[MUD-Dev] Report: MUD-Dev dinner of 10 June 2000

[Brian Green]

Raph Koster wrote:
>=20
> JC Lawrence wrote:
>
> >   Brian Green popped up repeatedly with Schubert's triangle
> > (simulation, community, game) as being a defining field for game
> > definition, and then kept mapping things against that triangle.  His
> > assertion is that we're going way too heavy on the simulationist
> > aspect and are dropping out the corner way too much.
>=20
> "We" being who? The commercial industry, this list, the hobbyist field?
=20
Uh oh, called to the mat on this one.  Especially by Raph, who I haven't
been the nicest to in my recent posts. :)

I was considering computer gaming in general, including MUDs.  I was
(only temporarily!) ignoring the community end of the triangle and
focusing on sim vs. game continuum.  My assertion was that games have
been much too interested in the simulation aspects as opposed to the
gameplay aspects.

Classic games (console, computer and arcade) have quite a different
flavor than modern games.  Most of the older games had to deal with
resource limitations, and thus had to do more with less.  Games lived
and died on design.

Today, however, most people feel that games are "style over substance".=20
I think this is because of a focus on making a simulation instead of a
game.  Pac-Man is almost entirely a game; it simulates absolutely
nothing comprehensible to the sober mind.  Half-Life is more of a
simulation; admittedly, it's a simulation of pretty outlandish
circumstances, but it attempts to be a simulation of that environment
more than an abstract game.

I think some of the current problems in the game industry as a whole is
because we're ignoring the gaming end of things.  Some of the most fun
games in recent times tend to be very game-like; Heroes of Might & Magic
3, which is sitting right here on my desk, is a perfect example.

So, to relate this to MUDs. :)  I think that we've suffered from a bit
of this, too.  I remember the raging debates on some of the Usenet MUD
groups about "realism", about how you should hide the stats from players
and how room systems are pass=E9.  Yet, we're still struggling with basic
issues unique to our medium, such as the recent thread on "what is a
multiplayer game" here on MUD-Dev (IE, exploring the community end of of
the triangle).

I get particularly worked up over the whole "room system" debate.  One
of the most notable and impressive periods of computer gaming history,
the Infocom days, used systems even more crude than the room systems
found on current text MUDs.  How many games can truly aspire to the
levels of the classic Infocom games, yet how many people have worked
furiously to replace the room-based systems?

I'll not comment much on commercial, graphical systems.  I think they've
taken enough beatings on this matter from other hands.

I think the reason we have a focus on sim instead of game is because of
the current all-encompassing focus on technology.  For a majority of
people in both the game industry as well as the MUD field (programmers),
technical problems are interesting to solve.  Design problems are hard.
:)

I like to think of myself as an enlightened programmer.  While computer
games would be nonexistent without programming, we can do better than we
have with some attention to design.  That's why I take quite a bit of
interest in design, so that I can (hopefully) contribute to the
improvment of the field.

Hope that clarifies. :)

--=20
"And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...."  -"Defender", Manowar
     Brian Green, brian at psychochild.org  aka  Psychochild
       |\      _,,,---,,_      *=3D* Morpheus, my kitten, says "Hi!" *=3D=
*
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_ =20
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'  "Ritalin Cures Next Picasso"=20
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)               -The_Onion_, August 4th, 1999



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