[MUD-Dev] Names (was: An essay on d00dz ...)

[Marian Griffith]

In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Thu 30 Nov, Vincent Archer wrote:

> Names, notably in a MUD environment, fill two different purposes.

> The first is recognition.
> For recognition, a local (i.e. my own private) namespace works as well as a
> global namespace, subject to the same restriction: i.e. names must be unique
> within your namespace.

> The second is interaction. And there, use of local namespaces has a
> serious and deleterious effects.

Actually, you have names and labels. In every day reality nobody bothers
to -name- somebody by a different name  than by which they were introdu-
ced. As you said, the problem when two people refer to the same third by
different names quickly becomes unwieldy (to say the least). That person
will be e.g. Buffa to both.  However people attach all kind of labels to
others, based on what they see or hear (gossip !) of them. Buffa becomes
'Buffa who did ....'  or 'Buffa the ...' to players,  based on what they
feel about that particular character. Attaching a little remark to names
would not be a great hardship to a game,  and would not seriously make a
problem for interaction. I am not too certain if it matters a great deal
either.

On the other hand,  an introduction system where you do not know about a
name unless the player (or monster) tells you  makes sense from an role-
playing point of view. It has its own inherent dangers (most notably the
dehumanisation of other players) but those are outside the scope of this
discussion. It also would require descriptions that far surpass anything
that is found on (text) muds today.  From what I have read Skotos may be
a step in the right direction.  The problem of course is the balance be-
tween  the amount of detail required  to distinguish between two unknown
characters,  and the danger of drowning the player into entire novels of
description every time the character is 'seen'.


Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey

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