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

[msew]

At 20:19 02/19/2001 +0000, the_logos at www.achaea.com wrote:

>> Instead of just having people go and kill rats and frogluks or run
>> around the world doing fedex quests, can't we add some interesting
>> moral / social dilemmas that have no real answer but instead
>> provoke debate from the player community?

> Players create those on their own. I find that if you feed them a
> dilemma like that, they view it as gameable and ignore it unless it
> tangibly hurts or harms them. I can definitely see this not being
> the case in a MUSH, but I suspect it's the case in most worlds.

> I also think you're being a little naive. Look at the last US
> election. Most people had no in-depth clue whatsoever about the
> issues at hand. They were just perfectly willing to believe whatever
> they were told by the media, and then applying a personal bias
> towards one candidate or another to that information.

> Real moral, philsosophical debate requires contemplation and it
> isn't easy. Your 16 year old d00d is generally not interested and
> not equipped, and if you try to make him do it, he's either going to
> quit or he's going to just irritate the other players with fart
> jokes as he has nothing to contribute.

So yes I agree that it requires contemplation for "real" moral /
philosophical debate, but at the same time I have that naive /
optimistic hopeful part of me that is saying:

If we slowly begin to put these various memes into the games that the
16 d00ds are playing that maybe, just maybe portions will begin to
seep out, and instead of hearing talk about:

  d00d 0: "Dude I so jacked that newbie!  Took that +5 sword and gave
  him a rotten zombie skin! I told him it was for a quest!"

  d00d 1: "hahah you rule man!"

  d00d 0: "yeah!

we get instead:

  d00d 0: "For _MY_ quest to get to lvl 40 I had that lame ass beggar
  and corrupt baron quest.  I jacked that beggar and took the gold!"

  d00d 1: "Hahah you did it all wrong.  You were supposed to give the
  gold to the baron!"

  d00d 0: "What did you get for it?"  *suspicious look*

  d00d 1: "nothing why what did you get?"
 
  d00d 0: "nothing too.  what the hell!!  what does it matter what guy
  you gave it to??"

  d00d 1: "let's ask others."

So sadly this conversation turned into: the moral conflict is just
some game choices one has to make.

but they were talking.  and maybe the smarter of the d00ds will sit
there and analyze it and in 16 yr old logic they will think about it
and then go to the web to look for what others did.  "there has to be
some way to get phat l3wt from this man!"  and the meme has started.

Lord British could have not done the virtues and just have monsters to
kill.  I think the game would have lost a lot of meaning for both the
d00ds, which maybe don't understand why things are moral questions and
just want to beat the game, but later on in their lives (we hope) they
will look back and go: "WOW" and for people who saw the moral
questions and really thought about what they would do.  Or what their
character would do.

msew







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