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

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Tue, 6 Jun 2000, Raph Koster wrote:

> The CitiBank point is why I posted the Rights and also favor player
> policing. And despite the simplistic view many have of player policing, what
> I really mean by that is the ability for many kinds of people of different
> stripes (including those unwashes masses of which you speak) to jostle
> together in the virtual world and get along to some extent together, on
> their own. Subcommunity formation. Cooperation, etc. It does NOT boil down
> to controlling PvPers. It boils down to getting disparate worldviews to get
> along in one space.

Why should I, as a player, give a damn? I try to stay as far away as
possible from people who have truly disparate worldviews from me in real
life. I don't hang with KKK members or anyone who things the Jerry
Springer show is high entertainment, as they disgust or bore me. Why would
I want to hang with these people in a virtual world, when I don't have to?
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.

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!


> The fact that we need all sorts of people in a VR space, and that we have to
> resolve the issues of subcommunities jostling against each other, is
> something I view as a primary goal for the genre. It's why I disagree that
> the future is in niches. Niches will exist, but niches we can make. We're
> really arguing about the size of niche. Someday this won't be niche and if
> we don't solve it someone else will. Personally, I wanna be along for the
> ride.

Why do we _need_ all sorts of people in a VR space? Need in order to
accomplish what? If your goal is to make as much money as possible, then
sure, maybe so, but I didn't see any mention of lining your pockets in
this e-mail.

 
> I know many consider me a nutty idealistic weirdo for it, but... I believe
> we do have a social responsibility. We're engaged in building what is
> perhaps the greatest teaching--nay, IMPRINTING tool ever designed. I think
> we should use it wisely. I think to think of it as just a game is braindead
> shortsightedness. Even if we treat it as just a game, we're talking about
> something that builds neural pathways while interacting with real people
> with hyperaccelerated feedback. Yikes. This is dynamite we're messing with
> here.

I agree they aren't just games, but c'mon, they aren't THAT big a deal.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but the crowd of locals in my
neighborhood bar also serves to build neural pathways while interacting
with real people with hyperaccelerated feedback. It's nothing
revolutionary in my opinion.

--matt




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