[MUD-Dev] The Relationship between pkers and monster AI?

[Travis S. Casey]

On Thu, 14 Oct 1999, Greg Miller wrote:
> Travis Casey wrote:

> > What's preventing you?  The fact that some players want to talk
> > in-character doesn't stop you from talking out-of-character to other
> > players -- or even to those players, if they're agreeable to it.  If
> > you want *all* socialization to be direct, why bother having
> > "characters" at all?
> 
> Because it's a game, and characters are a suitable mechanic for a
> certain class of games. Take the class of video games known as "vertical
> shooters"... They generally have a space ship/super fighter/whatever
> with which you blast the enemy. Why, since nobody roleplays in those
> games? Because controlling that ship is an entertaining mechanic in the
> game.

There's a difference between "Player X's piece" in a game and a character.
In the games which you mention, the ships are no more "characters" than a
game piece in Monopoly is.  Similarly, one doesn't have a "character" in
Doom -- you have a game piece which is your representative in the game.

"Character" to me implies that there is supposed to be some degree of
characterization -- i.e., that the "character" is supposed to act
differently than the "player" might in the same circumstances.  Without
that, a "character" is nothing more than a game piece, and there's no real
point in distinguishing between the"character" and the player.

That's the sense in which I meant my comment -- if all socialization is
directly between players, all you have are game pieces.  There's nothing
intrinsically wrong with that, but why call them "characters" in that
case?

> > In my own experience, most mud players have never *tried* roleplaying.
> > Thus, they can't know whether it would be fun for them or not.
> 
> Most have never tried suicide, either, but they have an idea of what
> it's about.

Correction:  they *think* they know what it's about.  Unfortunately, many
"roleplayers" on muds are very bad examples -- especially some of those
who are most vocal about it.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) 




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