[MUD-Dev] Stranger in a Strange Land

[Adam Wiggins]

[JCL:]
>   I have no global namespace (very minor exeptions).  This means that
> there are no objects that have names that everybody knows.  While you
> character may have a name that you gave it, nobody else will know that
> name, and in fact has no requirement to use that name,  Instead they
> may assign whatever name they wish to you, just as you may "name" them
> however you wish.  The result is that a name assignment is now private
> to the character that assigned the name.  Thus I may know a certain
> character as "bubba", you may know his as "Boffo", and other as
> "Bernie".  (This is generically known as the "Silke effect" after a
> fictional character who was fond of name games.)
> 
> [Raph:]
> >Now, yes, all the commercial efforts place a premium on low barrier
> >to  entry, of course. They have to compete within the game market
> >with  many games that offer the same low barrier. 
> 
> Yup, the market is intellectual Doom players.  Their backgrounds are
> game principles which can be stated in triplicate on the back of a
> matchbook.

Well - although I slag the mental capacities of the 'mass market' all the time,
I think to be fair there's more to this.  You've got someone who can work
a computer and wants to play some games.  They think it would be more fun
to play with some other folks, so they sign up for an on-line game.  They come
home from a hard day at the office and just feel like logging on, hanging
out with some folks, maybe going on a glorious quest or two, then eating
dinner and going to bed with their spouse.
Compare this to the mud 'market': students whose idea of fun is staying up
all night anyways, so staying up all night playing a game that takes a lot of
time to learn and even more time to play is no big deal.

Thus the idea commecical game needs to appear fun within the first five
minutes to anyone that logs on, and the learning curve needs to be about
three seconds.  It's probably even *more* important that it be easy for an
online game where the person may be paying hourly (no one wants to pay to
struggle with something they don't understand) or at the very least, tying
up the phone line for long periods of time.

> Would you accept the assertion that the implicit ability to
> distinguish players from NPC's, and that players have a (potentially)
> very large field of view/interaction (eg can see other players when
> they are very distant), effectively work to create a social context?

Naturally.  Downside, of course, is that you loose immersion, since it comes
off more like a bunch of people playing the same game instead of a true
game world.  (IMO, of course..)  I suppose it's a matter of how important
the social aspect is compared to how important the feel of the 'world' is.
Personally I have seen plenty of the former but very few of the later, so
I'm going for more world, less socialization.  Then again, I'm the sort
of person that likes to spend 45 minutes or so poking around on a mud,
checking out the workings of the world, getting familiar with the interface,
and so forth, before I actually approach anyone and talk to them.  Thus,
it being harder to locate players doesn't bother me.  I'm not sure how
prevalant this view is; it seems fairly low, since people that log on to
new muds frequently type 'who' and if they see no one there, leave.  This seems
to be true across the board, whether or not the mud is social-oriented or not.

> A text-only MUD would seem to present a different case if only due to
> the fact of limited scope.  You can't see or detct anyone who is not
> present in the same room as you, and once they are more than one room
> away you have no real way of following them (especially if they are
> moving at any speed).

A real problem in the basic mechanics, IMO.  Solve it at that level and it
goes away at the social level as well.

> The room metaphor for MUDs very effectively
> creates an ultimate myopia on the part of players -- you can't see
> anything until you run your nose it it.  It actively destroys any

This is the same complaint as my 'fair warning' gripes about dragons and
so forth.  When a 200 foot dragon basically just appears in the room ('Scatha
has arrived from the west'), I get annoyed.  By the same token, you can't
'catch' someone as they run through town any more than you can catch
a specific car going 75 mph in the middle of a crowded highway.  (That is -
you can, but it's difficult.)

> I see the areas to be addressed as:
> 
>   Currency -- What is another player's state now?  Logged on?

I like to handle this at the account level.

>   Location -- Where is another player now?

I don't like to handle this at all.  I consider it a plus that I can
run off into the wilderness where no one can find me if someone is pestering
me.  Hopefully common gathering points (towns mainly, but also energy
vortexes for mages, shrines for clerics, etc) and the availibilty of information
from NPCs (they remember who they've seen recently) will keep the player
from feeling all alone all the time.

