[MUD-Dev] DGN: Mudflation as antibody of a "stain development"

[Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt]

On Friday 25 February 2005 03:36, HRose wrote:

> Soon this heart will die but noone can see this because there are
> still the boys surfing on the borders. Where the game seems still
> full of life. The mudflation is a desperate attempt to
> counterattack this unexcused expansion process. To keep its heart
> alive this growing stain tries to cut away what it can. The less
> important parts are abandoned so that the life sources can still
> be focused elsewhere and sustain the unending, pointless and
> foolish enlargement.

> At the end the moral is that this cannot be an optimal
> process. There must be something better. The games modeled on a
> stain give only the illusion of content because the truth is that
> they are kept alive thanks to the mudflation. The truth is that
> the erosion, so the loss of content, is the reason why they still
> survive. This rings a bell? How it is possible that an old game
> can only survive by a loss of content when that content is
> supposed to be its main strength? How it's possible that this loss
> underlines a quality (and probably the only one they have)?

I am not sure that you have necessarily show that the process is not
optimal, or even bad. I do not even see that this process of content
evolution is even avoidable. Why would you expect a virtual world to
stay static? Calling the evolution of game content 'pointless and
foolish enlargement' is a bit harsh but it may often seem that way
if they don't take care to make sure the new player can keep up.

You could also see this process as something else - it could be
called 'development', as I prefer 'evolution', or even
'history'. Once the tools were flint knifes and bone daggers, but
not any more, now we use iron, and anyone starting a life in this
century don't get taught the skills of producing flint daggers
anymore. That 'content' is 'eroded' away so to speak. It simply seem
to me like a natural process.

It is however something that game developers need to be aware of as
a process, since it would indicate that you need the resources and
planning to maintain this process over some time, if indeed they
need to stay alive. What is important is that the designers do not
let this evolution become a hindrance to the new players, as you
formulate it.

> Those are the questions that is useful to answer. If they will
> remain unanswered the unacceptable and inexplicable destiny of
> these games will remain the same: die of age.

I would say that if they don't do content content evolution well
enough -then- they die of old age. I think the problem is that games
are in fact not designed to evolve very well, and cope poorly with
this evolution, because I agree its mostly a reaction to stay alive
when players consume content. Optimally content should be able to be
'truly' consumed, moving the entire virtual world forward along the
storyline. The 'old stuff' _should_ disappear because it is truly
the 'history' of the game. In my opinion; what often happends, is
that the game actually does _not_ erode away the content correctly,
and it then sits in the core and 'rots'. This means that new players
often start there, where everything is rotten and useless on a
game-wide scale.

Just my 2 DKK :)

--
--Hans-Henrik Stærfeldt
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