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

[Michael Hartman]

Dana V. Baldwin wrote:
> 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.

Actually, MUDs do indeed do conversation better, and Graphical games do
it worse. Why? The interface.

While playing your typical MUD, you are at a command line interface. You
are already typing every command you want to enter. Thus, to communicate
you do not have to move your mouse, press enter to begin chatting, or
have a storm of windows fly up when you try to chat and somehow fail to
get your mouse cursor "active" in the chat window (causing all the
letters of the words you are trying to speak to actually be received as
hotkeys for openining windows, firing of abilities, etc.).

While playing a graphical game, your left hand is generally in the WASD
configuration with your right hand on the mouse. This means that to
actually chat, you have to disrupt this standard configuration, execute
some type of command (hitting enter to go into "chat mode" or click your
mouse cursor into a chat box) and THEN begin chatting.

While playing a MUD, you are always in "chat mode" and can instantly
chat without having to change the way you are oriented with the keyboard
interface.

This is actually a very significant difference between graphical MMOs
and MUDs. As a result of this, chatting will always be easier (and
generally superior) on a MUD.