[MUD-Dev] Otherland

[Richard A. Bartle]

On 12 August 2002, Shren wrote:

> Uh...  I can't figure out how you get to the last paragraph from
> the rest of the post.

Yes, it did read a little weird <grin>.

I was basically saying that someone in the (relative) mainstream had
written at length about virtual worlds and had positive things to
say about them, which makes a change. Normally, we only get to see
negative things said about the genre.

> Is Otherlands about virtual worlds?  Yes, and that's interesting.

> Don't forget, however, that the virtual worlds of the Otherland
> series literally eat the souls of children.

No, they don't. Those "children" in the last volume are emergent AIs
(yeah, books about virtual worlds ALWAYS have emergent AIs). The
children whose souls were apparently being eaten (ie. the ones in
comas) were there as a result of some major backlash from the
telepath "operating system".

I think it was intended to be a surprise ending, but after 5,000
pages I was more interested in ANY ending, surprise or not!

> I wouldn't use the series to indroduce people to the concept of
> MUDs

Me neither, but to people who know about them (which means us) it's
well worth a read. It's the incidental detail (of which there is a
huge amount in a series that size) which is most interesting, rather
than the plot.

		Richard



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