"Advanced" use of virtual worlds? (Re: [MUD-Dev] MMORPGs & MUDs)

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

Dave Rickey wrote:
> From: Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag at ifi.uio.no>
>> "Koster, Raph" wrote:
 
>> Anyway I think you know what I mean.  You can choose to use your
>> whole brain or a subsection.  I sincerely doubt that other
>> segments of the userbase get the same variety and intensity in
>> their experience.  I.e.  multiple levels of emotional experience.
 
> Then you'd be mistaken.  The non-"Roleplayer" may not simulate the
> extremes of emotion (love, hate, etc.), but he can feel them, and
> when he does they are genuine.

Oh, but the roleplayer also have genuine feelings. He just have the
opportunity to optimize for them to happen all the time.  IF he
chooses to.  Btw, the emotions are no more simulations than people
who cry when they are immersed into a TV series.

Actually, some of the strong emotional turmoil that I experience is
when I have taken my roleplay too far for the environment.

Also the big misconception I see in this list is that roleplayers
somehow are cold and in control. This is clearly not my experience
at all, although you obviously can choose to distance yourself from
your character AND the environment. Roleplayers may not only live on
the character level, but also on the in-world player level and the
physical world player level. So the character level emotions come in
ADDITION to everything other players experience.

> I use terms like "Immersion" and "Engagement".  That indefinable
> experience when you're not manipulating the inputs of a computer
> character, but are "in" the world.

I don't think it is so indefinable, it happens when your mind is so
filled with sensations and thoughts that are coherent with the focal
experience that there is no room for disconfirming thoughts.

>> Of course, now I could take a critical stance to assumptions
>> about knowing what people want. (I don't believe people KNOW what
>> they want.  They just know what they recognize.) I certainly
>> don't know what people _really_ want if they got the opportunity
>> to try "it" out...

> Oh, that's easy.  They want it all to be real.  Short of that,
> they want it all to behave as if it was real (within its own
> internal logic).

Huh?

> Same thing the other players want, they just aren't willing to
> pretend it is a world when it acts like a stage.

No. They insist on talking about the mechanics with which the stage
is built, thus evaporating the little depth that might be there.

> Then why have ActiveWorlds and similar VRML projects stalled out?
> In that environment, you can do anything, have anything, and
> that's the source of the problem.

For the same reason that most people watch soaps on TV and buy trash
food?  They are God damn lazy escapists with no initiative?  Why use
ones brain if one don't have to?

> It goes deeper than that.  Without the carrot and stick, players
> don't socialize.

Oh people socialize as long as they have some common ground or
shared interests.

> assembled and created.  If "real people" are involved in the
> assembly process, the product is more "real".  So are the similar
> products that *did* spring fully formed from the bit bucket.

Well, I personally primarily find it rather annoying and it gets old
real fast. My implants or gun or whatever are no more significantly
real because I had to spend a lot of boring game time finding
someone to assemble them. Obviously I feel a gratitude towards those
that did it, which is real. The gun becomes real when it looks cool,
says "BANG!"  and does serious damage.  Now, the more trouble I went
through to acquire the item, the more I will care about it, so it
may have increased value in terms of increased pain... If there is a
significant amount of depth to this assembly process and I assemble
everything myself then maybe it might feel somewhat more real, but
that depth isn't there yet...

I strongly doubt that you can have persistent depth without adding
an additional layer. I.e. it may increase the time the user spends
on recognizing how shallow the design is, but eventually most will
recognize the lack of depth. The net result is that to achieve "the
feeling of real" you have to increase your breadth significantly
over time.

Ola
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