[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[Matt Mihaly]

On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, Koster, Raph wrote:

Very interesting article! 

> *believe* the 3% people--that's a total of a few seconds every
> HOUR spent chatting with people, on *average*. My take--nuh-uh, no
> way. :) For the record, I was a 50% guy).

I'm a 75% guy myself.
 
> got "staging area" a lot, meaning people saw it as a launchpad to
> the "real game." Some saw the metaphor as being "shopping mall" or
> "apartment complex." My answer was kind of long and poetic, and
> people kind of looked at me strangely as I rambled. It went
> something like, "A 1950's small town with a local hardware store
> on the corner where the shop owner knows what sort of paint you
> really need for your fence and an ice cream parlor where you can
> go to get root beer floats and sarsaparilla and a bar where
> everyone knows your name and where the people you see at the local
> grocery store are mostly people you know by sight if not by name
> and there's a gazebo in the town square where sometimes they play
> live music..."

*shudder* Hell is a 1950s small American town. I know it's just a
metaphor, but I can't help pointing out that you missed mentioning
the pervasive racism, the arrogant isolationism, and the general
'hickness' of small towns. For years after I left home after high
school, I would have nightmares about being stuck living in a small
town.
  
> With these examples in hand, we classified the types of social
> spaces into three:
 
>   STAGING: these are places where you form a group, find a friend,
>   and decide what to do.
 
>   PIT STOP: these are the obligatory stops you make before you get
>   to have fun.
 
>   RECOVERY: these are the places where you go after an adventure.

This seems to presume that you're making a monster-bashing game
(which I know you are, but I got the idea you were making a broader
statement). I'd add that sometimes a single social space can be all
three of the above AND the place where you have your 'fun'. For
instance, the politicians in Achaea might be sitting in a single
room, doing everything from there while chatting.

--matt

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