[MUD-Dev] Innovation restrictions (was: Information sharing)

[Richard A. Bartle]

On 07 May 2001, John Buehler wrote:

> Oh, I interpreted your original post as a claim that players try to
> fit the innovation into their existing favorite game and find that
> it wouldn't work there.

Yes, they do, but this is part of the same thing.

When an innovation is proposed, players tend to see it only in the
context of the game they play. This means that the innovation is
perceived as a criticism of their game (because any attempt to change
the game must, by definition, be intended to "improve it", implying
that there's something wrong with it that needs fixing).

Whether the innovation would or wouldn't work in the game is not
really an issue for many of the people who argue against it.  They
just don't like their world being attacked, and leap to its defence.

> A simple example of this would be permanent character death as
> perceived by an EverQuest player.  They assume that permadeath would
> be put into a game that is a clone of EverQuest.  I encounter this
> all the time.

Yeah, me too (sigh).

> It is my hope that a game world can become a platform for
> entertainment, not unlike an operating system is a platform for
> applications in general.

They're in between being a shell and an OS.

> I think that the same will be said of a game world someday.

It would certainly be something to look forward to, yes, so long as
the licensing fees were affordable.



Richard
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