[MUD-Dev] Virtual v Artificial Worlds

[Greg Munt]

> > [Greg Munt]
> >
> > I guess my opposition stems from the fact that players are being
influenced
> > from outside of the game world, rather than from within it. This is a
big
> > topic in itself, not confined to the censorship issue. I believe that
> > external influences to the world make it artificial, and not virtual.
>
> [Matthew Mihaly]
>
> If the lack of external influences on a world make it artificial vs.
> virtual (I'm not sure such a distinction is valid) then it's too late,
> unless you want to invent new systems of morality that are not based on
> real-life ideas of 'justice' and 'fairness', etc. You'd also have to avoid
> ever speaking real-life languages like English. I h ave yet to see a game
> that is not defined by external influences in fact. Dwarves, elves,
> dragons, trolls, etc etc etc are also all a result of external influences.

You are completely missing the point. Things that exist in both the created
and real world cannot be defined as external influences. The real world has
its rules: people breathe oxygen; gold is rare, thus valuable; sea water
contains salt. The created world will (of course) share some of those rules,
since their creator is from the world in which they apply. Written works are
a lot more believable and consistent if you 'write what you know'. There
will be times when the created world has rules which do not apply in the
real world. For example, in the world of Dragonlance, steel is rare, and
gold is plentiful - therefore gold is quite cheap there, and steel is
expensive.

These rules DEFINE that world. Change the rules, and you change the world.
Censored speech screams out to the players that they are playing a computer
simulation, rather than interacting with a virtual world. If you start to
bluntly change the rules, or (as in this case) to destroy the illusion that
the virtual world is real, then that world starts to die.



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