<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding? --> <!--X-From-R13: pbqreNvoz.arg --> <!--X-Date: from stimpy.globecomm.net [207.51.48.4] by in12.ibm.net id 870402359.29912-1 Fri Aug 1 02:25:59 1997 CUT --> <!--X-Message-Id: 199708010225.CAA29060#out2,ibm.net --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:coder#ibm,net"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg00320.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00322.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00477.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00323.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00321">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00321">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00321">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#null,net">mud-dev#null,net</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: <A HREF="mailto:coder#ibm,net">coder#ibm,net</A></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Thu, 31 Jul 97 19:23:57 -0700</LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> Brandon, who just joined us on the list, (we have 4 or 5 Bandons here now?) just plopped the following in r.g.m.a. Copied here for better response: From: "Brandon Van Every" <vanevery#blarg,net> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin Subject: DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding? A reflective question: what is the purpose of MUDding? An immediate and tempting answer is "it varies from person to person." That's true, but how many different approaches to MUDding are there nowadays, really? Leaving the "serious and scholarly" applications of MUDs aside for the moment, I've seen most people do MUDs for one of the following reasons: - to socialize in a "real-life" style - to play a "wealth and combat" game - to role-play - to code and build I have a somewhat different interest in MUDs: "to transform the ordinary forms of online community interaction." There are a lot of accepted conventions about how people and objects should behave on MUDs, mirroring the way people behave in the real world. I'm interested more in stepping through the mirror, and seeing what's on the other side. This can turn a lot of MUDding's "sacred cows" upside down: spoofing becomes an ordinary form of perception, player-killing becomes a non-issue because "death" isn't really separable from "life," the centrality of player and object ownership is not particularly important, and anyone might as well have just as much power as anyone else. Are there other admins out there who are interested in exploring a "Through The Looking Glass" approach to social interaction? Or if not, would you care to discuss your reasons for not wanting to engage in such experiments? Here's an idea for a world that's borne out of the technical limitations of my computing environment. I have a PPP connection and a clunker 486 that I'm due to replace. Since I'm not willing to shell out mega-$$$$ for a dedicated line or a T1 link out of my home, this leaves me with very limited bandwidth to run a MUD. Using a store-and-forward approach off my ISP's UNIX server, it might be possible to squeeze up to 4 people online at some off-hour time of day. So, how would one successfully populate such a world? I'm thinking with automatons. Wherein players can connect into various automatons, control them, and nobody's really quite sure if they're interacting with an automaton or a real human being. In the absence of controlling players, the automatons keep trundling along by themselves. The universe itself would be similarly "screwy and suspect," to keep life interesting. Cheers, -- Brandon J. Van Every <vanevery#blarg,net> DEC Commodity Graphics <A HREF="http://www.blarg.net/~vanevery">http://www.blarg.net/~vanevery</A> Windows NT Alpha OpenGL ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The anvil upon which you hammer another's words is as hard or as soft as you care to make it. Wherein lies insight? -- J C Lawrence Internet: claw#null,net ----------(*) Internet: coder#ibm,net ...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith... -- J C Lawrence Internet: claw#null,net ----------(*) Internet: coder#ibm,net ...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith... </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <ul compact><li><strong>Follow-Ups</strong>: <ul> <li><strong><A NAME="00475" HREF="msg00475.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> clawrenc#cup,hp.com</li></ul> <li><strong><A NAME="00474" HREF="msg00474.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> clawrenc#cup,hp.com</li></ul> <li><strong><A NAME="00323" HREF="msg00323.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Matt Chatterley <root#mpc,dyn.ml.org></li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00320.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] C&C and Event Rescheduling</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00322.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Persistance/stability</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00477.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00323.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00321"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00321"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00325" HREF="msg00325.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></strong>, Brandon Van Every <a href="mailto:vanevery#blarg,net">vanevery#blarg,net</a>, Sat 02 Aug 1997, 00:34 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00326" HREF="msg00326.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></strong>, Matt Chatterley <a href="mailto:root#mpc,dyn.ml.org">root#mpc,dyn.ml.org</a>, Sat 02 Aug 1997, 01:30 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00471" HREF="msg00471.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></strong>, clawrenc <a href="mailto:clawrenc#cup,hp.com">clawrenc#cup,hp.com</a>, Mon 11 Aug 1997, 22:44 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00477" HREF="msg00477.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></strong>, Jeff Kesselman <a href="mailto:jeffk#tenetwork,com">jeffk#tenetwork,com</a>, Mon 11 Aug 1997, 23:24 GMT </LI> </ul> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00321" HREF="msg00321.html">DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></strong>, coder <a href="mailto:coder#ibm,net">coder#ibm,net</a>, Fri 01 Aug 1997, 09:25 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00323" HREF="msg00323.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></strong>, Matt Chatterley <a href="mailto:root#mpc,dyn.ml.org">root#mpc,dyn.ml.org</a>, Fri 01 Aug 1997, 13:30 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00470" HREF="msg00470.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></strong>, clawrenc <a href="mailto:clawrenc#cup,hp.com">clawrenc#cup,hp.com</a>, Mon 11 Aug 1997, 22:31 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00472" HREF="msg00472.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></strong>, Matt Chatterley <a href="mailto:root#mpc,dyn.ml.org">root#mpc,dyn.ml.org</a>, Mon 11 Aug 1997, 22:55 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00476" HREF="msg00476.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: The purpose of MUDding?</A></strong>, Jeff Kesselman <a href="mailto:jeffk#tenetwork,com">jeffk#tenetwork,com</a>, Mon 11 Aug 1997, 23:23 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>