[MUD-Dev] NEWS: Why Virtual Worlds are Designed By Newbies -No, Really! (By R. Bartle)

[Koster, Raph]

Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad wrote:

> I totally agree, but in the physical world I can set my own goals,
> choose my actions and go to different places. Not all the time,
> but most of the time. I view those as key defining qualities.

Hmm, to me "world" means "physical space." And since I view a key
requirement of "online worlds/muds" as being "uses a spatial
metaphor" it matches up quite nicely. So my fundamental "worldness"
qualities are apparently somewhat more basic.

>  If those > don't hold then just call it a MOG or an online
>  entertainment.

A flash movie is an online entertainment. A MOG is what, exactly--a
massive online game? That could be ilovebees or the AI web game,
which lie somewhat outside the field this mailing list covers.

>  If > the world aspect isn't important to the system, why insist
>  on > labelling it as a virtual world?

I cannot think of anything inside our vaguely defined field where a
spatial metaphor ISN'T important. It's a very bright dividing line,
for me.

>  Two systems can share qualities > without being essentially the
>  same thing. So, a system can both be a > multi-user game and a
>  virtual world, and a multi-user game may be on > the borderline
>  of being a virtual world.

Definitely; however, I am looking for the term that encompasses
Second Life AND City of Heroes, EverQuest AND LambdaMOO.These are
all flavors of the same thing in a way that Diablo is not (but that
Diablo II or Guild Wars arguably are).

> It is rather pointless to refer to all multi-user systems as
> virtual worlds, although most multi-user systems can be viewed as
> virtual worlds.

MOST multi-user systems do not employ a spatial metaphor. A text mud
is basically a hypertext system wherein the links are labeled with
directions and presumed to be movement, and where other browsers of
the same text block are displayed to you. You could change the links
to be thematic or something else, and remove the sense of place, end
up at something akin to the web or IRC, and it would have lost its
"worldness" to me, and fallen out of the field this list covers
(though obviously it would remain a close cousin).

> At the end of the day everyone will use their own definition based
> on what their own interests are, of course. I just don't think the
> definitions people come up with are particularly good for general
> use. IMO, they tend to arbitrarily exclude things the authors
> devalue and include somewhat peripheral things that authors value.

Definitional rigor seems like an important step in helping us
understand the field... JC made "defining mud" explicitly off-topic
for the list years and years ago, but I still think that it's
important for us as a community to arrive at SOME consensus. It
makes it damnably hard to discuss issues when we cannot even agree
on basic terminology. In this particular case, Richard's actual
thesis in his article has been largely overlooked by many
commentators because of the definitional problem.

> Note: I am not claiming that defintions are useful in their own
> right, or that terms and their definitons are "scientific", but I
> also don't like that they move to far away from their origin. We
> should be able to discuss the virtual world qualities of a system,
> the game qualities of a system as well as the social qualities of
> a system.

I strongly suspect that when you say "the virtual world qualities of
a system" you actually mean "the simulationist qualities of a
system," wherein simulationist is a term of some long standing (on
this list anyway). Is that accurate?

-Raph
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev