[MUD-Dev2] [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants

[Dana V. Baldwin]

Caliban Darklock wrote:
> A large part of this is that in a text-based game, you have better
> conversations, because your brain is in verbal mode. We don't know how
> to get your brain into verbal mode while you're pointing and clicking.
> Voice chat is an option, but that has its own special category of
> problems.

Audience is most certainly a factor here as well. In a text based game
the audience was much more focused than a huge graphical MMO where the
majority of players have never experienced (or would care to I would
hazard) a game that is text based. Most of these players cut their teeth
on Sonic the Hedge Hog or Donkey Kong and learned communication in a
game through team speak in Counter Strike.

This does not mean though that text based games by their nature are the
only option for good conversation. Personally, some of the most
satisfying communal role-play that I have ever been a part of was in a
graphical MMO playing with the All Roleplay All the Time guild of
Shadowclan. Our conversations are entirely based in a fictional orcish
language with zero tolerance for OOC, voice or chat.

MUDs don't do conversation better. I would offer instead that
conversation is just what they do the most. Graphical games don't do it
worse, its just that most people that play graphical games have little
interest in that level of conversation. They aren't roleplaying a
character, they are merely playing a game.