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

[Michael Tresca]

Madrona Tree posted on  Monday, November 27, 2000 2:14 AM

> I wonder if the adults in the situation reacted differently to the
children
> who were 'out' in the two different situations.

> What I am saying is that I think think that sort of behavior is learned
> (maybe before the ages of 8-12?).

Sure is.  Here's the problem as I see it, which may help distinguish the
argument of one player's game perspective against another...

When I play an RPG, I can clearly see that the person I'm dealing with is a
child.  Adult players who are immature are harder to spot -- but not that
hard after some time spent role-playing with them.
Regardless, chances are the adult has an edge over the child due to more
advanced knowledge (including language skills, math skills, etc.).  There's
a learning curve to play the game based on the RPG's complexity. On a MUD,
unless the child picks an obviously "D00Dish" name, their identification is
more difficult.  The immature person has access to a fully functioning adult
body.

MUDs, in an attempt to maximize their appeal to the broadest audience
possible, often make character creation easy.

Lack of age barrier + Easy character creation = most common player on the
Internet.

Who's the most common player on the Internet with the most free time and
access to a computer?

Why, children of course.  Off-school sessions (summers, in the US) provide
millions of examples of this.

"D00Ds" are hardly a gaming populace to be ignored or avoided.  They must be
molded, educated, and absorbed into your (presumably already) adult
populace.  Just as teenagers must come to grips with their adult bodies,
D00Ds go through full "virtual" maturity with the flicker of a few keys.
This power often gets abused (as immature people are wont to do).  Remember,
they outnumber the rest of us poor working saps who have to go to work in
order to afford their Internet access.

What's the solution?  It's the same solution for the adult world -- the
immature person must be absorbed into the adult culture through corrective
behavior.  This does not, by any means, require the administrator's
intervention.

RetroMUD's a cooperative MUD.  We fundamentally believe that there's no
point to a MUD unless interaction (and thus, cooperation) is required.
Otherwise, you could go play a single-player graphical game.  Over the past
few years, our influx of new players has shifted to a much younger age
group.  Many of them are immature.  But the established mature populace
corrects their behavior -- they don't cooperate with players who whine and
act like jerks, they don't party with them, they don't do much with them at
all.  The D00Ds either figure out they can't progress in power by acting
immature, or leave.  In theory, it's a self-correcting process.

If a D00D can solo his way to success, accumulating power and ultimately
becoming a threat to the game independent of the disapproval of his social
peers, it may be the game, not the D00D, that's the problem.

Michael "Talien" Tresca
RetroMUD Administrator
http://www.retromud.org
telnet://retromud.org 3000

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