<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design --> <!--X-From-R13: X Q Znjerapr <pynjNhaqre.rate.ftv.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 19:45:05 -0700 --> <!--X-Message-Id: 199810130243.TAA16638#under,engr.sgi.com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: 11A17AA2B9EAD111BCEA00A0C9B41793EDC07C#forest,origin.ea.com --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, [MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:claw#under,engr.sgi.com"> </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="msg00161.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00163.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00188.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00173.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00162">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00162">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00162">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: [MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design </LI> <LI><em>From</em>: J C Lawrence <<A HREF="mailto:claw#under,engr.sgi.com">claw#under,engr.sgi.com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 19:43:18 -0700</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> On Sat, 10 Oct 1998 12:50:39 -0500 Koster, Raph<rkoster#origin,ea.com> wrote: > A first pass on this project. Please feel free to question, > debate, add, etc. Only try to do it in pithy little statements. ;) > Many thanks to all those who helped with some of these laws, too. ... > J. C. Lawrence's "do it everywhere" law If you do it one place, > you have to do it everywhere. Players like clever things and will > search them out. Once they find a clever thing they will search > for other similar or related clever things that seem to be implied > by what they found and will get pissed off if they don't find > them. Following up here slightly, I recently ran across a quote from Larry Wall where he commented that Perl is very specifically not an orthogonal or even very logical language, but that it is an *expressive* language (sorry, I no longer have the text to quote). As such per standard CS design rules it is a nightmare, but is also a linguists delight. Earlier in the list's history I posted JWZ's, "Worse is Better" (<A HREF="http://www.jwz.org/worse-is-better.html">http://www.jwz.org/worse-is-better.html</A> -- highly recommended reading) with the comment that it partially explained Perl's success. Now throw in Bartle's socialisers (as verus the explorer bent which the above rule favours), and all of a sudden you've explained LambdaMOO's success and failure. LambdaMOO is (internally) atrociously designed, a heck of a long way from orthogonal, full of nasty little ugly corners with missing "Don't Go There!" signs, and vast inviting minefields carefully labelled "Picnic area". LambdaMOO also invites expressiveness. Expressiveness implicitly creates detail and "clever bits" to know, savour, horde, lord over others with, pass about as gossip, or create new forms of yourself. A just-good-enough expressive environment implicitly rewards and encourages player-creation. The current system is good enough to be tolerated, bad enough that the temptation to add or "fix" is strong, and __expressive__ enough to allow the basic medium of multi-player games (communication) to become a function of the expression rather than the parent of the expression (ie you use the expressive features of the environment to process communication rather than using communication to enact the expressive features). Have I lost anybody yet? This makes the idea of producing a game which is __deliberately__ unfinished and full of half-way-dones and almost-dones tempting. Make some bits fine and polished to whow what can be done. Make other bits pretty grotty and annoying. Balance carefully. Make sure the environment is expressive enough to lock in the player base and they'll do they rest for you. One translation: I'm thinking 3D rendered game where only a small fraction of the world is fully rendered, some is not rendered at all (beyond a glowing wireframe), and the rest in the middle is of various qualities. Two translation: Design of the internal programming language, and class/object heirarchy. Three translation: Don't strive for perfection, strive for expressive fertility. You can't create utopia, and if you did nobody would want to live there. You can howver create knee-deep cow patties and semi-implement admobe construction. -- J C Lawrence Internet: claw#null,net (Contractor) Internet: coder#ibm,net ---------(*) Internet: claw#under,engr.sgi.com ...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith... </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00147" HREF="msg00147.html">[MUD-Dev] Laws of Online World Design</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> "Koster, Raph" <rkoster#origin,ea.com></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00161.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00163.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00188.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00173.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00162"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00162"><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>[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00151" HREF="msg00151.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design</A></strong>, Ling <a href="mailto:K.L.Lo-94#student,lboro.ac.uk">K.L.Lo-94#student,lboro.ac.uk</a>, Sun 11 Oct 1998, 17:21 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00179" HREF="msg00179.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</a>, Tue 13 Oct 1998, 18:45 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00160" HREF="msg00160.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design</A></strong>, Darrin Hyrup <a href="mailto:shades#mythicgames,com">shades#mythicgames,com</a>, Tue 13 Oct 1998, 02:12 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00188" HREF="msg00188.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#under,engr.sgi.com">claw#under,engr.sgi.com</a>, Tue 13 Oct 1998, 22:14 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00162" HREF="msg00162.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#under,engr.sgi.com">claw#under,engr.sgi.com</a>, Tue 13 Oct 1998, 02:45 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00173" HREF="msg00173.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design</A></strong>, Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt <a href="mailto:hhs#cbs,dtu.dk">hhs#cbs,dtu.dk</a>, Tue 13 Oct 1998, 11:28 GMT </LI> </ul> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00135" HREF="msg00135.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Red Black Tree ?</A></strong>, Valerio Santinelli <a href="mailto:tanis#mediacom,it">tanis#mediacom,it</a>, Fri 09 Oct 1998, 15:29 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00136" HREF="msg00136.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Red Black Tree ?</A></strong>, T. Alexander Popiel <a href="mailto:popiel#snugharbor,com">popiel#snugharbor,com</a>, Fri 09 Oct 1998, 18:08 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00141" HREF="msg00141.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Red Black Tree ?</A></strong>, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Fri 09 Oct 1998, 21:10 GMT </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>