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<H1>[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</H1>
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<LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
<LI><em>Subject</em>: [MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</LI>
<LI><em>From</em>: "Dr. Cat" <<A HREF="mailto:cat#bga,com">cat#bga,com</A>></LI>
<LI><em>Date</em>: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 19:18:50 -0500 (CDT)</LI>
<LI><em>Cc</em>: <A HREF="mailto:pixel#bga,com">pixel#bga,com</A></LI>
<LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
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<PRE>
> Marian Griffith wrote....
>
> Actually, what I wondered was why things are so vastly different between
> reality and games. And what it is in reality that prevents the vast ma-
> jority of people to form rampaging warbands that loot and kill everybody
> and everything.
Ok, let's start out with the biggest one. In most games, when you die,
you can either get ressurected or else make a brand new character, and go
right on trying to enjoy the game in one fashion or another.
In real life, when you die, as far as we know your ability to play this
"Earth" game is ended, done, kaput, over. (While there's speculation
that you get to go play some variant of a game called "Afterlife"
instead, there's no consensus on this topic, which often provokes intense
debate.)
This is a huge difference. Strictly from a risk/reward standpoint, the
members of rampaging warbands online risk losing whatever you lose when
you get killed and ressurect or start over with a new character. Whereas
risking getting killed in real life is considered by many to mean you are
risking losing EVERYTHING.
People who think "we're just simulating reality, well a reality where
magic works and there are dragons, but other than that..." will tend to
believe you can and should get all your solutions by mirroring real world
solutions to social issues. I think they will also end up missing out in
situations where there's a totally unrealistic, weird, ludicrous, but
entirely codeable and workable solution that works better.
To really implement the "real world" solution accurately, a first step
would be to make it so that any given player can only create one
character, there's no magical ressurection, and if they die they are
banned from ever playing the game. I think most mud developers would
prefer not to do that. But it might make a very interesting experiment
for some student to do some day, maybe even write a paper on.
To go further though, you might observer that game-death doesn't cause
the player to lose anything outside the game, thus they don't have as
strong a motivation to avoid it as, say, dying in a knife fight in RL.
Their character is gone and they can't play that game any more, but they
can go play some other game much like it, instead. Not to mention they
can still eat, drink, watch movies, read books, etc. etc. They've really
only lost a tiny percentage of what they can do in life, so it's still
much more reasonable-seeming a choice for them to go and start a raiding
party, or be an assassin, or whatever.
So to get a higher degree or accuracy in your simulation, you could
conceivably announce to your players that anyone dying in the game will
be tracked down and shot dead in real life. This would likely instill a
very HIGH level of motivation amongst the player base to weigh the
potential consequences of their actions seriously. Especially after they
heard of the first few players being stalked and murdered after their
character got killed in the game. However, I think that NO mud
developers will choose this approach.
This is just a reminder that while there are some similarities in what
happens in simulations and real life, there will ALWAYS be huge
differences in the nature of the player's emotional involvement in the
situations therein and the structure of their motivations and their
actions there. Simply the fact of being a simulation is enough to
guarantee this, even if the simulation is amazingly detailed and
accurate. When you're dealing with current levels of technology, where
simulations are very rough, lacking in detail, and differ from reality in
enormous numbers of ways, that just adds one MORE reason that there are
big differences in behaviors and motivations of players. But there will
always be some difference.
Consider the Star Trek Holodeck, and the fact that some people will do
things there that they'd never do in real life. Attacking and killing
innocent people, or engaging in a romantic encounter with a near-perfect
replica of someone they're too shy to approach in real life. The virtual
paramour comes with no risk of rejection, no risk of embarassing you by
anything they might say to your real-life friends, no risk of them being
dissapointed in anything about you. And you can shut them down any time
you need or want to, and turn them back on (so to speak) later at your
convenience.
Movies started out by putting stage plays on in front of a movie camera
and recording them. TV started out by taking popular radio shows, and
pointing TV cameras at the people so you could see them. But eventually
people figured out what the new medium itself was, what its strength
were, what would "play well" there.
MUDs are still in that early stage, trying to mimic real fights, real
wars, real environments. But what if we figured out what the medium is
in and of itself, where it's different than reality and offers its own
unique set of possibilities as well as limitations? What if we figured
out what a "virtual war" is really like, a virtual environment, and how
to make it the best virtual thing it could be, rather than the best
imitation of something it isn't and can't be? If we learned how to "play
to the strengths of the medium"?
I'll say it again. The key secret is that it's all made out of the human
attention. Attention is the currency of the future.
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test:
*-------------------------------------------** <A HREF="http://www.bga.com/furcadia">http://www.bga.com/furcadia</A>
Furcadia - a new graphic mud for PCs! || Let your imagination soar!
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
</PRE>
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<li><strong><A NAME="00316" HREF="msg00316.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>
<ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Marian Griffith <gryphon#iaehv,nl></li></ul>
<li><strong><A NAME="00302" HREF="msg00302.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>
<ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban#darklock,com></li></ul>
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<LI><STRONG><A NAME="00283" HREF="msg00283.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></STRONG>
<UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Marian Griffith <gryphon#iaehv,nl></LI></UL></LI>
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<ul><li>Thread context:
<BLOCKQUOTE><UL>
<LI><STRONG>[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM>
<ul compact>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00152" HREF="msg00152.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Michael.Willey <a href="mailto:Michael.Willey#abnamro,com">Michael.Willey#abnamro,com</a>, Fri 10 Jul 1998, 17:03 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00204" HREF="msg00204.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Maddy <a href="mailto:maddy#fysh,org">maddy#fysh,org</a>, Tue 14 Jul 1998, 13:22 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00283" HREF="msg00283.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Marian Griffith <a href="mailto:gryphon#iaehv,nl">gryphon#iaehv,nl</a>, Tue 21 Jul 1998, 21:19 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00285" HREF="msg00285.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Matthew R. Sheahan <a href="mailto:chaos#crystal,palace.net">chaos#crystal,palace.net</a>, Tue 21 Jul 1998, 21:39 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00301" HREF="msg00301.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Dr. Cat <a href="mailto:cat#bga,com">cat#bga,com</a>, Wed 22 Jul 1998, 02:32 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00302" HREF="msg00302.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Wed 22 Jul 1998, 04:19 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00316" HREF="msg00316.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Marian Griffith <a href="mailto:gryphon#iaehv,nl">gryphon#iaehv,nl</a>, Wed 22 Jul 1998, 20:36 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00291" HREF="msg00291.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Travis S. Casey <a href="mailto:efindel#io,com">efindel#io,com</a>, Tue 21 Jul 1998, 22:59 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00295" HREF="msg00295.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Matt Chatterley <a href="mailto:matt#mpc,dyn.ml.org">matt#mpc,dyn.ml.org</a>, Wed 22 Jul 1998, 00:45 GMT
</LI>
</ul>
</LI>
</UL></BLOCKQUOTE>
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