[MUD-Dev] Virtual v Artificial Worlds

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Sun, 2 May 1999, Greg Munt wrote:

> 
> 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.

Naah, it's simple enough. Perhaps the God of Literature has declared that
certain words are offensive to him and has banned them from being uttered.
--matt



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