[MUD-Dev] [Mud-Dev] Re: Affordances and social method

[cat]

Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> Have you ever logged onto a MUD and seen that everyone on it is 
apparently
> idle, but the who list says they're active? And then after a little
> investigation, you discover a heated debate about the relative merits of
> Hanson and the Spice Girls on some internal channel? And you look 
around at
> this huge MUD that people spent a lot of time and effort to build, and 
you
> wonder why everyone would waste it on some stripped-down imitation of 
IRC? 
>
> I don't get that. Maybe one day I'll figure it out. ;)

Sounds great to me!  America Online has made billions on providing a place
to chat about popular music groups and such for people.  :X)

To me it looks like an issue of whether the MUD is there to satisfy the 
desires
of the people that made it, or the people that play it.  "I want every 
room and
every feature to be used, or at least most of them I worked hard on 
making them!"
is very much a creator-centric kind of view.  "I'm having fun chatting 
with my new
friend I met here, this is great!" says to me, from a player-centric view,
 "I did my job,
he said the word 'great' and like that there."

For the record, I always viewed IRC as a stripped-down chat mud.  I can't 
see
viewing a mud as a stripped down IRC, when in a mud you can type "look 
Joe"
and get a description.  It's a dressed up IRC at the very minimum, an IRC 
with
sets and costumes.  Why some people seem to prefer a place without the 
sets
and costumes is what feels a little odd to me, though I think maybe I 
understand
it on an intellectual level.

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