[MUD-Dev] An Introduction

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matthew Mihaly [mailto:diablo at best.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 1999 4:15 PM
> To: 'mud-dev at kanga.nu'
> Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] An Introduction 
> 
> 
> On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Koster, Raph wrote:
> 
> > LegendMUD (http://mud.sig.net or telnet://mud.sig.net:9999) 
> runs into this
> > problem constantly, because of its historical theme. And in 
> our case, it
> > goes beyond just that simple a problem. Several times now we've had
> > accusations of anti-Semitism, for example, because there are Jewish
> > moneylenders in the medieval period. We've turned down many 
> proposals to
> > build areas set during the life of Christ...
> 
> Sigh, that is so sad. People are idiots. Still, considering you guys
> appear to be a free mud (I didn't play the game, but I saw no 
> immediate
> mention of charging on the web page),

It is indeed free.

>  why do you really care? I would
> think, and I'm only projecting my personal morals here, that 
> if there was
> no money involved, I would completely ignore idiots who complain about
> such things.

One guy started a boycott on the newsgroups, actually (this was some years
ago). It did indeed have an effect on new player acquisition.

> Those that do,
> well, so what. You're running it for fun, so let them moan (hell, I'd
> enjoy their moaning, and I'd enjoy winding them up). That is, 
> of course,
> just me. I guess I"m just wondering why you care.

We didn't care THAT much. :) I just brought it up as an example of the sorts
of issues that arise with that sort of setting. We don't have a Wild West
per se, but we do have Gold Rush San Francisco--and we ran into similar
issues with the portrayal of the Chinese laundry laborers there. We had to
work hard to make sure that it didn't come across as racist. And in that
case, I do think that our initial version of the area crossed the line, at
least for me personally. But that's why we have a review board for areas
going in.

-Raph, who on Legend is Ptah but isn't very involved with Legend anymore


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