18 Jul, 2007, Zeno wrote in the 1st comment:
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18 Jul, 2007, Vladaar wrote in the 2nd comment:
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Interesting read,

Thanks Zeno.

Vladaar
18 Jul, 2007, Omega wrote in the 3rd comment:
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very cute :)
18 Jul, 2007, Zenn wrote in the 4th comment:
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Hahaha. Close WoW!

Hmm. Notice how they talked about 'MUD' as if there was only one.


Zenn the Admin has lost his mind.
18 Jul, 2007, Guest wrote in the 5th comment:
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Nice read.

I seem to fall into his same category. I can't just "play" anymore after having coded and built for so long.

I'm also so sick of hearing people talking about WoW that if I could afford to take it over the first thing I'd do is delete it all forever - and I wouldn't be anonymous about it either :)
18 Jul, 2007, Omega wrote in the 6th comment:
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Go samson! WOO! Close WoW!

HAHA..

anyways, I write my own mud so that I can simply have a good one to play when I am done :P playing by my standards means
having uber features and code, so until sandstorm is entirely done, coded with all the features, debugged to the best of my ability
optimized, and then have the entire world built, quests written, and all that jazz, I don't think I'll be a 'player' till all that is done.



So… 20 years from now I'll be good :)
18 Jul, 2007, Zenn wrote in the 7th comment:
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Samson said:
delete it all forever - and I wouldn't be anonymous about it either :)


You would recieve death threats and hate mail daily, plus visits from military sharpshooters. Lol.

Zenn the Admin has lost his MIND!
18 Jul, 2007, Exodus wrote in the 8th comment:
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Richard Bartle is my hero. Did anyone check out the trailer for the 3D Mailbox? That thing is so utterly stupid it frightens me.
18 Jul, 2007, Scandum wrote in the 9th comment:
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The usual pointless babbling of Bartle, you might as well watch Doctor Phil if you want fortune cookie wisdom.

Some quotes for shits and giggles:

"If a virtual world allows freeform communication, then its players will communicate." doh - lol

- Why do you think this altruism is lacking in modern online games?

"bla bla bla"

The obvious reason Bartle obviously fails to see is that muds were played by college students, who have little in common with the average person that plays an online game nowadays.

"it took me over 25 years before I had an explanation for how and why it happens. Sadly, that explanation is a two-hour lecture…" ROTFLOL

"virtual communities can become important, because at heart they're real communities." such wisdom!

"I've never played them as a player, I can't: I see the design and the machinery too clearly." Someone watched The Matrix one too many times.

"In today's virtual worlds, there are many components that are only there because they were in the worlds that the designers played. These things work, but the designers don't know - or even consider - why they work." You hear it folks, Bartle is the only one with a brain.

"I know this will happen because it's what happened in the days of text." he's psychic too!

"Do I gain anything from having to direct my character to read something I want to read?" Do I gain anything from reading these rhetorical questions?

"if you don't know it's there, you won't know to look." *eats a cookie*

"I don't have any more work creating virtual worlds for myself in the pipeline, as they cost too much to make and I'm hopeless at asking for money." Or maybe he's worried he's gonna be a miserable failure when it comes to doing the real thing.

"I'd take over World of Warcraft and I'd close it." jealousy is such a petty characteristic.
19 Jul, 2007, Guest wrote in the 10th comment:
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I sense Scandum should have taken the blue pill…..
19 Jul, 2007, Scandum wrote in the 11th comment:
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Samson said:
I sense Scandum should have taken the blue pill…..