>   Communication -- Instant, time delayed, and store and forward.

Certainly you have to have this.  Assuming that the normal in-game
mechanics (say and shout) are a given, certainly players should be able
to write notes and post them on message boards; leave messages with NPCs;
scrawl messages into the dirt (nethack, anyone?); and possibly even hire
runners, carrier pigeons, homing devices (magical or technological), or
any other device that will fit within the game's theme.

We also handle this at the account level.  There are message boards,
chat rooms, and account-to-account email for OOC player discussions.
Naturally this will cross over to in-game usage a little bit - once you
know someone's account (basically, knowing the player rather than just
the character), you can email them saying 'Meet me in Aringdale at 8pm
game-time tomorrow'.  This is OOC and it is sort of 'cheating' the
system in a way, but it doesn't bother me too much.  Certainly it's
no different than emailing someone through regular mail if they give you
their email in the game, or even when you're mudding with friends and you
shout across the lab, 'come over to Aringdale real quick!'

> >additional communication elements:
> >- in-context means of magical long-distance communication - possibly
> >mail, dunno yet.
> 
> Magical sky writing?  
> 
>   Bubba launches hundreds of fireballs at the sky.  They explode
> magnificently!  The resultant streams and balls of smoke spell out,
> "BUBBA R00LZ".

Hey, now you're talking.  Could use the exact same effect as the clouds
in Ultima 7 - would make it pretty hard to miss.

> >> Perma-death suddenly becomes an almost catastrophic occurance -- 
> >> you lose a lot more than just your character.
> 
> >Pfui... you assume that the social systems are character-based and
> >not  player-based. MOST of them are player-based. 
> 
> Uhh, for me they are character based.  I realise that the relationship is inter-player, however my technical implementation renders the key mappings on the character.  
> 
> Your character assigns names etc to other characters, and that mapping, and thus that social context and availability is lost as soon as the character dies.  Your old friends now have no way to know that you have a new character, and discounting personal touches to character generation, for you to recognise your old friends as different from any other strangers.
> 
> Bubba dies.  How is his old friend Boffo to find Bubba's new character?  How is Bubba's new character to find Boffo?  Will they ever see each other again?  Will they be forever seperated?  <cue violins>

What's with the long-ass lines, JC?
Anyhow, I consider the above a serious boon.  Part of what I love about
role-playing is that...well, I get to play a role (gasp!).  If I was an
elf before and now I make a dark elf, why should I know the names of every
elf in the game?  I shouldn't, of course.  This is the fun of the
anonyminity afforded by role-playing in a mud rather than in RL.  It is
common practice on Arctic to retire your well-known character who is a
prime member of Clan X and create a new character, known by no one, and
join Clan Y, who has been hated by Clan X for generations and which the
original (well-known) character spent all her time fighting against.
I have done this quite a few times myself, and it's a lot of fun, since you
get to taste things from a different viewpoint.  Also, it tends to make
the clan wars (of which there are many) less bitter.  Everyone involved
knows that it's all just a game, that everyone is just role-playing, that
when they call someone's mother a flee-bitten cur it's all IC, and that very
likely the person who is insulting you was your trusted friend two months
ago, and may very well be again two more months again.

This, of course, causes for lots of laughter when two players actually meet
for 'real' and exchange the names of all their former characters.

> Sure they could have exchanged email addresses earlier.  In fact this implementation may actively encourage players to do this as a side-effect.  But not given such an exterior venue, they are effectively lost.

Right.  Seperating player relationships from character relationships.
A good thing, IMO, since they are inherently different anyhow.

[snip good example]
> Ignoring the tritenesses, its almost a classical nightmare.

Yeah.  Of course, there's a lot of new things that need to be taken into
account given this sort of a system (NGNS, shall we call it?).  You've
got to have NPCs be 'friendly'.  For instance, take a stroll through
most of the newbie starting towns on our mud and you'll learn the names
of a dozen NPCs that approach you and introduce themselves.  Naturally
you won't be 'fooled' into thinking that they are players, but hopefully
it should help avoid the above.