[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface ...

[coder at ibm.net]

On 09/10/97 at 11:06 PM, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban at darklock.com>
said:

>Even the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" doesn't have the tendency to spur
>me  into almost certain death the way Nine Inch Nails' "Last" would. If
>you  want non-electronic examples, I'd sooner march to Beethoven's ninth
>than to  one of Chopin's Nocturnes. If you know the difference, you can
>see why.

Interesting that.  I'd much rather the nocturnes.  Reason?  I find them
incredibly beautiful, and if I could allign that beauty with the reason I
was about to march, they would be terribly compelling.  A good analogy
would be a photgraph of a sweetheart, looked at just before storming out
of the trenches and into the crossfire.  The photograph, or nocturnes
don't *encourage* action in the same way the 9th might, blood rousing and
allt hat lot, but the provide reason for it.

Curious question really.  Would you rather do something because you are
excited, or because you are excited by it?

>This sort of 'inspire the troops' effort is not a direct measure of
>musical  ability. Look at the conditioning we go through in the military.
>The horrid  doggerel that we use for calling cadence is vastly more
>inspirational than  some perfectly constructed mellifluous melody. Nobody
>marches to 'America  the Beautiful'. We have stupid, non-poetic,
>badly-written stuff like 'Mama  and papa were lying in bed/Mama rolled
>over to papa and said/gimme some, oh  yeah, gimme some, oh yeah'. And if
>anyone reading this was *in* the  military... you can hear it, can't you,
>in the back of your mind? Still  gets the blood pumping a little faster,
>doesn't it?

Pavlov?

>Why? It sucks. It's worse than "roses are red, violets are blue"
>("...some  poems rhyme, this one doesn't"). It's bad poetry, bad singing,
>and has no  real meaning. But IT WORKS. (Unless you want a recording
>contract.) There's  just blatantly no effective game mechanic for it.
>It's too variable.

There is a technology to such things, just as there is a technology to
speech writing.  There are standard known tricks of the trade.  For speech
writing, one of the classics is to make three consecutive points, each one
with a rising tone and louder than the last, etc.  There is an almost
inbuilt reaction to cheer after the third point in Western society.  It
almost doesn't matter what was said as long as the structure is followed. 
Churchhill's, "We shall meet them on the beaches..." speech is a perfect
case in point.  

Cadence rhyme has similar structures, from the various implicit forms of
testosterone agreement, social offense, etc on down.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...