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

[Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt]

On Thursday 18 November 2004 14:08, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> "Richard A. Bartle" <richard at mud.co.uk> writes:

>> I needed an umbrella title for my book, and used "Virtual World"
>> because that was the best on offer. Now you're saying that we
>> can't use "Virtual World".

>> OK, so what do YOU think we should use when we want to refer to
>> things like MUD1, LambdaMOO, UO, EQ, SL etc.? Or are you saying
>> that there shouldn't be an umbrella term because they're so
>> different that we shouldn't lump them all together?

> I am saying that one shouldn't redefine the term "virtual world"
> at one's own whim, thus making it meaningless. A virtual world has
> to be... a world, not just a sports arena.

> Besides, those systems you mention are virtual worlds (more or
> less), but there are definitevely systems that are less world and
> more game, i.e. pure multi-user games, multi-user environments,
> multi-user entertainment etc.

Well, then no games are virtual worlds, none of them are 'full
worlds'. They are all limited with respects to earth. So as you put
it, some games have more 'world' than others. Thats not really a
problem (for me at least).

So... I agree the use of 'virtual world' is a good umbrella term,
some virtual worlds will be richer than others, some virtual worlds
will be more limited (to the sports arena side, as Ola puts it). You
can discuss endlessly weather some fringe genre belong to some
classification or not, but that is not really important, after all;
'strawberries are really a kind of nut', so there will always be
controversy about classifications, and if you wish for everyone to
agree, Richard, you're going to wait for a long time i think :-) -
so don't wait. After all, your works does not suffer under any
conceptual problems - they are understood (by the community they
were meant for, but that is a general scientific problem). I think
it all boils down to the problem of trying to put put concepts and
features that is a loosely directed graph into a strict heirachy.

--
--Hans-Henrik Stærfeldt
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