[MUD-dev] Fun in Games

[Jeff Freeman]

From: Koster, Raph <rkoster at soe.sony.com>

> So the problem lies in "interactive." Let's presume that we
> interact either with or through the medium of the computer. Both
> seem to qualify as interactive entertainment; they basically boil
> down to single participant or multi-participant activities.

Traditionally, "interactive" means (only) that you interact *with*
the entertainment (i.e. "software").  You click X and Y happens.
You click A and B happens, and B won't happen unless you click A.

With regard to MUDs, you are interacting *via* the entertainment
(i.e. with other people, but via the MUD).  It's a different sort of
thing, and it deserves distinction.

  A) Interactive Entertainment.

  B) MUDs, and whatever term we use to describe interacting via some
  medium (i.e. MUDs).

Two different things, though.

>                     COLLABORATIVE   COMPETITIVE     INDIVIDUAL

>     CONSTRUCTIVE    Running muds;   Commercial      Mud design
>                                       Socializer           mud operation

Now here you just seem to be hedging your bets, sort of thing. "I
have developed a theory, and tested it, and can find no flaws with
it, but I am uncomfortable with its conclusions, and therefore shall
draw a distinction between running a mud and running a commercial
mud..."

But maybe you just did things differently, and for different
reasons, than I did.

Commercial mud design seems to me to be a very collaborative effort
(from my perspective.  I mean, maybe things change when you're way
up there on the totem pole), designing a non-commercial MUD was, for
me, very much a collaborative effort (even though it didn't HAVE to
be as much a collaberative effort as commercial work MUST be).
Implementing the hobby-MUD was a competitive endeavor, and, for me,
the Individual-n-Constructive work was, say, making something on
someone else's MUD that someone else might someday see, but giving
those people zero input on what I was making and not getting any
reward from the game system.


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