[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface

[Jon A. Lambert]

On 25 Sep 97 at 20:39, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Sep 1997 11:42:10 PST8PDT, Nathan Yospe <yospe at hawaii.edu>
> wrote:
> >I'd say Scott's Eternal City qualifies. I've seen several others, well over 
> >a dozen, not counting certain mushes and mucks. Counting them, several dozen.
> 
> Several hundred. However, I don't always count these among MUDs; in
> fact, my suggestions that we just might learn something by looking at
> MUSHes and MUCKs were met with some level of derision. 
> 

WRONG. Your insistence in using the term MUD to refer to things not
of MUSH was met with a great deal of derision and resistance.
It was your insistence in the earlier thread to make comparisons 
between a MUSH interface and a MUD interface from a builder's 
perspective if I am not mistaken.  It was also your contention that 
good builder documentation exists for MUSHes but not for MUDs. 
Comparing a specific server-type to all others is about as about as 
clear and useful as comparing a cow to a mammal. Perhaps your 
assumptions about what a MUD game is about is also colored by these 
distinctions. 

MUSH concepts have permeated many threads on this list.  Several 
hundred messages in fact.  None of these messages received derision.
Quite probably because the posters didn't say "MUSHes do this, MUDs 
do that". 

It's been quite apparent to me for my entire existence on this 
list and quite possibly before that the use of the term 'muds' has 
always been used as a GLOBAL definition of ALL of our servers, 
regardless of specifics.  There is a practical reason for this.
All personal definitions result in confusion, babble and flames.
The term 'mud' is also quite handy as a global term since no 'mud' 
codebase exists (save MUD1).  

--
Jon A. Lambert

If I'd known it was harmless, I would have killed it myself.