[MUD-Dev] Stranger in a Strange Land (was Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again))

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <01BCC786.23AD3430.caliban at darklock.com>, on 09/23/97 
   at 08:35 AM, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban at darklock.com> said:

>Remove the who command, and I log on and see a series of people that
>may or  may not be PCs. I try to find out where something is. I can't
>tell who's a  PC, who's been here a while, who's high level, who's of
>an appropriate class, it becomes a major pain in the behind. I see
>plenty of NPCs who  would be able to help me, *if* they were able to
>understand and respond to  the question, which they aren't.

Bingo.  The more interesting fact is that this can be equally argued
as either a Good or Bad Thing, for precisely the same reasons.  

The primary effect I see of removing the WHO command, and removing the
global namespace I do both) is that of removing the sense of the
individual players as being a member of a larger group of players all
playing the same game.  It removes the sense of an instant social
context, "All of us on the who list are players," and with the removal
of the global namespace removes even the pretense of baing able to
place oneself in any even remote sort of social relevance as a new
player. The result is that it tends to devolve them all into more
isolationist viewpoints where they are alone in a strange and
confusing world without clear ability to identify or locate friends or
allies, or even know who or what might be any of these things.

Temporarily ignoring the thematic question as to the (dis)advatages of
this (both sides are arguable), it does place a premium on experience
and social connections within the world, and as such, also presents a
(daunting?) barrier to entry for new players to the game world.  It is
probably worth noting at this point the extremely simplistic and
generalist interfaces in this regard on UOL, DSO, EverDark, M59,
Avalon, MUD2 etc.  There is very little barrier to entry for these
commercial efforts to a non-socially connected player.  Logon == You
have instant (if minimal) social context (Not quite so true for
Avalon, but that's an implementation detail they've largely overcome
thru other (interesting, impressive, and over-crafted) means(*))

  NOTE: I am distinguishing here between ability to _play_
non-socially connected, and the ability to understand and learn about
the world non-socially connected.  Solo quests, tasks, and puzzles are
one thing.  Understanding the game world without being able to locate
another human to ask about it is another.

If you are new, and have not met other players within the world, then
your ability to progress and learn is hampered.  Conversely of course,
if you are experienced, you are at an advantage to the extent that you
have an association of friends and the like to support and forward you
and whose group understanding you can draw on and support for your own
intellectual assult on the game-world.

This also creates an interesting side-effect value for perma-death. 
If you character perma-dies then you lose all the social systems and
context which that character had.  You still know of the existance of
those structures and people, but you have no idea who and where they
are, or any real way to causitively locate them.  Perma-death suddenly
becomes an almost catastrophic occurance -- you lose a lot more than
just your character.  

  Aside: An interesting side effect of this removal of WHO and global
namespace is that it implicitly encourages the creation of cliques,
exclusive societies, and other "us vs the rest" social forms.  It
tends to inculcate FWLIW this is my main complaint against the current
clan and guild system on most current MUDs.  They appear and function
as bolt-ons: extra, externally enforced, social constructs which are
imposed on the social world in an attempt to foster a deemed desirable
predetermined structure, which very little else in the world directly
implicate or actually requires the existanfce of clans or guilds.  

  To put it another way:  IRL clans and guilds exist for a reason. 
There are forces, physical universe survival threatening forces which
clans and guilds are an attempt to contain and increase survival in
the face of.  Putting clans and guilds into a world where such forces
don't exist, or where clans and guilds are not an implicitly requisite
answer grates.

(*)  Avalon has a very extensive (over-extensive?) system of guides
which lead new players about the world, showing them how the world
operates, many of its base mechanics, and suggesting how the player
might take social advantage of the various possibilities.

Is lack of a social context for new players a Bad Thing?  There are
ways to work around much of the initial barrier to entry to the
non-social world problem (cf Avalon's guides), however that doesn't
address the problems of entering the social world, or the question of
social context.

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...