[MUD-Dev] Re: DIS: Client-Server vs Peer-to-Peer

[J C Lawrence]

On Thu, 3 Dec 1998 10:06:17 +0100 (MET) 
Niklas Elmqvist<d97elm at dtek.chalmers.se> wrote:

> Right. I think many gamers really would like to take part in a
> large organization and work for a common cause -- just witness the
> popularity of team mods such as CTF and Team Fortress for Quake
> and other first-person shooters. Players don't have to save the
> world on their own all the time -- it is equally rewarding to save
> the world TOGETHER with lots of other people. This feeling of
> shared purpose is desirable and rather hard to come by on the
> internet, at least currently. I, for one, would absolutely *love*
> to participate in a massive undertaking such as D-Day, knowing
> that hundreds if not thousands of my fellow players are all
> striving towards this end. Introducing a higher-level command
> mechanism such as ranking officers (you could rise in ranks as you
> play, thus gaining command of platoons, companies, etc) and
> real-time strategy interfaces (such as those of StarCraft and
> Command & Conquer) would help to strengthen the cooperative
> experience even further (all orders would be more like advice when
> it concerns players, of course -- we could not force them to do
> things).

You hit a key point here that current MUDs appeal to but don't
properly satisfy: group cooperation dynamics.  Yes, there are clans,
tanks, and other sorts of cooperative ventures, but very little
support for group formation, cooperation, and leadership over
extended periods and with any sense of permanence or currency over
extended periods.  

Bubba, logging on 03:00 hours when the rest of his clan is not
playing, hardly has a sense of social context or relevance with his
clan, and has no effective in-game way to communicate with his clan,
or to use his clan effectively in his play _at_that_time_.

  Pause a second, and think about what might happen if you really
mixed the various groupware pagackes, LotusNotes or whatever, with a
MUD client.  Now throw in the ability for clients to recall
everything that happened in their view for the last few minutes and
to auto-generate a .mov/video file from that...

  Think players would get a little excited?

Many MUDs have clan support code.  Few have support for arbitrary
clans (ie ad hoc or dynamically generated clans), and even fewer
have any sort of support for flexible or dynamic power and authority
structures within those clans.  UOL is a bit of a leader (tho not
alone) in this regard, with fairly flexible and well known dynamic
clan supports.  They don't (yet?) have support for flexible pwoer
and authority structures however (heirarchial, flat, democracy,
oligarchy, dictatorship, roman or non-roman republic, etc).  Per my
last phone call with Raph (long time back now), they're *starting*
to think in that direction, but have made no motions.

Scenario:

  You can, given sufficient funds, buy a clan from the ClanBot in
the MUD.  

    -- What do you get for your purchase?  A webpage hosted by the
clan bot that you can write, entry on the list of "official" clans
as hosted by the clanbot, and registration of your clan
mark/standard/sigil with the clanbot such taht the clanbot will then
refuse to accept other registrations with conflicting tags.

  You can also purchase a bulletin board from a bulletin board
vendor (could be the ClanBot).

    -- What is a bulletin board?  Its a web and email based
groupware package with an in-game presence (think mailing list meets
slashdot meets GeoCities).  Simple in-game controls allow it to be
configured in a number of simple manners (who can read the board,
who can post, who can create forums etc).  

    -- The bulletin board can be situated anywhere in the game, and
*can* be stolen, and *can* be corrupted and otherwise affected by
its illegal owners if sufficient (simple but annoying) security
options were not taken by the rightful owners of the board.  Boards
can also be validy traded.

  -- In-game communication of bulletin board events and postings can
be presented in a number of ways: carrier pidgeon, telepathy,
messenger horsemen, having to go to and read the board, etc, with
various behaviours for various types of postings to the board.

  -- The board can act as a repository for game logs, movies, and
other clan history/trivia.

  Finally you can gain, by purchase, capture, spellcraft, whatever,
a demon which you can charge with maintaining and enforcing the clan 
rules.

    -- What does the demon do?  It magically/automatically monitors
clan members and clan posessions and reports back to the bulletin
board when activities concerning fit or break criteria specified on
the bulletin board.

       Example: Members of an enemy clan encroach on clan territory.
The demon posts an entry (it can literally be a small chubby
BSD-style demon with a pitchfork, scribbling the news in charcoal on
a whitewash wall) about the invasion.

       Example: Members of an enemy clan cast a disguise spell on
themselves making them appear to be members or friends of the home
clan, and invade without being noticed.

       Example: A member of the clan goes and comports with an enemy
clan member without taking sufficient precautions (eg too close to
clan territory) not to be seen of found out.  The demon reports such
on the bulletin board.

      Example: A thief steals the XXX, a prime clan possession.  The
demon reports the thievery as it happens and the location of the
stolen item (until its tracking is thwarted or turned off by the
thieves).

  -- Other (or the same) demon can respond to things seen on the
bulletin board (filter matching with vrey simple rule sets).  If XXX 
happens, do YYY etc.  

Comments?

--
J C Lawrence                              Internet: claw at kanga.nu
(Contractor)                             Internet: coder at kanga.nu
---------(*)                    Internet: claw at under.engr.sgi.com
...Honorary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...