[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

[Mike Sellers <mike#bignetwork,com>]

At 03:20 PM 7/1/98 -0700, J C Lawrence wrote:
>> Finally, running things this way quickly becomes quasi-Stalinist
>> when control is entirely centralized and the penalty for stepping
>> outside the lines is swift, severe (IC death or OOC banishment from
>> the game), and hugely imperfect, being based on imperfect algorithms
>> and/or sysop preference.  This is, I believe, an adequate
>> description for how the majority of online worlds are currently run.
>
>A simple metric for when we can safely sit back, count our laurel
>leaves, and sigh, "We've done it!":

Yes -- well, that is, if laurel leaves are what you use for currency. :-)

>  When the invading hordes of hormonally challenged genitalia
>measuring masses (or any other demographic of choice) can trample into
>an existent and populated game world and be simply absorbed and
>digested whole-cloth by the established social systems in the game
>world.

*Precisely.*  The social systems need to be robust, flexible, and
homeostatic enough to absorb and make use of such incursions -- though of
course, no homeostatic system is perfect...

>A reasonable comparitive, as well as assorted models, may be the
>attempted handlings of the Mongols by the Chinese.  The most
>interesting of which to me was when they just let them invade
>uncontested, yielded power, married them, bred with them, and utterly
>consumed them to the point of indistinguishability within a few
>generations.

So what we have now is the Great Wall Approach?  "You guys who want swords
just stay over there!"  

Actually, I think your comment is spot on: absorbing a horde of Quake
refugees might take a little while, but it can be done, if the right
mechanisms are in place.

I wonder how long it will take until we have something like this... 10-15
years?  Longer?

--

Mike Sellers       Chief Creative Officer       The Big Network
mike#bignetwork,com                  
<http://www.bignetwork.com/>http://www.bignetwork.com

                       Fun   Is   Good