[MUD-Dev] Birthday Cake (or Why Large Scale Sometimes Sucks) (long)

[J C Lawrence]

On Wed, 7 Jun 2000 00:00:40 +0000 (GMT) 
Matthew Mihaly <the_logos at achaea.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 6 Jun 2000, Raph Koster wrote:

>> It boils down to getting disparate worldviews to get along in one
>> space.

> Why should I, as a player, give a damn? 

You shouldn't.  

> I try to stay as far away as possible from people who have truly
> disparate worldviews from me in real life. 
...
> I may have no choice presently but to live on the same planet as
> the plethora of groups of people I don't like, but I sure as hell
> don't have to do that in cyberspace, and I don't see a single
> reason why I would want to.

The problem is that you are not society, and you don't comprise or
define the demographics for the relevent products or their second
order effects.

Consider, if a defined set of VR mannerisms, agreed-upon social
values, etc does end up being evolving, where will it most likely
start, and what will most likely drive it?  Where is the activity in
that realm *currently* happening?  What is different about where it
is happening now as versus where it was happening 15 years ago?

> I mean, my God raph, the great thing about virtual worlds is that
> there can be so MANY of them, all catering to different
> people. It's so damn non-inclusive I just love it!

Exactly.

> Why do we _need_ all sorts of people in a VR space? 

We don't.  That's not the problem.  The problem, if you wish, is
that we can't get rid of them, and we can't stop them coming.  They
are the 10,000 Quake players descending on Furcadia.

UO, EQ, AC, etc are all attempting mass market appeal.  In that
regard they have been more successful than any prior attempt.  They
are not small affairs.  However, what would actually happen if they
WERE successful?

What would happen if a company launched MUD X and got 10 Million
subscribers within the first three months?  That's a big niche.
Whether we like it or not, AOL is affecting our lives.  The effects
may not be large or glaring but they are there.  Any group with that
many members is going to alter the socieity around it, even if
subtly.

While it is easy to consider AOL as a MUD (MUD-Dev is a MUD strikes
again), what happens when we start getting MUD-like games and
environments with populations as large as if not larger than AOL?
What happens when the 'net becomes a place, and that place is
defined and presented in terms of a game populated by tens if not
hundreds of millions of people and companies?

Yes, I'm being over-weaning and grandiose.  No, I don't know this
will happen this way, or that we're in the fragile beginnings of
that motion.  Gibson's Idoru presents one possible niche view via
his "walled city".  While the whole killfile evolution may be
stretched, I'd argue that the basic concept is supportable -- more
especially so if you put games underneath it.

> I agree they aren't just games, but c'mon, they aren't THAT big a
> deal.  

Could they be?

--
J C Lawrence                                 Home: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                              Other: coder at kanga.nu
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--


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