on neural net tech in 
this manner! [insert 30 pages of documentation]" - actually worth 
something, and OUGHT to be the bread and butter of this list, except 
that some of us have non-disclosure agreements on such things :)

"Here's code for an active battlefield that works on neural net tech!" 
- we don't want something of this magnitude on a list anyway, we want 
it on an FTP site.

I think those of us who work in commercial development of muds, 
graphical or otherwise, all know quite well where the boundaries lie 
for this sort of thing; I have no problem with our esteemed 
list-owner's restrictions, nor do I think that this issue will BE an 
issue, really.

FWIW, I don't know of a game company on the planet that wouldn't laugh 
in the face of someone who only had an idea, with no development or 
proof-ofo-concept behind it...

-Raph (not Ralf, please! :P)