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

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, Dave Rickey wrote:

>     If I'm responsible that Timmy can't yank himself away from the computer
> long enough to go to work, what else do I have to take the blame for?  His
> messy divorce and the kids that will grow up in a broken home?  What if
> Timmy loses everything in a game I help make and/or run, and commits suicide
> over it (it's coming, mark my words)?  What if a game balance tweak I make
> wipes out Timmy's eBay-based business and takes away his livelihood?  That's
> the kind of power *governments* wield in the real world, except governments
> would turn green with envy at the power we hold over the virtual worlds
> (Congress would have a hard time repealing the Law of Gravity).

Shrug, what if Timmy meets a girl in your dance club, is turned down, and
commits suicide over it? Not my problem and not my responsibility. I'm
sorry, but I think it's extremely patronizing to speak of users as if they
are little sheep who can take no responsibility for themselves. You making
a change and wiping out Timmy's eBay-based business is no different than a
hail storm wiping out Farmer Bob's crops. Such things are part of life,
and quite frankly, if Timmy is basing his livelihood on something so
tenuous that an admin of a game he plays can accidentally destroy his
business, then Timmy is a bit of an idiot. Can you say "risk management?" 

Further, really people, let's stop trying to compare the power of an admin
in a bloody virtual world with the power of a real government. It's not
comparable _at all_. I can leave a virtual world at the drop of a hat. Not
so damn easy to do in most countries in the world, and in some cases (like
the filthy Soviets of the cold war), it was damn near impossible. Which is
more powerful? The ability to oppress an entire people and wipe them out
if you choose (Hitler and the jews) or the ability to make the orcs you
bash in EQ stronger? Please.

Don't ever forget that the virtual worlds we are all involved in creating
are merely a subset of the physical world. The physical world holds total
dominion over virtual worlds, and is always going to be far far far more
important.


>     Thing is, I *do* see these games becoming, eventually, as pervasive as
> television.  And you're completely correct, anything that is a significant
> part of that many people's lives can't help but have social impact well
> outside of the context of the virtual.  Hell, it reaches that point and
> trying to draw a dividing line between "real" society and virtual will be a
> serious case of hair-splitting.  That's theoretical (and some would say
> completely overblown), but even the *possibility* is sobering.

Virtual societies are part of "real" societies (rather, they ARE real
societies).

 
> >We have a job of education to do.  To educate that great unwashed
> >out there that the virtual reality and societies and people of our
> >games are not necessarily any less real than the ones we live in and
> >pay our mortgages with.  To do that it is going to have to become
> >pervasive, and for the basic, simple, endlessly offensive meme of
> >"VR is actually made of real people" is going to have to spread to
> >the point where it becomes an instantly assumable.
> >
> 
>     I think we're going to have to accept that the "other people" will never
> be *real* to a large minority of the public.  There will always be more
> sociopathic behaviour in online environments than in the material.

I agree with this entirely.


--matt




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