[MUD-Dev] Quote from a Simutronics developer

[Ananda Dawnsinger]

----------
>From: "Raph Koster" <rkoster at austin.rr.com>
>To: "MUD-DEV" <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
>Subject: [MUD-Dev] Quote from a Simutronics developer
>Date: Sun, Apr 16, 2000, 9:04 PM
>
>re: quote from Mike "Jhyrryl" Paddock


>Anyone have any thoughts on this? I clipped it from the VaultNetwork, from
>whence it will quickly scroll off tomorrow or the next day. :)

I agree with Jhyrryl's quote whole-heartedly.  I only wish I could forward
the message to myself seven years ago, so I wouldn't have to learn this
lesson the hard way.  ::mutter::

Without a game mechanic, you don't have a game, you have a Shared
Hallucination.  I don't have any experience in the MUSH subculture (for lack
of a better word), but from what I've observed, the design and
implementation issues are fairly different from those of a combat or
roleplaying MUD (as opposed to an RP MUSH).

(Note, I mean MUSH as a description of a recognizable MU* style, not as a
codebase...)

And yes, way back when I didn't know any better, I was involved with a
project that never saw the light of day.  We were supposed to be designing a
roleplaying game, the gameplay never made it into the design, and when we
brought a batch of players in, about two people liked it.  :P

A tangential thought: I've often seen folks say that the only true online
RPG is a MUSH.  (Not always explicitly, but "to have real roleplaying you
have to remove levels, you have to remove numbers, you have to remove
monsters and hunting and advancement...")  I believe there's a real benefit
to implementing gameplay into a roleplaying system -- things like levels,
skills, stats, and advancement mechanics simulate the solidity of existence
that we usually take for granted.  In real life, our bodies tell us that we
can jog a mile but not run a marathon; our experience tells us that we can
probably pass Bonehead English but not a post-graduate seminar on Derrida. 
We just don't see the limitations on our avatars as clearly unless they're
made explicit.

I won't say an RPG is a "better" roleplaying system than a MUSH.  I think
they're very different experiences, but the structure of a game system can
compensate for the freedom inherent in a MUSH.

Tangential comments below...

>Going for a walk in the woods, having a picnic,
>and enjoying the company of your fellow sentient is something that can be
>done in all our currently existing games, and I see no reason why it
>shouldn't be possible in Hero's Journey as well. But make such activities
>engaging to the point of being able to do them to them day after day, for
>hours on end, over the course of a couple of years? 

I have no idea that "enjoying the company of your fellow sentient" could
easily be made fully engaging.  Don't they still sell [ugh] Virtual Valerie?

>*Those* definitions explain why combat creeps into the equations so quickly.
>And considering the ease of quantifying RL combat for implementation into a
>game, compared to quantifying politics, it's not hard to understand why
>there are so few massively multiplayer online political games.

I'm unconvinced that it's difficult to quantify politics, especially after
reading some of the posts that have come through this list.  Yes, a) there
are fewer models of a successful political system, and b) the larger the
project, the greater the pressure to use a familiar and well-tested game
model.  This doesn't equal "difficult," however.

Fed II was/is an economically based game.  Combat is just the walnuts on the
salad.

   -- Sharon



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