[MUD-Dev] non-'realistic' spatial models

[rayzam]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nicholas E. Walker" <new at gnu.org>

> There is a lot of discussion on rooms vs. coordinate systems and
> related topics.  This focuses on how best to model our reality in
> a game.  I am interested in different types of spaces.  I am less
> interested in 'fake reality' than I am in intuitive and
> interesting spaces to explore.

> As an open question to the list: has anybody done anything that
> does not attempt to be 'real'?  Surreal, abstract, fractal spaces,
> and anything else not 'real' qualifies.

> Isn't it more interesting to experience a type of space that we
> cannot experience in daily life, instead of getting frustrated
> with the limits on how we can experience the fake reality of the
> MUD?  Maybe I'm looking for a MUD that accepts the fact that it is
> a MUD, a computer program--instead of some crude model of reality.

There's the slight issue here of how we could experience a type of
space that we don't experience. A lot of spatial relations and
systems are wired into us, either genetically or through experience
at earlier ages. This goes so far as to the fact that children learn
up and down well before left and right. Or moreso, individuals with
problems in spatial perception are really impaired in many ways.

Would you expect to understand an Escher painting, if you've never
seen it, and it's described to you in text?

So it's a good musing, but the reason why you don't see it may be
because people wouldn't be able to navigate it, understand it, or
even, the developers may not have a way to show it.

Caveat: surreal, abstract, and fractal spaces I would consider real.
Dali paintings are a distortion of reality, but not a non-realistic
spatial model. Abstracts can be geometric primitives on a flat
plane.  Beaches/coastlines are often considered fractal.

I'm going on the assumption you want something more non-real spatial
than that...

    rayzam
    www.retromud.org


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