RE: [MUD-Dev] Guilds & Politics [was Affecting the World]

["Koster, Raph" <rkoster#origin,ea.com>]

On Friday, December 05, 1997 7:10 AM, Ola Fosheim 
Grøstad[SMTP:olag#ifi,uio.no] wrote:
> I've got one question here.  Both UO and M59 was marketed as
> roleplaying games right.  What's wrong about being a jerk then? 
 Will
> this tendency translate well to non-roleplaying games?

That was more than one question! As for the first question: being a 
jerk, of course, doesn't necessarily equal roleplaying. In either 
case, we have far more jerks than a roleplaying game usually supports 
in terms of villains. :)

As far as how it translates to non-rpgs... well, so far every single 
social phenomenon we've seen in UO we've also seen in Subspace 
(Virgin's Asteroids-like client-server game with fluid teams): we've 
seen the KK rallies both places, the spammers both places, the 
"roleplayers" both places... When writing my reply to Mike earlier, 
every time I made a statement I kept checking it in my mind against 
the Dibbell article, and going "did this hold true on LambdaMOO? Yes." 
I suspect the nature of the environment may change the nature of the 
manifestation of this social trend, and the degree of it, but it won't 
change it THAT much...

> >local level (and re: long range communication -- you *do* know that 
many UO
> >players use ICQ or Ichat while playing to talk to others at long 
distance,
> >don't you?).
>
> I recall M59 users using external programs for chatting as well.

There are numerous reasons to do this. Even muds that afford wide 
ranges of communication capabilities end up with this phenomenon. 
Legend has tell, gtell, global channels, dynamically themed 
conferences, OOC spaces, newsletter, discussion lists, web chat board, 
bulletin boards, and STILL gets groups forming their own off-mud and 
off-site channels of group communication.

I said:
> >>So I have an answer to that question of a while ago, "How DO you
> >>govern a mud with thousands of players?" Well, you try not to, but 
in
> [...]

And Mike Sellers answered:
> >many of the code crutches as we can.  I don't think the solutions 
we've
> >seen thus far scale to where the Net and online entertainment 
spaces are
> >going to be in, say, three to five years.  IMO, we absolutely must 
stop

So Ola asked:
> I've got another question.  Does thousands (or rather millions) of
> players add anything vital to the experience at all?  Maybe 
thousands
> of separate systems with several hundred players each is equally
> rewarding, even more rewarding, because the probability of bumping
> into a friend is higher.

A straight answer: I don't actually know. Perhaps those who have 
extensively played Meridian 59 (which follows the model you suggest) 
and UO both could offer a perspective on it.

-Raph