<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations --> <!--X-From-R13: "Re. Qng" <pngNernygvzr.arg> --> <!--X-Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 20:35:07 -0800 --> <!--X-Message-Id: 200001240421.WAA75238#sullivan,realtime.net --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: E12BvzI-0000v1-00#kanga,nu --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, Re: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:cat#realtime,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="msg00221.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00223.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00221.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00223.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00222">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00222">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00222">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</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>: Re: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: "Dr. Cat" <<A HREF="mailto:cat#realtime,net">cat#realtime,net</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 22:21:27 -0600 (CST)</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Sender</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu">mud-dev-admin#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> -- Start of included mail From: "F. Randall Farmer" <randy#communities,com> > Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 10:59:41 -0800 > A question: In what way do you manifest yourself as the immortal? In Furcadia, my partner and I appear as regular characters, for the most part. We want players to feel that we're people just like them, who enjoy spending time in the game world and socializing - which we do. I've delegated most of our early responsibilities for taking care of the few really persistent troublemakers to our volunteer staff, and refer most complaints to them. If people have questions about what's coming for the game in the future, I try to answer them all patiently and politely. When people make a big deal about me or call me a "god" or something, I invariable say "I'm just this cat you know", which I deliberately leave ambiguous. I intend for it to be unclear whether I mean "You know, I'm just another cat" or "I'm just some cat with whom you are acquainted", or perhaps both. I like it that way. I will confess that when we put a premium option into the game to let people have wings for a modest fee, I gave my partner and I both a set. When I add the option to turn them on and off, though, I intend to walk around without them a fair amount of the time. And when we add the more expensive (and therefore rarer and more "special") option to play as a dragon character, I intend to stay a cat - thus letting some of the players have a more rare and interesting form than the game founders. Anyway, one of the main purposes in going around amongst the players is to make them feel that the creators of the game care about the world and the community, and participate in it. With a secondary benefit of some percentage of the players getting the same pleasure that people get from meeting creators at public autographing sessions, book tours, etc. This is, of course, a solution that doesn't scale well at all. When the player base goes up by an order of magnitude, the amount of personal contact with the creators each player gets will go down by an order of magnitude. Still, I think it's vitally important to "seed" a new environment with a really strong sense of involvement and emotional bonding to each other and to the game. And I think we've been very effective at that. I just hope it will help shape the society that emerges when swarms of new people come flooding into the environment, rather than being swept away by them. I also hope that word can be made to get around that we play in the game regularly even when it's huge, through players talking to each other about it. I certainly heard a lot of talk on the net in the early days of Ultima Online about the fact that Lord British almost never logged on to play, and it was clear people wished he would. And it's also clear that when people became aware of Designer Dragon as someone who did spend time there and who did talk to people and answer questions, the community liked that quite a bit. I'd like to note, by the way, that I'm very glad to see you on the list. I've been following your work and your writings ever since the early Quantum Link days, and I always recommend the articles you and your colleagues wrote about Habitat as some of the best things to read to learn about online community issues. It's nice to finally get a chance to say thanks. Thanks! *-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------* Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test: *-------------------------------------------** <A HREF="http://www.bga.com/furcadia">http://www.bga.com/furcadia</A> Furcadia - a graphic mud for PCs! || Let your imagination soar! *-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------* _______________________________________________ MUD-Dev maillist - MUD-Dev#kanga,nu <A HREF="http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev">http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev</A> </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00221.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00223.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00221.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00223.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00222"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00222"><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] Community Relations</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00215" HREF="msg00215.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</A></strong>, Jon A. Lambert <a href="mailto:jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com">jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com</a>, Sat 22 Jan 2000, 05:40 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00216" HREF="msg00216.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</A></strong>, Matthew Mihaly <a href="mailto:diablo#best,com">diablo#best,com</a>, Sat 22 Jan 2000, 06:51 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00220" HREF="msg00220.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</A></strong>, Geoffrey A. MacDougall <a href="mailto:geoffrey#poptronik,com">geoffrey#poptronik,com</a>, Mon 24 Jan 2000, 02:49 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00221" HREF="msg00221.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</A></strong>, Matthew Mihaly <a href="mailto:diablo#best,com">diablo#best,com</a>, Mon 24 Jan 2000, 03:32 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00222" HREF="msg00222.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</A></strong>, Dr. Cat <a href="mailto:cat#realtime,net">cat#realtime,net</a>, Mon 24 Jan 2000, 04:35 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00223" HREF="msg00223.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</A></strong>, Jon A. Lambert <a href="mailto:jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com">jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com</a>, Mon 24 Jan 2000, 05:33 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00227" HREF="msg00227.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</A></strong>, Lovecraft <a href="mailto:dave#darkages,com">dave#darkages,com</a>, Fri 28 Jan 2000, 02:40 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00237" HREF="msg00237.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#kanga,nu">claw#kanga,nu</a>, Sun 30 Jan 2000, 07:30 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00228" HREF="msg00228.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Community Relations</A></strong>, Geoffrey A. MacDougall <a href="mailto:geoffrey#poptronik,com">geoffrey#poptronik,com</a>, Fri 28 Jan 2000, 05:01 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>