[Meta] Re: [MUD-Dev] Future of MMOGs

[Ted L. Chen]

Amanda wrote:

> Indeed.  Again, I'll use the WWW analogy.  If the prefabs are
> implemented as a library of templates you can instantiate, much
> the way that WWW editors implement their various prefab styles,
> you end up with the very useful "create and tweak" pattern, which
> has a much faster learning curve than "create from scratch".
> Selecting desk #2, dinking it open and throwing out the desk
> blotter, then dragging in a minitower computer, adjusting its
> position and clicking "save" remains more abstract (and much
> easier) that building it up from nothing.

> I think it's possible to let people create interesting 3D content
> without requiring them to have an artist's eye or draftsman's
> hand.

I like the template idea better than a tile-base editor (which seems
to fundamentally restrict you to take the desk-as-is, or leave it).
However, 3d modelling for any engine is a big bag of compromises.
Just go down to your art department and ask them to create a desk,
but stipulate that you want each page of paper on that desk
individually modelled, each pencil with it's own geometry, etc, and
they'll probably look at you funny for 'wasting' all those
triangles.

I wouldn't even dare approach the programming department without
anything short of full body armor.  ;)

But, as I'm writing this, I've begun to question myself as to why
I'm thinking on a one-to-one relationship between editor and
displayed geometry.  I guess you could very well have individual
full mesh models of paper, pencil, and desk which gets automatically
compiled into a seemless low-poly cluttered desk.  That'd be an
interesting research topic in itself.

Okay, so I'm warming to the idea ;)

> The same is true for all creative endeavor.  I want to give people
> the virtual equivalent of Lego bricks, or Erector sets, or
> Meccano, or whatever.  I want to let them put on puppet shows to
> get them interested in stage design.  I want to get graphical MMO
> games out of the mode where all of the visuals are produced by
> professionals and the players end up interacting in the ultimate
> prefab--a static, teflon coated world that none of their actions
> can affect.

This brings up an interesting side topic: that of mindset.  I can't
talk for everyone, but for me at least, when I played with Lego or
erector sets, I had to have a rather high level of willing
suspension of disbelief that what I made was what I imagined it to
be.  Would such a system in a MMO generate the same thing?  A higher
required level of disbelief?

Static teflon coated worlds have the unique aspect in that a
modelled piano is a piano.  It's authorative.  In a world made up a
building blocks, fish steaks and dyed cloth could be a piano (thanks
for the interesting link Raph).  That's creative.  But does that
pose any problems for multiple people living in the same world to
agree on what means what?

> Put more bluntly--I want to help people create bad content.  Every
> artist has a lot of Bad Art to work out of their system before
> they start mastering their medium.

Honestly, I think prefab/tile/editors actually help to prevent
people from creating bad content.  It gives a minimum level of
asthetic cohesion to created content.  On the Sims/Simcity front,
I've seen the ugly results when they bypass the editors and hack
their own low-level the content.  But on that same note, I think
editor-based work is really just relegated to a narrow middle-band
on the good-bad scale, and the only way to break out of that is
either to go low-level or try to find really really creative uses
for fish steaks.  ;)

TLC



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