[MUD-Dev] Forks or Frameworks?

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu 
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Matthew Mihaly
> Sent: Friday, December 22, 2000 6:18 PM
> To: 'mud-dev at kanga.nu'
> Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] Forks or Frameworks?
> 
> 
> On Wed, 20 Dec 2000, Koster, Raph wrote:
> 
> 
>> I wrote (grumpily):
> 
>>> Personally, I have a difficult time understanding why anyone who
>>> is setting out to make a good mud would use _any_ copycatted
>>> content.
>> 
>> 1. Because they want a platform they are familiar with.
>> 2. Because they want to do "X mud but better"
>> 3. Because they want a rapid prototyping platform to test concepts
>> 4. Because they don't have the chops to make everything from scratch
>> (which doesn't, IMHO, preclude their being able to make a good mud).
>> 
>> Much as we might like to decry stockmud syndrome, it's not a bad
>> thing for the community, IMHO. If they didn't exist, then we'd just
>> have fewer people who created new codebases.
> 
> The above are all valid reasons for using a stock mud, I agree. BUT,
> what I disagree with is your statement that it is not a bad thing
> for the community.

Well, I think (based on your original statement) that what you
actually oppose in the non-original CONTENT, moreso than the codebase,
correct? There are certainly many important and highly well-crafted
muds out there than started with a stock mud codebase in one way or
another, however they may have evolved since then. The thing that
tends to make them impressive is the content, not the codebase per se.

> I think it is a very bad thing for the community, and, more to the
> point in my mind, it is a very bad thing for me. I should not have
> to be embarassed when I tell people that I run a MUD for a living,
> yet I feel twinges of embarassment if the person I'm talking to is
> familiar with text MUDs, because most of them are so bloody awful.

Once upon a time I was talking with Mike Stackpole, a good science
fiction writer who makes a living sharecropping other people's
universes (including some pretty nice work on one of those mech series
whose name escapes me, plus Star Wars comics, plus some videogame
titles, plus more I can't even think of just now...). Nice guy, we
talked sf over some decent Italian food, with Jessica Mulligan (hi,
Jess) & a few others.

I happened to mention that Bruce Sterling was a friend of mine. Bruce
is also a science fiction writer, a very good one in fact, who makes a
living writing fairly artsy novels that often win major awards, and
engaging in polemics about, well, whatever comes to his mind. Check
out his latest, ZEITGEIST, I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Mike had a very negative reaction, because he saw what Bruce
represented (the "elite" of SF) as being snobbish and very hoity-toity
towards those like him that he saw making an honest living as a WRITER
fer gossake, doing what they love with nice fast-moving plots.

I never mentioned that reaction to Bruce. I don't know how he'd feel
about it, but I have a suspicion that if not him, some of his peers
might have something to say about unoriginal writers who fail to
contribute anything to the field and who engage in mere hackwork.

I also know that when people suggested to a few extremely prominent
writers like Margaret Atwood that they were writing science fiction,
they were rather vehemently against the notion. I imagine that they
"feel twinges of embarassment if the person I'm talking to is familiar
with [sf], because most of them [the books] are so bloody awful."

Personally, I read all three. I also know that Mike sells more copies
of anything he does than Margaret Atwood does. He may be forgotten
sooner, but I wouldn't say that it's "a very bad thing for the
community" that they are all out there.

> The fact is, while the above are valid reasons, in the end, I
> believe that endless DIKU clones hurts those of us trying to do
> quality products, not just take the easy way out. Further, I believe
> they are detrimental to the community because they cause people to
> look at a few random MUDs, think "MUDS ARE CRAP!" and then go away,
> never to play MUDs again. I have only anecdotal evidence that this
> happens, but given the number of my players that have told me they
> would have quit mudding had they not found Achaea (I'm sure you
> could substitute a number of other quality muds for Achaea in this
> sense), I think it's a reasonable assumption that many people think
> all MUDs are endless DIKU clones.

A lot of people think that all fantasy is Dragonlance and all science
fiction is Star Trek, too. And yeah, I bet some are chased away
forever. But I also bet that the number of readers of Gene Wolfe or
Bruce Sterling (or Greg Egan or John Crowley or Sheri Tepper or
whoever) would be LOWER if there were no Star Trek and no Dragonlance,
not higher. Maybe the same can be said for muds.

In other words, I think the clones may serve as entry points to
mudding, breeding those discerning players you need (who surely don't
spring fully formed into being). They also likely absorb the overflow
of players you really don't want. And of course, I definitely think
that they are the breeding ground for those who write the more
advanced codebases. It's a lot easier to write a good codebase if
you've had to work with a bad one, don't you think?

-Raph, who argued in favor of SF while in grad school, and generally lost
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