[MUD-Dev] Communication [was Introductions and..]

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Sat, 22 Nov 1997 09:37:48 PST8PDT, Matt Chatterley
<root at mpc.dyn.ml.org> wrote:

>I'll take this paragraph to spin off on a tangent, if you don't mind. :)
>
>One of the big beauties of online-gaming in this fashion (as opposed to
>quake, and so forth) is the level of communication which you have with
>other people, potentially all over the world, from all sorts of
>backgrounds (this is one of the big pulls of muds for me).

Agreed. However, I haven't seen a whole lot of 'social' discussion on
most MUDs... mainly discussion *of* the game. Occasionally someone will
say something like 'Uhhhh huhuhu METALLICA RULES huhuhuh' and then a
bunch of other people go 'hehehe, yeah, they rule, hehehehe' but that's
about it. As opposed to most MUSHes I've been on, where it's quite
common for people to gather in a little cluster somewhere and discuss
the relative merits of recent movie releases, or debate the historical
significance of a book or two, or just complain about how bad traffic is
these days. 

(Obligatory disclaimer inspired by similar discussions held in the past:
Allow me to clarify here that I'm not saying this is an inherent flaw in
MUD server design or that no MUD anywhere on Earth has this sort of OOC
discussion. I'm saying I haven't seen it. Spare me the complaints that
MUSH and MUD are 'bad' groups because MUSHes are MUDs. We all know what
I mean here when I say MUSH and MUD, and if you're going to take offense
at it then kindly keep it to yourself. Debating whether a MUD can be a
MUSH or a MUSH can be a MUD or what the *exact* formal definition of MUD
and MUSH are is not a productive discussion. As far as whether I'm
saying one is better than the other, I'm not -- they're different. Just
like Riven compared to Jedi Knight. There are people who like one,
people who like the other, people who like both, and people who like
neither. They're both still well designed, well constructed, and
impressive in their own ways. Anyone who wants to champion one over the
other is missing the point; anyone who wants to nitpick over what
exactly the differences are is attempting to abstract the discussion
into irrelevance. Neither direction is desirable. Save this disclaimer,
as I will respond to such directions in future messages on this thread
with the phrase 'see disclaimer'.)

>There are a lot of things which can restrict this communication (which is
>9/10 times going to be OOC in nature, the way I am referring to it), and
>it often seems desirable to do so, but is this perhaps an error, at least
>in 'marketing' - does it make the game less attractive to players?

The largest obstacles I see is that there's no specific 'non-game'
location (most MUSHes have the 'OOC Room' and a little complex built
around it), and there's no real encouragement to be in character at any
given point in time. Whereas on your average MUD there is a specific
goal (some 'maximum' level) and a readable score (experience), on a MUSH
there tends to be very little in the way of quantifiable ability. You
can't generally look at someone's title or level or stats, there's just
no construct available for it. I think on MUSHes, you have more of an
even playing field, where people are more likely to view each other as
other players rather than other characters -- on a MUD, a level 30
character and a level 10 character have little in common for obvious
reasons, while on a MUSH the great and powerful wizard lord Akrabash who
dresses in a simple grey robe and the peasant Olgat who dresses in a
burlap sack could very easily have a great deal in common. Akrabash is
obviously someone of greater importance than Olgat, since he's likely to
be better groomed at the very least, but how much greater? Olgat could
very easily be a well-trained mercenary, and Akrabash could just as
easily be a favored apprentice as he could be a powerful wizard lord.
There's a huge amount of grey area there. The only way for Akrabash to
indicate that he's a powerful wizard lord is to *act* like one.
Likewise, Olgat could *pretend* to be a well-trained mercenary, even
though he can barely tell one end of a sword from the other and probably
doesn't even really know whether he's left handed or right handed.
Anyone who knows anything about mercenaries would probably see through
his facade in short order, but they'd have to pay attention.

