[MUD-Dev] Re: Ugh, IS Diablo a mud?

[Damion Schubert]

-----Original Message-----
From: Kristen Koster <koster at eden.com>
>Connecting to a Quake-like server: Are you going to have the expectation of
>being able to go sit in a nice quiet corner with a friend and either plan
your
>upcoming strategies or talk about the movies or CDs?
>
>I doubt most people would have that expectation with Quake, Diablo and
their
>ilk. I'd also argue that the hardcore pk "muds" are nothing more than
textually
>presented "Quake" servers.


Quake disqualifies itself, in my opinion, with it's
lack of persistence of world traversion.  Your
average world may not have true world
*persistence* - items may decay, the room may
be collapsed until the area is revisited, or the
game may be 'reset' once a day -- but in general,
you can always go to every part of the world, unless
there is an in-game reason which prevents you
(i.e. you don't have the key to the ivory tower, etc).

Quake, on the other hand, does not have persistence
of world traversion.  A server has 12 levels.  But the
server runs only one level at a time, and there's no way
to go to another level, without taking all other players
with you.  You are, effectively, stuck in a tiny corner of
the world, waiting the requisite 15 minutes for that
corner of the world to replace itself with another.

So, my question is, is this a good distinction, or am I
at this point trying to find any handy rule to seperate
Quake from Medievia?

--damion