[MUD-Dev] Circumstances & Situations

[JC Lawrence]

On Mon, 29 Dec 1997 11:55:02 PST8PDT 
Marian Griffith<gryphon at iaehv.nl> wrote:

> Well no. The one big advantage of textual muds over graphical ones
> is the amount of detail possible in the text. 

More specifically it is very easy to control where the detail is
available, and where the reader must fill it in for himself with text.
This is actually a very critical point, this ability of text to vary
the granularity of detail from huge and gross ("There is a mountain
here.", "He is tall.") to incredibly tiny ("His vest is patterned with
a tiny mosaic motif of dancing unicorns and rutting satyrs stitched in
silver wire and gold paint.").  Additionally it is the _lack_ of
provided detail, of filling in the blanks, that coerces the reader
into filling them in for themselves; it actually forcibly compels the
reader without choice or compunction, to create the scene for
themselves, filling in the detail in a manner that is real and
understandable to them, and more importantly, likely to have emotive
accessability (as different from impact) for them.

Graphics can't do that as it either offers the detail (likely in a
form which doesn't have emotive accessability or immediacy for the
viewer), or it offers no detail and thereby shows the viewer that
there is no detail there (after all, it can't be seen).  

Is one better?  Nahh.  They are merely different and better able at
communicating and manipulating different realms.  The problem, and the
source of much of the rancour in r.g.m.* on the area, is that people
attempt to apply text and graphics to the same domain, when their mere
presence in the attempt changes the domain into something utterly
different from the other.  A superbly written (described) text MUD
with an incredibly deep atmosphere etc (cf Ray Bradbury's Martian
Chronicles which are pure carboard stereotypes dropped in incredibly
rich and deep atmospheres) put up against a superbly beautiful etc etc
etc 3D 1st person graphical MUD will of necessity be two utterly
different games with two near utterly alien to each other, worlds.

<phew>

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
                                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
----------(*)                        Internet: jc.lawrence at sun.com
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...