[MUD-Dev] The Root of the Tree (was NEWS: Why Virtual Worlds ...)

[Koster, Raph]

David Kennerly wrote:

> In short the essentials of a computer-mediated community being:

>     economy
>         persistent agents
>         persistent and scarce goods
>     social interaction
>         predominantly through computer software
>         users with persistent social status (sociometry)
>         persistent social organizations (guilds, clans, etc.)

> Hm.  That list seems too short.  Surely I'm overlooking some other
> essential points tonight.

To me, the term "computer mediated community" has a very literal
meaning and requires only "communication." Everything else you
describe is emergent given the communications medium--we've seen
most all of that list show up in IRC, for example.

I'd be looking for a term that implied the basics of our field,
which to my mind are:

  - a representation of space (the key factor that distinguishes
  text muds from other hypertextual systems)

  - representation of players within the space (via some form of
  avatar, could be MANY avatars, and I define avatar fairly loosely)

I note with chagrin that the new IGDA Online report uses the term
"persistent state world" despite the fact that most of the
commercial games do not actually have a world state is that is
persistent. :)

-Raph
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