[MUD-Dev] Re: Some essays I've written lately

[Koster]

On Wednesday, May 13, 1998 2:45 PM J C Lawrence
[SMTP:claw at under.engr.sgi.com] said:
> On Fri, 8 May 1998 11:55:49 -0500 Koster, Raph<rkoster at origin.ea.com>
wrote:
> 
> > Of course, you should read Bob Hanson's excellent and detailed
> > Reputation System FAQ, which is our latestmethod trying to empower
> > player policing of their environment.
> 
> Which ya'll can find at:
> 
>   <URL:http://update.owo.com/repfaq/index.html>
> 
> I'd post it except that it is a mess of frames and sub-documents.
> (Raph!  Got a single text versions about somewhere?)

I fear I don't, because we don't maintain it. He does. I can ask him if
he's got a straight text version.

> > I have received MANY wonderful letters since starting this regular
> > essays column. But yesterday's letter from Postman77 of the Anti-PK
> > Unified Council was one of those letters that makes your life's work
> > all worthwhile. Thank you for your eloquence, Postman77. It made our
> > day.
> 
> ???
> 
Dunno how on topic it is, but here it is. One of those letters that
basically make your choice of career justifiable, create a warm fuzzy
glow deep inside, etc. Note, I am known as "Designer Dragon" or DD to
the UO community:

------------start quote

Subject: Your game changed my life

Hail and well met.

My name, is Postman77, or Sir Postman of APUC in your world of Ultima
Online, or Bo Bankson, as it is in "real life". I have founded the
Anti-Pk Unified Council, a organization that has been around since
mid-October, recently, we have been discussing of changing our name to
the Allied Peaceable United Councils, but that's still up in the air at
this point. We, as the name implies, kill playerkillers, not outwardly,
but by patrolling dangerous areas or hitting one pk base if they become
too rowdy with others, but in the past four months have done much more,
we have little quests, events, recruitment festivals, etc. And we have a
represenitive at every OSI and player-run event. We like to say that we
have a hand in everything. We have some of the oldest and most respected
guilds within UO, icluding the BCK, the Syndacate, and the Immortals.

Please forgive me if this mail seems a bit rambly at times, DD, your
recent essays about virtual world life have touched me to write to you,
so bear with me in my dwellings.

DD, your world of UO has done more for my life then you could ever know.
I just last year graduated from high school, and the first words in my
mind were, "What next?". I am physically disabled, quite severly
actually, and many people like me that I know seem to just become, "GM
soap-opera watchers", and become stuck in life indefinatly. In my
dispression of needing something to do, I bought a computer, and found
the internet to be a cool place to be, but I could never find a niche. I
craved a community to belong too, as the rest of my friends were still
in school or moving on to college. After reading books about the
internet, and seeing among the buzz words "virtual community", and
finding no real ones, I became more dispondent, seeing only minor
sollace in reading Usenet and playing a little Diablo. One day I bought
a game called Dungeon Keeper, and upon going through the ads inside the
box, came upon a glossy slip of paper about Ultima Online. Remembering
the cool Ultimas I once saw on the NES, I thought, "neat". Upon seeing
the web site, I quickly became enthralled with the idea that this truly
is an "online world" with economy, ecology, but most importantly, a
playerbase of thousands, and it being a true RPG, hopefully a better
class of player then the common diablophile.

I was to late to be in the beta. I placed my pre-order in full payment
at a local store a month early, and eagerly awaited UO's release. I
quickly became an addicted player, and was finally a little happier. But
I still needed to find a niche. I researched the nature of in-game
politics, and tired of being killed myself, I started APUC. I finally
had a place to belong, and all these important people wanted to play UO
with me, all because I just had a semi-obvious idea, unite the guilds
and consolidate the powers. I must admit that now it seems semi-selfless
to have just started APUC under the guise of protecting the weak when I
really just wanted friends, and to feel a little popular. Now though,
every online hour on UO of mine is spent helping others or visiting
friends. But let me continue on how UO has helped my life.

Because of the demand of people wanting to be in APUC, I was prompted to
learn HTML and JavaScript, and through the people I have helped in-game
and the other contacts I have made, several job oppertunities have
opened up, (web ones), and this coming month I will be opening some web
sites of my own, one of them covering the community that plays the
games, not so much the games themselves. I hope I can reprint your
articles there, DD? But you see, without UO, none of the good things
that have happened to me in the past year just wouldn't have, and to
that I am eternally gratefull.

Mostly though, I am also grateful for the self-esteem that UO gives me,
I find now that no matter where I go, on what shard, as long as my name
is Postman, people say hello, give me kind words, and the villianous
leave me alone a bit more (sometimes). I have a blast trying to make the
game better for others, I'm not as good as a role-player as Xavori, I
don't have the incredable people skills like Enshu Ponfar, or he money
to build a city like Oasis, or even a tavern, (all the repetetive
clicking really causes me pain), but I like just being the common-man UO
celebrity, always almost broke, always with a kind word, never asking
fame, (even though my friends are always trying to get me mentioned
places), I just enjoy the feel of the world.

Thank you DD, your game has changed my life for the better, believe it
or not, it has.

To read more about my disease, if you want to, you can go here:
http://www.osteo.org/imperf.html

The APUC page is here:
http://apuc.ml.org/apuc

Feel free to reproduce or mention any portion of this letter.

Sincerly,

Bo Bankson,
aka Postman77, founder of APUC, Atlantic Shard and beyond.


------end quote

-Raph

--
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.