[MUD-Dev] Historical perspective (was: dealing with foul language)

[Zak Jarvis]

> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Brian Green
> Sent: Monday, April 10, 2000 12:06 PM

>> Much snippage from an excellent post for the sake of brevity <<

> To say that graphical games are as significant and innovative as text
> games requires a large amount of hubris, in my opinion.  Yes, we've only
> barely started the market, but let's not claim we've solved world hunger
> yet.  This is not to belittle the accomplishments of the graphical game
> developers on this list (including Raph's considerable work and even my
> own small contributions), but we should remember our place in the grand
> scheme of things.

Actually, the terms MUD and Game can be replaced with most artistic endeavors
and the arguments modified only slightly. This isn't a phenomenon relegated the
games industry. The fundamental issue is Independent versus Corporate/Well
Funded. It's most easily observed in Independent versus Studio movies, and I
think there are really a very large number of parallels.

It's much easier for a small group of amateurs or volunteers to take risks in
terms of design and implementation. What you find is that the large commercial
endeavors have a more successful, but blander track record. This isn't really
significantly different from film.

However, it's worth pointing out here that one of the seminal works in the field
was graphical, Morningstar and Farmer's Habitat. Of course, Lucasarts was nuts
for attempting what they did with the hardware they had to work with, but with
my limited experience in the final release product (Club Caribe) it was
surprisingly successful.

There are also more graphics-based multi-player games than even I usually
remember. Stuff like MPGNet's Isle of Drakkar and the very early MUD work with
vector-based graphical clients (sorry, I only remember the name of the computer
it was on, Lysator). Both Isle of Drakkar and the MUD were fairly effectively
independently created products. Of course, Drakkar was probably an intellectual
descendant of Isle of Kesmai, which was far older and still sorta, kinda
graphical.

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that the large commercial works
*are* as significant and innovative as the text based games because no one knew
how either the production or management of multi-player games worked at large
scales until they were done.

The first million-simultaneous user game will likely seem quite tried and true,
but the truth is that making a game that can support a million simultaneous
connects *IS* innovative and significant.

-Zak Jarvis
 Trying Not to Ramble Too Much
 http://www.voidmonster.com





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