[MUD-Dev] List rituals

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

J C Lawrence wrote:

>>   * in-game mail and the lack thereof is a ritual.

> Off hand I recall only one prior thread that went this way, and it
> did so only cursorily.

Well, I didn't scan the archives, just tapped my fuzzy
memory. According to my memory we've covered everything that has
been said so far, except maybe nntp. (Including item delivery,
different uses for in-game and external email, external systems,
etc.)

What I find interesting is that some player sites (guilds/alliances)
have extremely well developed and pervasive communication and
analytical features. More advanced than what is being discussed
here. (including security systems on different levels to prevent
spies from doing too much harm).  This is a relatively new
phenomena, I think.

Users are no longer allowed to be co-owners (which the LP/MOO
communities encouraged), so they co-develop their own structures
that engulf the game instead.  The net result may be that designers
are no longer able to see the mechanisms behind strategic game play.
Neat. :)

You might not even be able to fully balance your system, because you
can't influence these structures.

(Doesn't matter all that much to the MMPORPG model, because it does
not support strategic or creative game play to any reasonably
interesting degree... They are more like TV. :-(( )

> Historically this has been split into the PK good/bad threads, the
> how-to-implement-PK threads, and the how-to-control-PK threads.
> We've not had them as incestuously knit before.  There's been some
> integration work to going on there.  Not as much as I'd like, but
> enough to nod at.

Not really sure where you see this integration (not even sure if
that would be good).  I don't see anything new :).  If you are
talking about "how to give players the maximum ability to evolve the
world and the culture" then maybe.  Old topic, but a good one, if
one points in new directions and manage to avoid "that will never
work" thinking.

> There's raw meat still left in scoping and defining the basic
> structures of MUDs in terms of player goal determination,
> acquisition scales and approaches, player value perception, ROI
> etc etc etc yada yada.  We've not really backed out much to try
> and look at a meta level beyond a few dismissive hook and cherry
> models of advancement scales.

Yes, but I'd like to question whether players actually have or need
to have distinct goals.  It is very easy to end up thinking that
"these are the goals", but I'm not convinced that humans necessarily
are goal following.  Still most literature/analytic endeavours that
deal with human behaviour tend to assume that as a premise.  I
think.  Humans may have needs and preferences, positive and negative
associations, expectations of something pleasurable or exciting, not
necessarily defined, but goals..?  I've always argued that it might
be good to look at non-mud recreational situations: the beach, the
park, the cafe, the museum, the gallery, the fashion shop, the walk
in the forest, playing with the ball casually, watching kids play,
chatting about the past, watching TV...  How much explicit goal
following is there to be found in everyday recreational activities?
Even stamp collection (which do provide for explicit goals) may just
be some kind of meditation.

That said, "levels" provide drama, which MUDs to some extent lack
(unless they are heavily PvP, roleacting or quest based, not the
MMPORPGs). I.e. you have the build-up of tension and the
release. However, do you really need levels at the player level? 
(ack, two different meanings of "level") Drama could rather be on
the TEAM level I think: thus providing the "we did it" feeling.
However, given the lack of continuous presence, teams are rather
fluid and have low level of permanence. Thus, you might want to
somehow formalise "asynchronous" teams, but that is somewhat
meaningless in a world with a strong real-time focus.  Of course,
you could move this to the guild (I call most of them family groups)
level, but if there are too many members then the excitement might
not be as intense. I.e. your contribution would not be as visible.
The alternative is to give up the avatar-based real-time world and
go fully asynchronous in terms of gameplay/action and just provide
for synchronous communication. (Some strategy games do). This is
perhaps necessary in order to cater for a casual playstyle.

Are non-realtime MUDs MUDs?  Most of the design rationale is quite
different...? Still, the "sense of community" is similar?

> Are ___ANY___ topics or threads on MUD-Dev ever really conclusive?
> And, in fact sre any of the topics usually discussed capable of
> being conclusively answered?

Well, I hope so..?  I distinctly remember getting to an agreement
with Jon Lambert once, on the infrastructure for role acting!  :)

However, it is usually hard to tell, because if people agree or if
the argumentation is good enough then nobody will respond.
Likewise, if the argument goes over their head, they won't respond.
If the argument is rigorous then it becomes too boring to read, and
they won't respond.  It is the bad arguments and the most
opinionated topics that get the most attention, because they are
easy to attack (and of course the most profiled members)... :(

If you get to agree on the premises, or insist on positions being
backed up with arguments rather than "common wisdom" or "common
practice", then yes. If not, you risk that MUDs are being defined as
UO/EQ/DIKU because as MUD-Dev grows, most will have that rather
limited background/perspective. So where are you going to obtain
that fertilizer you like so much? :) Unless you are actively
recruiting "radical" thinkers you will have problems establishing a
group that is breaking free from "what exists".

(Another point: Male culture seems to gravitate towards picking
arguments to pieces rather than building up a common
framework. Discussions seem to be top-down rather than bottom-up
too... More bottom-up would be good, but that would require some
common memory, like a white-board, see below.)

> Is the field deterministic?

Well, some areas of the design space is more suitable for a MUD than
others.  Mapping and providing/finding directions in that space is
what I'm interested in.

I think a group like MUD-_DEV_ could learn a lot from discussing
minimal MUD-concepts.  That is, not to discuss subsystems or
social/commercial issues, but develop distinctly different
hypothetical and radical full designs.  The question is if there is
enough radical/creative momentum on the list.

Radical artists are good.  Their approaches will fail to reach the
larger audience, but someone will turn their ideas into something
workable in 20+ years :-).  This is an area where a list like
MUD-Dev really could shine (and did occasionally a couple of years
ago).

> This is not a fault of the list, but of the topic.  The list
> largely deals with soft topics which come down to questions of
> evaluation, order of importances, personal preference, as well as
> even softer influences such as cultural predilictions,
> demographics, etc.  We're dealing with people, not machines.  In a
> sense the job of the list is teaching its members how to think
> intelligently about the field while learning how to do it itself.

And you can see that happening??? :)

If the good topics would stick and was followed down to the
interesting parts, then yes. But they don't stick, maybe because
most people use stupid mail-programs (like myself) that does not
assign priorities to threads, or because when there are too many
messages flowing then people will try to keep up with unread
messages rather than diving down in the difficult topics =>
shallowness and low level of reflection is the result. This is also
my pet gripe about strong xp/level based MUDs => keeping up wins
over reflection.

I was recently at a small (beginners) conference on computer
supported collaborative learning.  One of the inane, but still
interesting, topics is the relation between a virtual white-board
and chat.  If I recall correctly then it turns out that white-boards
are used largely as a common memory, rather than for discussion and
communication.  I wonder if such an solution would have been
beneficial for supporting discussions.  I.e. each thread provides a
visual map of the positions taken so far.

This is of course a bitch to implement for MUD-dev in it's current
form.  There might be other options though.  Maybe that Dev-MUD
thing would be a good idea even if it never materialise.  It would
provide some common ground, a common reference (or a "boundary
object" to use the academic term) that could bridge the gaps between
the different people with different backgrounds.  Right now EQ seems
to be the common reference, that is no good and way too limiting
IMHO. (I haven't even played EQ, although I've read a lot about
it...).

Another option is to fork a new list which focus on conceptual
models of game/server designs.  I would applaud any initiative in
that direction.

I think a fork would be good.  I see way too many interesting
postings that dies. For instance that recent audio perspective, and
Bruce's design model and Prolog attempts.  Both topics that I've
tried to establish threads on before with no or little success.
There is obviously interest for those topics, but not enough to keep
a thread going given the more popular topics' spamminess.  For
instance Richard Bartle's engine is Prolog inspired and Cynbe's
engine is Lisp inspired, there are also fairly recent academic
attempts at marrying Prolog with MUDs in order to facilitate
parallelism... There's a lot of interesting opportunities that
should be investigated.  I've also noted that my request for
interesting research directions didn't get a single follow-up, which
is rather depressing given that MUD-Dev is (supposedly) a
development oriented community. Ok, this is whining, and I really do
enjoy reading the designer and user perspectives rooted in the
semi-commercial RPG realm, but I miss the more progressive and
visionary outlook and don't think it can coexist with the current
flow... There is too much evidence to the contrary.

>> (Big commercial games are not all that interesting either, they
>> look good, but don't seem to be all that novel design wise.

> Investors are risk adverse.  Such higher cost businesses are
> inherently invested in heavily normed populations which are
> subject to mass market mechanics (and in norming those populations
> further).

Hmm... Actually, I think games get some risk willing investors.
More than other sectors actually.  Investors don't know all that
much about game design either :-).  Designers are not as risk
willing, success means more control in your next project?  Failure
means a dead career?

Nokia is a commercial non-gaming entity, but with gaming
interests. They took a chance with Nokia Game, now EA picked that
one up and everyone think that Majestic is a novel concept.
I.e. the non-gaming sector is willing to explore new directions. The
gaming sector is not... It is an unimaginative business, which
perceives itself as creative and radical ;-).  (Well, it is more
imaginative than office tools businesses...)

Unless they are loosing the grip, that is... SEGA is desperately
looking for new opportunities.  Marrying mobile devices, consoles
and arcade halls.  Making a pitch for the educational sector.  I
hope they succeed with their secret plans.

> I know you're well familiar with this territory Ola.

It is still funny that designers tend to describe their designs as
radical and visionary, and to some extent it is, on paper, but it
just don't materialise as such.  The game industry is not very
appreciative of research either. (unless it is critical for success,
such as computer graphics).

I wonder how the design _team_ influence the outcome. I.e. if half
your team has an EQ background, how are you going to produce
something radically new?

> You rarely get ground breaking advances from such commercial
> sectors -- they're too invested in the status quo and incremental
> development revenue stream growth and return as the accepted form
> of risk management (there are exceptions, just not many).

So there are good reasons for the academic and the "professional"
artistic amateurs to cooperate.  Artistic as in "looking for new
creative opportunities".

GNU/Linux being well known examples to follow, although not really
groundbreaking.  I think the involvement of money might not be good
for the more progressive aspects of the MUD community.  Heck, I even
notice the "gravity" towards commercial directions in my own
thinking. Tiresome and unfortunate.  I need about 30-100
simultaneously online users in order to satisfy my goals and test
out my ideas, how "commercial" do I have to be?

What I am hoping for is a group of capable C++ developers willing to
go for an experimental server on the conceptual level, aiming for
local evolution and global adjustment/"control". Maybe marrying
event-based systems, logic programming, constraint based
programming, genetic algorithms in an inefficient but minimal and
flexible design with excessive logging for analytical
purposes. I.e. suitable for prototyping, testing and analysing new
ideas. (30 simultaneous users, tcp/ip text based protocol or http
web-interface, 2 GB RAM 2GHz CPU, GPL...?)

(Capable C++ developers = able to read and understand the C++
standard and write legible code. The latest Stroustrup book is a
good and solid brick.)

>   2) Human interest and cognitive development is non-linear.  It
>   follows a drunkard's walk.  In an idealistic sense this is
>   incredibly wasteful in terms of efficiency of progress toward
>   known goals.  The problem is that the actual definition of the
>   goals can't be fully defined until after they are accomplished,
>   and human vagary and brownian motion encourages as many gems to
>   be found on the back-staggering retreats as it does the forward
>   lurches.

>   Think of it as an evolutionary process: there are more dead
>   mutants than surviving ideotypes (if that's not a word it is
>   now).

Well, we don't have enough islands, enough individuals, high enough
breeding rate or enough time to follow an unguided evolutionary
process!  :) Notice too that you need isolated islands to come up
with radically new and successful concepts. If not, you will easily
get stuck on a local maximum!  Get a group of people to place their
goal way outside the existing and they may come up with something
interesting in their attempt to get there.

>     Or if you want, think of it in terms of political and economic
>     theory.  Theoretically fully planned and organised economies
>     are maximally efficient.  Human implementations of such don't
>     tend to work out that way.  Neither does or has MUD-Dev
>     despite efforts (and requests) in that direction.

Well, humans have only made vague attempts at implementing planned
economies, and without the proper tools and insight too.  However,
there are many examples of highly successful co-operative efforts on
a smaller scale.  You do need a basic common reference/object that
you agree upon and relate your activities to, though.

> Of course properly this thread should be on Meta rather than here,
> but then I'm not writing as list owner.  Urk.

I don't read Meta, too much US stuff. Can't even keep up with
MUD-Dev.

>> PK discussions are always knee-capped, by the topic's spamminess.
>> They never go anywhere.  They are never useful (except for the
>> ritual aspect).

> Here I diagree, vehemently.  The PK debate on the surface is
> monochromatic.  When dug at colours appears, both in the fact that
> even without explicit systems players will manipulate each other,
> and will explicitly manipulate each other in ways that upsets
> them. hurts them, causes pain, and deals with concepts of
> ideotypical (to coin a term) mortality (the mortality of valued
> mental constructs, or in this case the mortality of a class of
> types of mental constructs, ie, "ideotypes").

Not exactly sure what you mean here.  I assume you mean that their
cultural understanding is made invalid or something like that?  If
so, then this is rather old news, isn't it?

I could agree that a thorough and exhaustive discussion of PK
infrastructure, or what you miss by removing PK might be
instructive. As an example, my basic viewpoint is this:

  The ability to affect is valuable even if never used.  The fact
  that a person choose not to kill you is a strong communicative
  act.

> As members of western society we're typically unused to dealing
> with mortality as a iterative process and our culture in
> particular is not adapted to that.  Other societies which deal
> more intimately with reincarnation still do not fluently express
> them as a regular working concepts for day-to-day
> ordinariness-of-living
> get-up-in-the-morning-and-go-to-work-and-I've-got-a-headache world
> views.

Not really sure what you mean here.

(Anyway, western culture is to go to work with a headache 9-5.  Time
driven clock-dictatures.  In some other cultures (african?) you
seize the day.  Sun?  Do something fun.  Raining?  Do office work.
Met a nice girl?  Skip the meeting. I'm not very fond of western
culture, programmers work best at night for a reason.)

> That's juicy stuff in there.

I'm sure there is... :-) Maybe you could elaborate?

>     "We are about to enter a period where we cease to be human by
>     any definition of humanity that we have or suspect now.  I'd
>     like to be prepared for that, or at least to have some level
>     of foresight and prediction than go in blind."

>   Its not a great answer.  It is _an_ answer. however, which
>   probably suffices.

Hmm.  Yeah.  Ok, this is my perception.  We are now capable of
producing all the food we need.  But we still insist on being
employed, the net result is a lot of people are generating the same
information (doing the same job).  Not particularly efficient.  As
efficiency reach higher levels, only creativity (new directions) or
empathy (nursing) will be valued, change will have to take place,
i.e. assigning more value to family values, or personal development
(many people are now taking phd at the end of their careers here,
which is great, the marriage of experience and research), or maybe
the idea of a group-mind. MUDs do provide opportunities in the
group-mind/distributed cognition direction.

--
Ola  -  http://www.notam.uio.no/~olagr/
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