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

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brian Green [mailto:brian at psychochild.org]
> Sent: Monday, April 10, 2000 2:06 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Historical perspective (was: dealing with foul
> language)
> 
> I think in the grand scheme of things, graphical online games are at
> least a bit less significant compared to text games.  Graphical game
> history is rather short compared to the longer history text games
> provide.  We only have a few major examples of successful graphical
> games to look to currently, compared to the text-based games we admire
> that were done without the benefit of multi-million dollar development
> budgets.  In addition, we have only experienced a tiny amount 
> of loss of
> our comrades in arms (Dark Sun Online being the most notable 
> example) to
> see what has gone wrong.

Yes, I agree with all of these points. But I was responding more to the
point made by Ola that *because* they appeal to a broad audience, they are
therefore less important, less innovative, or "matter" less. Of course
there's less history to them and less examples to look at, and of course the
majority of innovations made in muds are on text muds. But to make a
qualitative judgement that *because* of their focus on a broader audience,
they are doomed to always be less innovative, less significant, and less
important, seems to me to be plain wrong. Habitat, to pick an example, is as
important, innovative, and significant as ANY mud ever made.

Also note that I said "commercial" not "graphical." My point applies equally
well to the games done by Simutronics, for example.

> As far as innovation goes, the game industry itself is a joke 
> concerning innovation

Quite agreed there.

Then again, the mud community is also widely viewed in exactly the same way.
Especially on this list. :)

> the only real innovation we've done is to
> bring an existing type of game in a different format to a wider
> audience.

First off, I don't think that's true--or rather, it belittles the many
innovations that can be done within the genre be it in text OR graphical
media. Second point, that's a rather big leap. "All we've done is bring an
existing type of storytelling in a different format to a wider audience" -
presto, TV. :P It's a popular snobbish activity to bash TV. But frankly,
there have been any number of profoud and valuable artistic statements made
on TV--and yes, some of them have been on the major networks (which
instantly means, intended to be of broad appeal) and they have been
massively commercially successful.

>  And, in general, large companies hate innovation because it
> is so damned risky; without picking on my esteemed colleagues too badly,
> I think the recent restructuring of a high-profile studio shows exactly
> what one large company think of innovation.

Heh, well, actually, it had nothing to do with innovation per se, but that's
miles off-topic and I'm not going to talk about it. :)

> To say that graphical games are as significant and innovative as text
> games requires a large amount of hubris, in my opinion. 

Remember, I am not speaking of the etablished corpus of work and how it
compares to the established work done in text muds. I was speaking of
whether or not the commercial nature of the muds in question means they
cannot be innovative or significant. And I DO think that history disproves
that. 

>  Yes, we've only
> barely started the market, but let's not claim we've solved 
> world hunger yet. 

Nor did I, I think.

>  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.

By no means am I claiming that the commercial games are the be-all-end-all
of mud evolution. The exact quote by Ola was 

> > You
> > cannot aim for a wide scope in the commercial sense and still make
> > things that matters.

and I think that's just flat incorrect. I think that many examples can be
pulled from many areas of artistic endeavor to disprove it.

-Raph



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