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

[Brandon J. Rickman]

On Wed, 21 Jan 1998 08:29:17, Mike Sellers <mike at online-alchemy.com> wrote:
>At 10:12 PM 1/20/98 PST8PDT, Brandon J. Rickman wrote:
>True.  But those people are the capstone of the customer base, and to a
>large degree drive it.  Those who do not demand the fanciest graphics
>nevertheless *do* demand what were the fanciest graphics of no more than
>4-5 years ago.  IOW, the demand is not static for the bulk of the
>population, and it is the early-adopter/neophiles who drive this demand.  

For the moment.  Andrew Grove (Intel) would have you believe this
demand will always exist.  I don't, but this is getting off topic.

>>People who demand the best (the most sophisticated) graphics are pretty
>>much stating that they don't want visual ambiguity or abstraction to be 
>>part of the game.  
>
>I'm not sure that's the case.  That's sort of like saying that those who
>demand the greatest audio fidelity in their speakers want to hear only
>precisely performed Mozart, and not jazz or hip hop.  There is a difference
>between a desire for better visual resolution, color usage, frame rate,
>lighting effects, and overall immersiveness, and not wanting visual
>abstraction or ambiguity.  Actually, a game that involved Dali-esque or
>Escher-esque visual ambiguities has never been possible before, but it
>might be now, or soon (there are a couple of scenes from "The Labyrinth"
>movie that might be very interesting to reproduce in a game).   

Many people _do_ confuse the relationship (or lack thereof) between
high fidelity equipment and precision in a recorded performance, 
regardless of genre.  There is not an equal trade-off between
"resolution" concerns and "abstraction" concerns, because certain kinds
of abstraction negate "resolution" completely (wireframe models don't
benefit much from hardware acceleration of polygons).  In particular,
the current emphasis on resolution utterly fails to stimulate any
concern for abstraction.(*)  This may be a collision between what
computer scientists do and what artists do, and this has probably
veered far far away from the practical mud concerns of this list.

>>But ambiguity seems to be one of the potential
>>merits of text, so maybe it's not possible to please the people that
>>want cool graphics at the same time as the people who want compelling
>>environments.
>
>To me this is just a variant of calling people who like graphics
>functionally illiterate.  I don't think that's the case at all.  Look, for
>example, at the evolution of graphically and intellectually simple comic
>books into graphically and intellectually sophisticated "graphic novels."
>There is definitely still a lot of schlock out there in the comics world,
>but there are other stories, from "When the Wind Blows" to "Maus" to "Moby
>Dick" that make unique use of the graphical medium in a way that satisfies
>both eye and mind.  In other words, I think the perceived split between
>those who want cool graphics and those who want compelling environments is
>a false and misleading dichotomy.  

I didn't intend for it to be any kind of dichotomy, the only difference/
split is between what people place more emphasis on, visual stimulation
or emotional stimulation.  Most everyone wants both, to different
degrees.

>>The point isn't to argue against graphic-based muds but rather to figure
>>out how to introduce the good qualities of text muds to a 2- or 3-D
>>mud.  Often 3D designers use level of detail (LOD) to "simplify"
>>objects that may be far away from the user.  It is a practical concern:
>>too many polygons will slow down the graphics, and since things in the
>>distance are so small, no one will notice or care if they have less 
>>detail.  But why "things in the distance" and not "things of no
>>current interest"?
>
>New, dynamic-LOD/progressive-mesh engines will to some degree do away with
>this arbitrary simplification.  

Let me restate what I was trying to say about LOD: I don't care what method
you use to quickly render objects "in the distance", but I want a type of
LOD for nearby objects, perhaps a Level of Interest.  They are doing this
with flight simulators these days, with eye tracking systems that are used
to project the area of interest in much higher resolution than the
peripheral areas.  So if you are really interested in sunlight glinting
off of dragon scales you can look for it, but you may not see the
thrashing of the dragon's tail as it whips towards your legs.

The common approach to 3D rendering is to make everything look as good as
possible - every frame is a potential screen shot.  This is a strange
concern, when I'm playing a game I don't usually feel the need to stop
and take a picture fifteen times a second.  Yes, the graphics need to
be presented in a clear enough manner so that I understand the action,
but hopefully the result of _my_ interaction with the computer is that
the computer responds to _me_.  My reactions to pretty graphics on the
screen does not make a game.

>...
>You've fought a hundred green dragons before, but always marvelled at the
>way their scales sparkled in the sunlight as the last of the life shuddered
>out of them.  You don't get that with low-poly count/basic texture/brief
>description monsters.

After Marian's comments I'm being a little wary in arguing about dragons.
You've fought a hundred evil ducks before, but always marvelled at the
little exploding cloud of feathers after a particularly good hit.  Of
course, if you were being attacked by five evil ducks simultaneously you
might wish you weren't forced to enjoy the cloud of feathers over and
over again.

>>What this seems to be leading to: "looking" is an action.  For the most
>>part, you can look for free in text muds, and you can hardly avoid it in
>>2/3D muds.  Looking in detail is sometimes not a free action, but the
>>current 2/3D philosophy is that looking is always free.
>
>Not necessarily.  The equivalent of an "examine" command is a good idea, I
>think: it takes time and focus, but might show you something you'd
>otherwise miss.  The nifty thing about a graphical world is that you can
>show the user the more detailed version of the object, but you don't have
>to actually *tell* them about it.  So are those parts of the design on the
>chest really teeth, or am I imagining things?  Is that a pin with a glob of
>poison on it, or just a trick of the light?  Sometimes such ambiguities are
>easier to bring off with graphics than with plain text.  

By introducing excessive (and ambiguous) detail, in either text or
graphics, you change the way the game is played.  In low detail games
if something is recognizable as a detail then there is a 99% chance that
it is important to the game.  The game is "find the hot spot", usually
involving an exhaustive search.  In high detail games - a hypothetical
genre at the moment - you can't perform an exhaustive search.  You
have to perhaps think about what you want to do, leading to some kind of
outrageous intentionality on the part of the player.

(*) Maybe I should explain this, if anybody is even interested.

- Brandon Rickman - ashes at zennet.com -
While I have never previously found a need for a .sig, this
may be considered one for the purposes of this list