[MUD-Dev] "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG"

[Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt]

On Sun, 26 Nov 2000, Marian Griffith wrote:
> 
> > An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG
> [essay by Arios Truthseeker snipped]
> 
> I am somewhat amazed that there is no reply, nor comment,  at all to
> this essay.
> The underlying principle of this entire essay is  that it is somehow
> bad to have these 'd00ds' on a mud. Yes they are occasionally annoy-
> ing and even obnoxious, but maybe we should be honest about it. Have
> we not just created the exact game that they are playing?
> The author builds his entire argument by showing the 'd00d' as young
> male who  'does not get it in social environments'  and sees the mud
> as a game where he can gain acceptance, but 'still does not get it',
> even though he makes all the right moves.

Ack, i see it as a flame. Someone stole her kill, and she (he?) felt
betrayed. I see this reaction / situation in two lights. Some
multiplayer games (like real time strategy) would not suffer under
a horde of 'd00d's, and this situation can be seen as a challenge
to a game designer to allow both these types of social engagements
in the game without them clashing (i'm not about to give any solutions 
here, that would be presumptuous ... oh well i'll admit i don't have
any on the top of my head).

I would like to know how old the writer is. This may simply be a gap
of generations. My sister commented that her observations when
working with children (she has pedagogical education) is that todays
children (8-12 years, danish children is what she was describing) when 
compared to our own childhood has more a difficulty in parttaking in 
social events. She gave an example: 

"Baloon dance", where you tie the children together to form pairs
(tie left leg on one, to right leg on other), and tie a baloon on
each of the two other legs. Now let the teams try and pop the other 
teams baloons by stepping on them.

Now the interresting part, is what happends when the children loose.
When their baloons are popped, and they have lost. We clearly recalled
that when we used to play that game, we stayed and looked to see who 
would win the game. It was a social event, even if you were not a
part of the action. No more. Now the children tend to simply leave, 
and do other stuff immediately after they are out. If they are not part
of the action themselves, the event does not interrest them at all.

Such observations may be extended to the article that was described here
although the article applies to a slightly older agegroup and different 
social background (nationality), there may be some similarity or even trend
in the social skills (or expectations, however you see it).

Comments?

Hans Henrik Stærfeldt   |    bombman at diku.dk    | work:  hhs at cbs.dtu.dk      |
Address:                |___  +45 40383492    __|__       +45 45252425     __|
DTU, Kemitorvet,        | Scientific programmer at Center for Biological     |
bygn 208, CBS.          |  Sequence Analysis, Technical University of Denmark|

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