[MUD-Dev] The Root of the Tree

[David Kennerly]

Eric Random wrote:

[A lot.]  :)

Your topic titles for a virtual world were:

> ACCESSIBLE
> PERSISTENT
> CONTIGUOUS
> SELF-CONTAINED
> VAST
> FUNCTIONAL
> REALISTIC
> SOCIAL
> DYNAMIC
> IMMERSING
> THEATRICAL

The details go a long way toward sketching the scope of a virtual
world.  I largely share them, to the extent that I grokked them.
I'll note a couple of exceptions.

> ACCESSIBLE. An entity (such as a person/user) must access the
> spatial representation through a corporeal proxy which inhabits
> that representation.

I'm not sure you want to use the word "accessible," since user
interface designers use the term accessible to define the minimum
human requirements (or user profile) to qualify as a successful user
of a system.

> REALISTIC. Spatial representations may be vast, but vastness does
> not imply realism. Although the virtual world continuum is, in a
> way, a continuum of realism, in that the more such a construct
> becomes a virtual world, perhaps the less virtual it may
> seem. Realism is a particular attribute of the spatial
> representation, as in design, it is a particular means to an end,
> or perhaps more an end to the means.  Degree of realism is
> reflective of the client (user), and bounded by the
> functionality. Humans operate in the real world, and as such, have
> developed particular expectations of behavior and interaction, in
> which some means of interaction and behavior are more natural and
> intuitive than others. In other words, human experience is rooted
> in realism, and as such, is the common language of human
> experience.

Most people I hear using the term "realistic" in conjunction with
games actually mean "traditional" or "conventional."  When
Westerners talk about EverQuest's graphics being more realistic than
Ragnarok Online's what they mean is that the graphis are more
consistent with the fantasy novel covers in the U.S.

Hell, even psychologists mean "tradition" or "convention" when they
define sanity as an agreement with "reality" (i.e., tradition and
convention).  Apart from Philip K. Dick's definition (that reality
is what persists even when you stop believing in it), I am failing
to recall a definition of the term "reality" that was not a
substitute for authority.

A critique of realism, after all, presupposes authority on what is
realistic.  Players use "unrealistic" as a unspecified label for
dissatisfaction.  During one D&D session, a player argued that a
particular rules judgment was not realistic.  I had to remind him
that neither were dwarven clerics or dragons.

> IMMERSING. Immersion is the state in which the totality of
> perception is captivated or an experience is encapsulated. Like
> being entertained, being immersed is a qualitative interpretation
> of reality, and as such, is based on the interaction of the person
> and the perception of their environment.

Some MMOs, like Puzzle Pirates, are, I think, less "immersing" (as
you use it here) than some single-player games, like The Lord of the
Rings: The Two Towers.  And further afield, Ms. Pac-Man, Gattaca,
and Cryptonomicon are captivate me.  Maybe they are not "immersing"
but they are, at least, engaging.

Just my two cents.  All in all I agreed with what I grokked in your
post.

David
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