MUDs as art (was [MUD-Dev] A footnote to Procedural Storytelling)

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <o.f.grostad@notam.uio]

Matthew Mihaly wrote:
> Well, good luck! I know I have yet to see any form of entertainment or art
> that was marketed to the masses that comes anywhere near my definition of
> brilliant. This includes every single game I've ever played.

Mhh, well, in their time I think both Infocom's games, Populous, some of
the artwork (especially sound) in Myth, Jeff Minter's games, Grand Theft
Auto, bitmap brother's games, and some other are rather close to
brilliant in their genres... Then you have Mozart, Prokofiev, Dali,
Roald Dahl, and many others, and of course satire and TV series such as
"SOAP" and "Black Adder"... 

However, if you define brilliance as "inaccessible" and
"incomprehensible" then your argument becomes a tautology...

In my opinion the best art can be appreciated from many viewpoints, both
as surface and as deep structures/ideas. Bach being a good example.  It
should be possible to do this with MUDs too, and it would be interesting
to hear what people view as art in their mudding experience!  I know
some MUSH role-players consider their performance as true art, and it
probably is.

If one are going to view MUDs as ART, then one also need to understand
the potential/nature of the medium. (Incidentally, a piece by Rolf Walin
is being played on the radio right now, where he extensively explores
the sound world of a balloon (literally, squeak, amazingly articulate
actually :)) To me, a MUD is primarily a bottom up, organic,
constructive medium. Your regular RPG is no closer to tapping into the
potential of MUDs than a painter replicating photos.  So obviously they
will have a hard time becoming brilliant.  If you move your eyes over to
the constructive domain then I see some chaotic (authorless) brilliance.

> In any case,
> brilliance is something so rarely achieved that you have got to either
> have low standards, or an extremely high level of arrogance to assume that
> you have any shot at achieving it.

Or just ignore it altogether?  Most artists work with their piece until
they are satisfied with the expression. (which may take their entire
life of course) 

> Possibly. Or, in Lee's case, a professional writer. I suspect you've never
> run a world if you think that the playerbases in any successful world are
> not manipulated to kingdom come and back. It's a good thing, not a bad
> thing.

This is clearly wrong. There are successful constructive worlds. If you
view the Active Worlds as one system (and I think you should) then they
are successful in their own right, even if they are sparsely populated. 
They are all surface, no depth, and in a sense organic, but for some
reason that is what makes them interesting as art objects. You can
probably find examples in the MOO community as well.

What disturbs me about Lee is the goal, to make MUD-SOAP! Why set low
goals that are expensive to fulfil? Why not utilize the talent that is
likely to be present in the usermass? Why going top-down? Yes, it is
easier, but is it more interesting? Is it engaging? Is it sustainable?
(I'm not going into the moral aspect here, as that lead to endless
discussions, but soap in MUDs as opposed to soap on TV seems like going
from bad to worse for no apparent reason! ;)

--
Ola  -  http://www.notam.uio.no/~olagr/




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev