[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[rayzam]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Auli" <auli at bellsouth.net>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2001 9:04 PM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

> Koster, Raph wrote:

>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Caliban Tiresias Darklock
>>> Sent: Monday, June 18, 2001 8:21 PM
>>> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
>>> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

>>> On Fri, 15 Jun 2001 22:33:34 -0700, "Sean Kelly" <sean at ffwd.cx>
>>> wrote:

>>>> One thing that's kind of surprised me is that none of the
>>>> MMORPGs I've played had any facility for sending messages to
>>>> players who aren't currently online (mail).

>>> I'm shocked. NONE of them have this? Why not? It's one of the
>>> primary wish-list features for my own system. Has been for
>>> years.

>> The logic against it goes like this:

>> We did put it into UO, but it was badly implemented and never got
>> used, and was removed eventually.

> Actually The Realm has such a system, its very basic but the
> players did use it for announcing in game functions such as
> weddings.  Its functionality is actually pretty simple, you can't
> know the e-mail address of everyone on your server so it was nice
> to be able to just send a short note to a character name via Magic
> Mail.

In game post offices are prevalent in lpmud/tmi. But as pointed out,
how often are they used? The question here is what should it be used
for and compare that to the implementation.

It's great to have a way of sending a message to a player not online
currently. It can be really useful. However, you have to get
yourself to a post office. The recipient has to also go there after
they log on [either being informed that they have a message waiting,
or even having to go check just to see if they have any mail].

Years ago, we changed it to be a meta-system. You access mail with
the mail command, from anywhere in the game. You can do it while
asleep or dead even. Why force it to be in a specific location? In
terms of social interaction, if you're mailling someone not on the
game, it doesn't matter where you're doing it from. The same for
receiving the mail. It could be argued that going to the post office
to get mail gives you a chance to socialize with others, but I think
it's along the chore-level of going to the bank in a game. You go in
with a goal, attend to that action, then leave.

By removing the post office hindrance from in-game mudmail, it
became a used and valued system that strengthened socialization. I
can hear the uproar if it was announced we were going to remove it
:)

    rayzam


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