[MUD-Dev] Towards virtual worlds ... (and the failure of the current industry)

[Dave Rickey]

From: "Marc De Mesel" <marcdemesel at hotmail.com>

>   From: darienlkane at netzero.net
>   To: marcdemesel at hotmail.com
>   Subject: a confused writer
>   Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 16:06:48 GMT

>   I'm glad someone joins me in my perilous musing. But even amid
>   the nebula of unpredictable formlessness we've come to know as
>   the MMORPG industry, I dare to cast my own prophecy in the
>   context of rising empires: when a game that observes the rules
>   of empire building sets itself revealed, it will be done by the
>   hands of the first-timers, not the mainstream.

>   Thanks for your word. Take care.
>
>   Darien

I hate to put it this way, because it's going to sound arrogant, but
there's nothing new there.  The "vision" they lay out there is what
most of us have been trying to work towards all along, the problem
is that there's a whole crapload of unsolved problems between where
we are and where we are trying to get.

She has gotten one side of it figured out: All empires grow from the
bottom up, the leader is little more than the lucky one to grab the
controls of a machine that is already on its way.  What she misses
is the flip side: It is not the King's power that gives him dominion
over the land, but dominion over the land that gives him power.

> So, the question is, would it be possible to create a world where
> the virtual citizens have 'needs' like food, drink, shelter and
> medical care comparable to real life? A world where shelter is
> quite a necessity in order to have a normal civilian life? Where
> newcomers are guided into the community through a societal
> framework that learns them social values (a birthing system for
> instance)? And most importantly where judgement of good and bad is
> left to the virtual inhabitants instead of the game designers?

Possible?  In the fullness of time, all things are possible.  Would
it be *desirable*?  To the extent that it would be, how would it
differ from what we've already got?

She's making a classic mistake, that it is somehow feasible to
anticipate every aspect of a society, and hardwire the structure of
that society into the rules of the game.  It doesn't work.

Of course, I have my own ideas on how to achieve the functional
equivalent of nation-states in online games.  One thing I am sure of
is that they will not spring full-grown from the brow of the
designer.

--Dave


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