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

[David Kennerly]

Raph Koster wrote:

> 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.

That brings up a point I failed to mention: trade.  An economy
requires the ability to make trades of persistent goods, which can't
happen in a usual chat room.  Agreements may be made, but goods
cannot change hands.  In EverQuest, the goods (at least the
representation in the game) change hands.  Of course no physical
goods change hands, but within the game there was a definite trade
of scarce resources.

So, I think communication alone is insufficient.  A chat room can
/talk/ about a trade, but it cannot facilitate a trade.  I think
that community includes trade, whereas communication (by itself)
does not.  But perhaps I'm injecting too much of my own opinions
into the common meaning of "community."

And even if I'm not, if "community" and "communication" are easily
confused, then it's another strike against the term community as a
distinguishing term.

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

One could order the systems along an axis: a text MUD has more
representation of space than hypertext does, but a graphical MUD
(usually) has a more consistent representation of space than a text
MUD does.  I'm not sure that a text MUD sufficiently represents
physical space, unless you mean that any undirected graph suffices.

An essential trait of level design is spatial composition.  In
respect to level design, text MUDs are much closer to hypertext than
graphical MUDs are.  The rooms are connected sort of like space, but
it's a graph without robust consideration of travel, collision, or
volume.

In text, many spatial incongruities, architectural eyesores, screen
design, and pacing issues due to distances go unimagined.  In text
the important areas can be given their due without regard to the
uninteresting space inbetween.  In graphics, it's better to compress
or expand the density of interactive objects in order to manage the
information on screen at any given time.

When I've adapted levels in text games to graphical games (with a
representation of space), often times the level has to be redesigned
from scratch.  Hallways need shrinking or expanding.  Density of
interaction on screen is fixed by the camera, which is constrained
by the architecture and terrain.  Redesigning has led me to conclude
that text does not sufficiently represent space.

I agree that there should be an organized and navigable place, and
that space suffices.  But I'm not certain that space is necessary
for a text MUD.  At least for text, the space is not necessarily
analogous to physical space.  The text MUD is isomorphic to an
undirected graph whose vertices may possess varying degrees of
connectivity.  These edges may result in an inconsistent spatial
arrangement.  A discrete representation of space, as a graph, would
likely have a consistent arrangement of edges between its vertices,
such as in a system of coordinates.

> 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. :)

Oh, they're persistent alright.  Just look at your credit card bill.
:)

I wonder how intentional the alliteration and wordplay was in the
title for the Persistent Worlds White Paper.  Its acronym forms a
palindrome: PWWP.

DVD
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