[MUD-Dev] What's in the lack of a name?

[Harrok]

From: "shren" <shren at io.com>

> Ah, but the point is that if you deny the players both names and
> coordinates, they have to name everything themselves.  You're
> almost forcing them to develop culture, and in doing so the will
> collaborate.

> Say I'm in a nameless, coordinateless world, up in a mountain
> region, and while fighting off other foes a bunch of goblins come
> over the ridge.  A member of our party named Dierog runs over and
> holds them at bay untill we defeat the other foe and come help
> him.

> Later on I want to meet a member of my group there, so to tell him
> where I'm talking about, I tell him to meet me where Dierog fought
> all of the goblins.  Lacking any other name, we might call this
> area "Dierog's Stand", and other people, lacking any other name,
> might pick up on it, and how it got it's name.

It's a great argument, but I would suggest that some players would
be likely to pick names that break whatever level of immersion the
designers were attempting to achieve. In EverQuest, for example, the
inns running out from Freeport were not named by the designers, and
as a result seem to be universally known as "inn1", "inn2", and
"inn3".

Bill McKinley


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