Given that sort of encouragement to play in character (to present your
character in the best possible light), you end up with more interaction.
The drive to do away with level systems altogether is a good step on
this, but the goal I've seen in most discussions is to hide the
*numbers* from the players... not to hide the relative power levels from
the *other* players. People seem to be concerned with whether Bob can
type 'stats' and see that he has a 16 strength. I don't see that as an
issue; I see the issue as whether Joe can look at Bob and tell whether
he's a powerful lord of the land, or a peon. Titles contribute to this.
Levels contribute to this. Joe should look at Bob and see a description.
That description should indicate to Joe some idea of what Bob's power
level is like; if he's wearing a lot of fancy robes and jewels, he's
probably not much good in a fight. If he's wearing heavily battered
armor, he probably isn't interested in helping you build a boat. And if
he's got one leg and is leaning on a crutch, you might want to give him
some spare change. ;)

However, discussion can indicate more about someone. The guy in the
robes and jewels may just be taking a short vacation; he might love to
hear about an opportunity to go out and adventure in the caverns of
Copernicus, and ask only that you let him go and change into his solid
adamantine armor and pick up his tremendous broadsword from the smithy.
The guy in the battered armor may have recently been discharged from the
army, and be at a total loss for how to get a job, which would make him
more than happy to workk on building a boat. And the guy on the crutch
may actually be one of the most wealthy and successful spies in the
world, a master of disguise who can open the most complex lock in the
land using only two hairs plucked from a sailor's beard. 

But in order to find this out, you need to talk to these people. Many
folks won't bother, much like the real world. I walk down the streets of
D.C. in a leather jacket, with hair down to the middle of my back and a
scraggly ugly beard that makes me look a good deal like Charles Manson.
I probably look homeless and dangerous. It's not easy to see that I'm an
old school systems programmer and one of the senior network engineers
for a government agency. Most people don't even think to ask. A lot of
people in my own building tend to think I work in the mail room or
something until I get brought in to offer an analysis of their remote
access solution from a security and technological feasibility
standpoint. Appearance is deceptive, and deception is a large part of
role playing, in my opinion. It has a good deal of strategic
significance.

>Good examples here are games whose servers do not traditionally have a
>background in roleplaying, but which are trying to move into that field
>(for instance, an RP based game running on ROM, or Diku), where many of
>the commonalities of the server (gossip, and so forth) are removed to make
>the environment more singularly focussed towards realism and RP (read
>realism as self-realism or consistancy within the gaming world and
>environment).

I agree that some of the real-time OOC discussion areas should be
removed, but I also think it's important to consider the three major
areas that I find helpful on MUSHes even though they don't actually have
anything to do with the game. 

I've already mentioned the OOC area. I think it's important to have a
public area which is not part of the game, a place where people can go
and not have to worry about being bothered by people who need CRs or
healing. A place where people can just sort of talk amongst themselves.
Preferably this would also be a good place for people to log on and ask
questions about the game before creating a character in earnest, and
find things out like whether some particular class or race really sucks
or has bugs or something. Someplace where you can learn more about the
online culture here.

Another important part is the "classified" channel, channels open to
certain groups of people. Someplace where you could speak to people of
similar interests and character types; this is good to locate other
elves, or other wizards, and so on, and so forth. People tend to feel
most comfortable around people they are similar to. This helps people
fit in and find places to hang out and meet other people, and is most
specifically useful to new players who have just started their players.
There's a temptation here to create TOO MANY of these, which should be
resisted.

And a third, *very* important part to consider is the place of your own.
Characters should be able to own homes of some sort, and decorate them
as they like within reason. This gives a sense of permanence, and
provides the player with someplace to hole his character up or store
things for future use. It's common, for example, that I'll have a desire
on one MUD or other to stockpile a spare of all my equipment -- it may
be rather simple for me to acquire it, for example, but in the event of
some disaster I would be unable to get my corpse back easily without
*any* equipment. (This is an example only; I may want to stockpile
equipment for other reasons, as well, such as to equip other characters
who have crappy equipment, if your MUD has permadeath or something.)
It's tough to manage things like that on most MUDs. Even a bank would be
a good thing to have, like the vault in the old SSI AD&D games, where I
could get a safe deposit box or something. Homes also provide thieves
with a way to go around and do something other than being a subclass of
warriors, although I view that sort of thing a little dubiously.

>Perhaps it is wholly more desirable to have a completely bifocal game,
>which has an RP side and an OOC/social side to it - this is something like
>what Richard is aiming to, with a login name that is *totally* abstracted
>from Character Names, and helps to define the difference between player
>and character to a good extent.

I'd agree on this point, but of course I'm talking about a game that I'd
like to play -- rather than a game *everyone* would like to play. Of
course, to a large extent, that's what we're all doing, right?

=+[caliban at darklock.com]=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=[http://www.darklock.com/]+=
"It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more 
doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a 
new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by 
the preservation of the old institution, and merely lukewarm defenders in 
those who would gain by the new one."                      -- Machiavelli
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