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

[John Buehler]

Richard A. Bartle writes:

> On 07 March 2007, John Buehler wrote:
> >Character-character collision detection is certainly solveable:
> >http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/crowd-flows/
> >I very much enjoyed the animations.
> 	The 54Mb download was a little too large for me, but do those
> collision detections show what happens when a small group of people
> try to prevent a large group of people from entering an area?

Such an intent cannot be introduced into the system as far as I can tell.
The purpose of their software is to figure out how to get groups to flow
past and through each other, not to jam up.  Because the characters are all
ultimately controlled by the computer, it works.

That is the root of my own thinking about character operation.  That they
should be far less dependent on the player.  This means that they would
follow some basic social conventions - such as not impeding the actions of
characters determined to be friendly in the context of the game.  It means
that they would also follow some basic natural instincts - such as defending
themselves when somebody attacks them.

The University of Washington software simply demonstrates what a game world
could be like with semi-autonomous characters.

> >Players don't complain about the
> >weakness of the emote system.  It's a toy aspect of MMORPGs.
> 	But it's one that does annoy people if it's done wrong; or, rather,
> if it's done right then they notice when it's done wrong.

I simply don't believe that the vast majority of graphical combat game
players have any interest in emote systems.  Any more than they have an
interest in chatting.  These are players who are drawn to graphical
depictions of realtime combat combined with advancement.  "Talking is for
girls"

For emotes and chat to be pertinent in a game, the game itself must
naturally incorporate emotes and chat.  I don't mean that we need to smile
at monsters, but that the basic activity of the game is a strong attractor
for socializers.  Combat games (as they exist today) are not strong on
socialization.  Ergo, emoting and chatting are irrelevant, regardless of how
well the systems are done.

That's true of any system or feature that isn't properly aligned with the
root ethic of a game's entertainment.  Chatting and emoting in Second Life?
Definitely.  In World of Warcraft?  Does it get me my tier 3 gear?

JB