[MUD-Dev] Critiquing Muds

[Damion Schubert]

-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Mihaly <diablo at best.com>

>On Wed, 7 Jul 1999, Koster, Raph wrote:
>> I think communities can be found in much smaller muds--250 is merely a
>> yardsitck for when *subcommunities* will emerge. And I lifted the figure
>> from Richard Bartle. Reference is his article on "Bad Ideas for
Multi-Player
>> Games," where it is tossed off as part of Bad Idea #1:
>>
>
>That number is way too big. We don't get more than 90 players on
>simultaneously, and there is no question we have subcommunities. They are
>generally organized along political lines. For instance, rarely, if ever,
>would you even see members of the Church socializing with Occultists.

There is no doubt that subcommunities exist, and anytime you get more
than 3 people in a room, someone will find a reason to hate or pretend to
hate someone else.  However, when the game
grows above a certain point, you reach a point where it is impossible to
know everyone in the game.  At 90 people online at a time/300 'regulars'
in the player base, it's relatively trivial to recognize people you do know,
realize when you don't know someone, and act accordingly (be it kinship,
hate, disgust, love, aversion, or jeez-he's-wierd).  In a game
of EQs size or UOs size, knowing everyone is a useless proposition.  At
that point, subcommunities become crucial, (a) so that you can have some
close group of friends you feel immediate kinship with and (b) so you can
identify others by association.

--damion




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