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

[Richard Tew]

> From: Marian Griffith [mailto:gryphon at iaehv.nl]
>=20
> I am somewhat amazed that there is no reply, nor comment,  at all to
> this essay.

Seemed like gospel to me, no point in arguing :)

> 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?

Just because you create something which someone can abuse doesn't mean
that you should facilitate them.  While not related to muds, examples
that spring to mind for me are:

 - The barcode reading gizmo which people reverse engineered and
   proceeded to use for their own purposes.

 - The cheap computer that was sold (I-Opener?), people converted it
   to a Linux box or something.

If someone creates a product - in my mind they have a right to enforce
that people use it in the way they intend.  Both of the above products
were fundamental parts (IIRC) of the producers business model, but the
unintended uses they were put to worked against the producers goals.

What I took from the essay was that it is bad to have d00ds on muds
because they ruin it for those who do not share their lack of respect
for others.

> 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.

All the right moves for what?  The right moves to be a d00d?
The right moves to play the game the way it was designed to be played?
The right moves to gain social acceptance?

Where the author wrote social acceptance, I didn't take him so =
literally.
>From what I have observed over the years and more recently on Discworld
as a guest creator is that the main reason people behave in a d00dish
manner seems more to be that they simply enjoy doing so.  And you could
then say that because their playing techniques were detrimental to the
enjoyment of others due to their lack of consideration - therefore
they are antisocial (or something) :)

> To me this is not only condescending, but also quite wrong. I do not

Condescending?  Of course it was, from what I understood, the author
quit UO because the antisocial playing techniques d00ds exhibit ruined
the game for him.  Therefore its not surprising he was more than a
little bitter and wrote an article that looked down on the people
that made all the time, effort and money he invested in playing UO
wasted.

And reading his essay, I empathise with him.

> propose a mud as an environment to teach social skills, but to treat
> anybody inside a mud  the same way  as these archetypical youths are
> treated in their real lives  is morally reprehensible (always wanted
> to use that word ;)  These people may not 'get' the social aspect of
> the game, but the do 'get the game' quite nicely. Rather than seeing

'get the game'?
They get how to play the game to maximise their own enjoyment.
It just so happens that their methods are detrimental to the enjoyment
of others.

> them as a 'force of nature' that should be tormented out of the game
> we, as game designers, should perhaps give them some hooks to create
> rudimentary social skills.  They get enough tormenting in real life,
> that the mud is an essential escape for them.

Thats a nice thought, but it seems a little idealistic than it is
realistic.  How would you go about augmenting the environment of the
game to do this?

Richard.
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