[MUD-Dev] RE:

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

From: Koster, Raph [mailto:rkoster at soe.sony.com]

> If we want to go on a crusade to fix something, how about we fix
> the fact that your average cartoon does a better job at portraying
> the human condition than our games do?

Thats fine as long as you leave some less challenging ones around
for me to play. I already find the current crop taxing enough. For
me its a subsitute for watching pulp-tv when I get home from a day
at the office. In the same way I don't want to read mind-expanding
books at the end of a long day, I don't want to be engaged that
heavily. Why do you think bad TV is so popular?

These games are almost meditative for me, large amounts of it are
trained semi-automated responses to stimulis, with a veneer of
chit-chat to stop it getting too dull. I end up in the same mind
state I used to when training in Wing Chun, doing all the two person
training exercise with ones eyes closed.

Anyway, I think the people you play with bring more than enough of
the human condition into the game with them. I wonder if the reason
I find role play so shallow is that most neglect to inject any
interesting adversity into their characters day to day
activities. Sure, they all had their parent killed by dark elves,
but thats not interesting. When my guild mate tells me something
that has happened to them in real life, then I care. I'm not sure if
its just because its real and thus more significant, or because its
better content. I guess what I'm driving at is that I don't believe
you can inject this quality into a game - its about the players not
the designers.

Besides, at some point it pays to remember we are writing games
(well except me, I'm writing trading systems ;).

Dan
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