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

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

Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:

> I always thought AOL's major attraction was that it cut through all the
> crap. It was slick and pretty and easy to get around on and most
> importantly, easy to find what you wanted on. I never understood the chat
> craze on AOL. Maybe I'm spoiled by IRC and whatnot, but I found it really
> annoying that anyone could turn around and tell the AOL staff that you were
> being obscene or whatever and then the AOL police would come in the room
> and tell you to stop what you were doing -- and of course, they wouldn't
> hesitate to terminate your account if you objected.

Terminating the account seems a bit harsh, but some channel control beyond
what IRC offers might come in handy if you want to avoid the
young-and-frustrated teenager boys type of atmosphere throughout your
system?  A large majority of the channels on IRC is, err, not very
attractive to the general public, which turns them off, never to use the
system again. I believe IRC is one of the reasons why Internet is labeled
as some kind of sex heaven. I've been exploring Comic Chat recently and
basically the most interesting channels seems to be those which are
dedicated to Christianity, kids, newbies or 40+. Not because those are the
groups in which I fit in, but because frustrated teenage boys basically
aren't attracted to those areas.  And I'm not basically saying that these
kids are jerks either. It's more the helpless, cluelessness, shyness
combined with lust and loneliness. Culture clash.  Like today, I helped a 13
year old boy to get new characters. Winnie the Pooh and such. He thought it
to be dead cool, and wanted to show his gratitude to me by giving me
something in return.  He sent me a picture, which turned out to be a teenage
pornographic picture, showing a boy and a girl having intercourse!  I wasn't
altogether pleased with his way of showing his gratitude... I guess he
considered it to be a Gem or something, because he told me not to give it to
other people, perhaps afraid that it would loose it's value... *shrug*

> >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'd say it's definitely *supposed* to be there for the people that play it,
> but believe me I understand how much of an annoyance it is when you work
> REALLY hard on something and then the players ignore it completely. (It's
> even worse when they complain that they want it, bother you to build it,
> and then once you get it working they complain about what an annoyance it
> is and demand it be removed.)

The trouble is that winning norms are not always what all users wants, maybe
not even the majority. Take for instance the proliferation of A/S/L. That
is, the first thing an user does is to ask you about your age, your sex and
location.  I basically hate this. It's annoying. It kills they joy of
figuring out who you are talking to and soforth, and it could imply "I
am lonely and am only interested in getting laid"... Although impolite (in
my view), it is still a difficult question to avoid, so lots of people
simply give in. I believe this is something that has spread from AOL and the
#hot_pussy type of channels on IRC because it didn't use to be like this!

> I wasn't saying that the MUD itself was a stripped down IRC, but that the
> internal channel system was a stripped down IRC. Most such systems don't
> have the same benefits as being in the same MUD room with someone... they
> generally don't offer much beyond say, emote, and a WHO list. :)

Then I think you should take another look at Comic Chat. The main problem is
that a lot of users don't use the comic view. But it can be great fun if you
have the patience to look up some users with "visual minds". Even simple
things like playing *.mid files can have a great impact, especially on new
users who didn't except such things. Kids and old people, no difference
there. Music lovers who haven't figured out how to play *.mid files yet keep
asking for more, and it becomes a topic for interaction with a good
atmosphere.  I don't think one should underestimate simple interfaces,
although they are far from perfect yet. However, systems like Comic Chat
seems to demand a certain interest in visual/audio expression to be utilized
effectively. It is not going to work if 80% of the users in a channel uses
text mode. That's of course one of the main problems in any MUD, if 80% of
the users use the system as a simple text chatter then those who are
interested in utilizing and developing an atmosphere with the specific
mechanisms which the system provides are at loss. Although the system could
have moved beyond that, the whole system basically is reduced to a text
chatter as the valuable 20% loose interest. :-((
--
Ola Fosheim Groestad,Norway      http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~olag/worlds/