[MUD-Dev] The impact of the web on muds

[JC Lawrence]

On Wed, 24 Dec 1997 15:30:50 PST8PDT 
Greg Munt<greg at uni-corn.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> [Please ignore historical inaccuracies] 

Awwww, shoot.

> It was largely unknown outside of academic circles, and was entirely
> a textually-based medium. 

No.  It was largely a textually represented medium.  There is a
difference.  I, for one, was running X apps across the 'net back in
the '80's.  I also ran (briefly) multi-user text mode versions of
NetTrek with localised GUI frontends that remapped the text interface
to more glossy GUI interfaces.  Then of course there is always Xtrek
and BSX.

> It is little wonder that The Big Three (DIKU, LP and Tiny) were all
> text-based games which all supported the TELNET protocol. 

Actually, LP is the only one of the three which even pretends to
suppoort telnet.  The rest don't support telnet.  They support some
sort of hacked subset of telnet which many telnet clients are willing
to not barph on.  Again, there is a difference, if a rather moot one
in this case.

> lynx surviving through sheer strength of will...

I'll note that lynx is my browser of choice, and its massive use and
utility for the blind and deaf.  Aside: One of the most accomplished
and capable programmers I know is blind, as well as a lynx user under
DOS.  I use Lynx under OS/2 primarily.

> The Internet has become a graphical medium. 

No, this is a dangerous equation and assumption.  It leads to
conclusions which are unsupportable.  The default __interface__
__representation__ of the 'net has become graphical via a browser-type
interface.  The contents of that representation are still primarily
textual as vs audio, graphical, video, etc.

> The
> text-based tools, such as mail, ftp and telnet, these are still
> around - albeit with a GUI bolted on top of them.

Precisely.  The representation of the interface has changed.  Little
to nothing else.

> If you look at the mainstream, not too much; the old text-based
> games are still popular...

I'm not aware of any formal user statistics or surveys on the MUDding
population.  I suspect that it is both not large, and shrinking.

> Many of us are writing scratch muds. This, then, is an ideal
> opportunity to explore the new interface. This is an opportunity to
> lead muds into the arena of the GUI, where the rest of the Internet
> has been for years.

I really dislike many of the assumptions underlieing the quoted text,
but will ignore for now.

I don't intend for my server to be telnet accessable for anything but
very minor and constricted uses.  The reason is sheer data volume and
information overload.  It is difficult for a human user to read,
comprehend, and intelligently react to data scrolling past on a telnet
screen at 10+ lines a second.  Use of multiple windows, history
scrollbacks, dial/progressbar/meter-style stat representations, radio
buttons, check boxes, client side scripting etc allow for that data
volume to be contained and represented in a manner more suited for
rapid comprehension and response.  I don't see that I have a choice
here.

Will the interface actually be graphical?  I'm not sure, but probably
not.  Certainly I'm resistant to the concept.  Most likely it will be
much more analagous to multiple purpose and task specific sized telnet
windows, each running a full-screen CURSES-style mouse-sensitive
interface.  All the GUI crap, represented textually for cheapness, all
mouse sensitive as if it were a real GUI.  Heck, most likely it will
look like a standard tcl/Tk app.

While I would really like to go for first person 3D graphical in
glorious stereophonic technicolour on the viewpoint representation,
its highly unlikely.  Morely likely I'll go for simple stick-figure
representations with monochrome sketched backgrounds and object
renderings, semi-wire-framed, all pasted into a fish-eye lens view
offering a full 300 spherical degrees of vision (spherical distortion
and all).  A decently close model might be some of the 1930's charcoal
sketch cartoon animations...

> It would be hard to disagree with the assertion that The Mud
> Connector (www.mudconnect.com) would not have become as popular as
> it is, within a text-based medium. Count the number of Internet
> users on a global scale, and compare that figure to the number of
> mud users. I would be surprised if there was not a massive
> difference. The simple fact is that the majority of Internet users
> do not know what a mud is - and if they know of a talker, it will
> probably be something web-based, like PowWow. A large proportion of
> people sign up with an ISP considering the Internet and the Web to
> be synonymous. This attitude will not be changed - so it must be
> taken advantage of, by us.

I do not expect MUDs to ever be popular with a large percentage of the
'net user base.  I would like to see them settle with a percentage no
lower than say 0.01 percent of the 'net user base within the next 10
years (actually that would be 0.01% of the total $$$ spent by the
average home 'net user), and will be extremely pleased if we get that
high.

> Now take a look at the sites themselves. Most were written and
> designed by the coder of the mud - and it shows. Some sites say no
> more than "StockMUD exists, come and play!!!" - whilst others go
> into considerable technical detail. Web surfers do not care about
> the quality of the implementation, in itself - they care about
> attractive, interesting sites; they don't really care to read
> through a carefully maintain version history of the code. They want
> to know what there is to do, and how to do it. They also want it
> WELL PRESENTED. Mud coders rarely make master web designers. It
> would follow, therefore, that mud coders are not masters of HCI and
> GUI design, either. 

Translation: Marketing sells, and well targeted and researched
marketing which strikes at the needs and wants of the desired public
sells better.

> So let us now turn our attentions to the GUI. Ignoring the initial
> problem of creating an attractive and intuitive interface, we have
> the problem of increased ease of use resulting in decreased
> functionality.  Having an icon for each of 60 verbs would definitely
> result in unwieldiness. We need to consider the extent of the
> conversion from text to graphics. At one end of the scale we have
> text I/O planted onto a web page - at the other, we have removed
> text altogether, and are left with - perhaps - something which looks
> a little like Doom, with extensions.

A feature of DOOM that should be admitted is that the range of
interaction which the player can express in DOOM is extremely limited.
Essentially it is limited to motion, viewpoint direction, activation
of the default methods of objects, and the use and firing of weapons.
That simplicity is both attractive and easy to represent.

Consider the current state of the art in arcade games.  Many (ofen
older) games have a single joystick with one or more rarely two
buttons to use in playing the game.  Some of the newer games have
multiple joysticks and ocassionally as high as 8 or 10 buttons which
are combination and press-pattern sensitive.  

Neither approach is suited for MUDing.  

> Can we really remove the interface for text input? Or would doing so
> decrease the possible functionality too much? Perhaps those involved
> on a professional level could shed some light on this issue.

I'll assert that text is not technically required, but is expedient
and efficient for command entry and discourse in a MUD.

> Would a move towards more graphically-orientated muds mean the decay
> of samey stock muds? 

Graphical MUDs have a very high cost of entrance.  It takes a hell of
a lot of work to graphically describe a world.  Orders of magnitude
more than it does to code one.  Now think about the comments Raph has
already made on thinking up hundreds of variations on the messages in
UOL (I hope I don't misrecall).

> Would people put up with muds that literally
> look the same? 

Given a stock graphical MUD freely available, hell yes.  DIKU has
already shown that, as has BSX to a lesser degree.

> Would having a graphical interface enable people to
> more easily comprehend that we need to innovate, not imitate? 

I'd be very surprised if there is any relation between the two.

> Or
> would we see graphical code snippets being released?

Until graphical libraries, system models, and representation methods
coalecse a lot more, I doubt it.  There are far too many utterly
different ways to skin the cat right now.

> I believe that moving muds into a graphical medium would allow
> greater popularity to be achieved. For many people, the Web *is* the
> Internet. So let's bring muds to the web.

I'd prefer to side-step the Web -- I just don't see it as relevant
outside of marketing and documentation.  

--
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...