[MUD-Dev] OOC functionality (was: I Want to Forge Swords. [Another letter to game designers])

[Auli]

Greg Munt wrote:
 
> In the context of world simulations, I have always had a problem
> envisaging how real community-building would work. Why? Because I
> see the community aspect to be wholly outside of the game's
> reality. Any "in-game community" is based on out-of-game
> community. The former just cannot exist without the latter.

I'm going to beg to differ here.  While I believe you are correct in
the majority of cases saying this is an absolute is a fallacy.  I'm
going back to The Realm again (am I the only one here to have played
this game?).  We had what might be called a guild though we never
named it as such.  You did not have to have formal approval for them
and there were 999 chat channels, pick a number, thats your guild
channel.  For nearly two years I interacted with these people solely
in game.  We had no website or message boards, we didn't know each
others e-mail addresses or phone numbers.  We simply did not
communicate outside the game.  That does not mean we didn't talk in
OOC.  I knew, for instance, that my normal playing partner was a
grandmother from Alberta who ran a hotel.

The funny thing was this all stopped when we decided to pick up our
merry band and all head off to EQ.  We nearly immediately seemed to
need to communicate with each othr outside the game.  I'm not sure
why, and quite frankly it didn't occur to me before reading your post.
Quite possibly it was simply due to the sheer complexity of EQ as
opposed to The Realm.  Probably some of the travel factors I mentioned
had something to do with as well.  You had to plan ahead to keep from
getting all split up.

Auli


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