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

[ceo]

Koster, Raph wrote:
> Matt Mihaly wrote:

>> For me at least, MUD seems like the obvious answer. Everquest is
>> a graphical MUD. Aetolia is a text MUD. MUD doesn't imply any
>> sort of particular interface or gameplay patterns, to me.

> I tried. But it hasn't stuck. In common usage, for better or
> worse, the majority of people associate MUDs with text-only
> displays. Even

I would hazard (pulling guess out of thin air) that this is largely
because of the overwhelming dominance of "visuals" in the way that
people have designed, played, thought about, and evaluated computer
games over the last 20 years.

Looking at the amount of hardware that goes into visuals today (75%
of your processing, even with dedicated specialist graphics
hardware!) and the decades-old primacy of "screenshots" (and now
"demo videos"), it would seem that the juggernaut of public opinion
would always use a visual POV when looking at a term. Noticing that
all MUD's looked "the same" (give or take) they then got that
long-term general association among those who weren't putting much
conscious thought into terminology.

Shrug. Just a guess :). I speak to too many people with the "MUD ==
text" view to get the chance to use it much in any other way :(.

Adam M
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