[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

"Koster, Raph" <rkoster at origin.ea.com> wrote:
>> A language consists of a set of symbols and some rules for combining 
>> them. Nothing magic...
>
>A strange thing tp say about perhaps the most truly magical invention 
>of humankind. :)
>
>But that's offtopic.


Yeah, but what isn't offtopic is that what consitutes a good book may
actually become a problem in a virtual world.  A good book (or poetry)
leaves a lot of ambiguity, there is room for the reader to read his
own life experience into the book.  I guess you could say that each
reader is reading a different story, or to rephrase it, experiencing a
different world.

In a multiuser virtual world (as well as in the real world) the
"readers" are going to communicate with eachother as well as interact
with the world.  To communicate effectivly there has to be some common
understanding of the world one lives in.

About the magic part, the language isn't, the associations/fantasies
we get when reading the symbols is.  But that is also true for a
painting, a sculpture garden and other ways of expression.

Ola.