[MUD-Dev] Roleplaying in Muds

[Malcolm Valentine]

On Mon, Jul 24, 2000, Josh Anderson wrote:
> On Mon, July 24, 2000 Erik Jarvi wrote:
> 
> > My point is sometimes I don't want to role play. I want to chit-chat about
> > something in the real world with other players in the game.
> 
> I'm probably the only one left, but I'm still a big proponent of the 'muds
> are for mudding, chat rooms/ICQ/AIM/whatever for chatting' concept that (as
> a newcomer to the list) I'm sure has been brought up before.  I don't run a
> mud so that people can talk about football or movies.  IMO nothing hurts RP
> more than OOC talking about things like game mechanics or levels, especially
> over a public channel.  Maybe that's just me.

  So it is perfectly ok for Boffo the warrior and Jill the thief to stand
around in the forest exchanging ICQ numbers and email addresses...? Even
worse, for them to harass other players for their details so they can
contact them off-site.

  I must admit I used to hold the same opinion you have expressed, but now
I figure, since the mud collects the players together, why not keep them
there by providing the social environment they may require at one point or
other. As others have pointed out, many muds provide either OOC channels or
areas to help seperate these going-ons from the RP. 
  
  Also, I feel it makes it easier on the players, certainly myself, to only 
have to monitor one window at once to see what is going on within the mud. As
it is I will sometimes have five windows at once open (Source code in editor,
connection to local development mud, ftp connection to server, telnet 
connection to server, connection to actual mud), add to that an ICQ window 
and IRC window for those without ICQ, and an AIM one for the same reason, 
and things start to get crowded.

  Having said this, off-site communications methods are a god-send when
your server disembowels itself.

  I also agree with Erik's statements quoted above, and would extend it
further in that at some times in a RP environment, there won't be anyone
around to RP with, rather then log off, some OOC chat will keep the player
around. Obviously this is more a concern to those of us with small
numbers of players.

Cheers,
 Malcolm V.



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