[MUD-Dev] On grouping, thoughts

[John Buehler]

Jeff Freeman writes:

> Backing up on the topic a bit, I don't think this sort of external
> game-to-game communication is necessarily the sort of thing that
> will help strengthen in-game social ties anyway (since its by
> definition, an chat system external to any specific game).

> It does point out that players want to (and do) speak to each
> other as players, player-to-player, while MUDs continue to (try
> to) impose a character-to-character dialog. Someone previously
> mentioned the frequency of player popping into guildchat and
> asking "Hey, is so-n-so on?". Not looking for the *character*
> named so-n-so, but rather the player.

> Seems like we ought to do something along the lines of displaying
> "Character Name (playername)" over the avatar's heads, and using
> player names (rather than character names) for friends lists and
> /tell's. Most of the time we talk to other players - extreme
> roleplayers excepted - we want to talk to the player as a player
> OOC, and *not* character to character.

I entirely agree with the spirit of this.  My friends are the
players, not the characters.  And I speak to players, not to
characters.

Cross-game chatting suggests a cross-game identity, and that was a
reason for bringing the idea up.  That cross-game identity is
associated with the player.

Another means of separating character from player is to gag the
characters and only permit players to speak.  Characters communicate
to each other entirely in context, using a Mumblespeak language that
players cannot understand.  For example, if my character can
'negotiate' with an NPC merchant, I tell my character to 'argue',
'wheedle', 'plead' or 'insist', and my character acts out an
exchange with the NPC according to the two characters' negotiation
skills.  Roleplayers are left to using the player communication
channels for now, using artificial voice generation when that is
properly available.

JB
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