[MUD-Dev2] Bad Terminology: MMO, MMORPG vs. MUD

[Acius]

Adam Martin wrote:
> 2008/9/5 cruise <cruise at casual-tempest.net>:
>> Thus spake Kerry Fraser-Robinson...
>>> I'd certainly rather be using POW than MMO or even VW.  But there's the
>>> rub.  Even when we come up with an acronym we all prefer, we've then got to
>>> start propagating the meme pretty voraciously if we're going to supplant the
>>> MMOxxx set with it.
>> Well based on the feedback from here I've already started suggesting it on
>> message-boards I frequent. Presumably if those of us making these games
>> refer to it thusly, it will filter on through...
> 
> This is all tongue-in-cheek, right? I'm English, so I know my
> standards of sarcasm are not international standard at the best of
> times, especially not in pure text, and in some cases I'm never
> entirely sure :).
> 
> Insert quote here, something about History, Ignoring, and Doom.

No, I think they're pretty serious. It's not that POW is the best 
possible acronym, it's just that folks hate MMOxxx that badly.

It's true that "POW" can stand for Prisoner of War, although in the USA 
that mostly connotes action movies, so it's not a big negative. It might 
carry more negative connotations in Britain, but I don't live there, so 
I wouldn't know (and it was the British who gave us the Pow! comic, so I 
don't think it's *that* bad). The term is also already heavily 
overloaded among geeks, so adding on another acronym isn't a big 
stretch. "POW!" is one of the standard comic-book sound effects for an 
explosive discharge. The Mario Brothers games often have "POW" blocks, 
which are used to shake the entire stage and flip all of the monsters 
upside-down. It also doesn't hurt that POW form the first three letters 
of "power," which is a pseudo-cognate in Japanese (so it works there too).

Anyway, I think it's a better acronym than MMOXYZ, both because of 
pronunciation and dominant connotations. I'm not sure which bit of 
history you think we'd be ignoring.

-- Adam