There is no pill… *nods wisely*
20 Jul, 2007, Skol wrote in the 12th comment:
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I think I'd be more interested in hearing from Crowley about 'Dungen/Colossal Caves' or one of the Zork team. Although Bartle's stuff is definitely interesting at times, his self appointed 'I'm the Master'ism kind of wears thin. That being said, I'm still damned glad he made MUD and MUD2 with his friend some nearly 30 years ago ;p.
20 Jul, 2007, Conner wrote in the 13th comment:
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I'll give Bartle his credit, his endeavor started what we all work with today.. as for Crowley, I'd rather hear from Alister about other things myself.. *eg*
20 Jul, 2007, Omega wrote in the 14th comment:
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if bartle hadn't made mud, someone else would of, hell, it could be saand…

Ya know, Simulated Adventure and Nasty dungeons :P

WHO KNOWS!

Oi, and SAAND was the original name for sandstorm… Interesting how that works out eh?
20 Jul, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 15th comment:
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Scandum said:
jealousy is such a petty characteristic.


Indeed it is, Scandum. Indeed it is.

Darien said:
if bartle hadn't made mud, someone else would of


They already did - Milieu, later called "Scepter of Goth", was created the same year as (but completely independently from) MUD, and influenced or inspired a few other well-known muds (as well as the Mordor codebase). However it was MUD that left the biggest mark, and which primarily defined the genre.

If Karl Benz hadn't designed and patented the first internal combustion flat engine, someone else would have. If Sir Joseph Wilson Swan hadn't developed the light bulb, someone else would have. If Louis Jacques Daguerre and Joseph Nicéphore Niépce hadn't invented the first practical photographic method, someone else would have. But they did.

So yes, if Bartle and Trubshaw hadn't developed MUD and pioneered the genre, someone else would have. But Bartle and Trubshaw did develop MUD, and they did pioneer the genre.
20 Jul, 2007, Conner wrote in the 16th comment:
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Well said, KaVir. :smile:
20 Jul, 2007, Omega wrote in the 17th comment:
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indeed, Very well said :)
24 Jul, 2007, Stoli wrote in the 18th comment:
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Save your venom for the REAL "virtual world consultant" hacks, like Raph Koster and Jessica Mulligan. At least Bartle actually (at one time, at least) knows how to code. My only gripe about this "interview" was that he has apparently replaced "killer" with "griefer" in his "achievers, explorers, socialisers and killers" taxonomy. This is a shame, since - bottom line - there is little point to playing a multiplayer game if any and all methods of "imposing your will on other players" are removed. By that standard, even a chatroom will need complex filtering and blocking systems to "fight" against "griefing" (people saying things that others find offensive, etc).

I suspect that it's a side-effect of Bartle's new assertion that he is too "above it all" to enjoy playing games as a player. From that perspective, I could see how other players who approach the came as a competitive activity could be seen as "troublemakers". :rolleyes:
26 Jul, 2007, Valcados wrote in the 19th comment:
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Incidentally, I think the attitude that "I'm too good to play games anymore" kind of damages the community. Some coders, who seldom or never actually play the game, seem entirely fixated with changes which are utterly useless to the players. Eg, the players couldn't care less whether the MUD has been converted from C to C++, etc. Or whether their track skill uses a breadth first search or depth first search.

I find a good way to play MUDs as a coder is to go to the first MUD I played, and just play there several hours a week on a set day (Saturday for me) as just a player. Yes, at RoD I can "see the machine" quite clearly thanks to coding SMAUG for years. But I actively choose to play it anyway and have fun (and report any major bugs, when I see *that* part of the machine).

I'd rather have an amateur coder who actively, enthusiastically plays MUD games. Than a hulking God of C who "can't play". I can count on the former to come up with the most awesome, badass, unexpected changes (which I'll then have great fun ironing the bugs out of). And I can count on the latter to create lots of totally optimized, bugfree code which the players never freakin' see.
26 Jul, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 20th comment:
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Quote
Incidentally, I think the attitude that "I'm too good to play games anymore" kind of damages the community.


He didn't say that. What he said was "I visit the game worlds (MMORPGs) to see how they're designed. I don't play them as a player - I'm a designer. I've never played them as a player, I can't: I see the design and the machinery too clearly".

In other words he does play MMORPGs, but not "as a player", because he sees the underlying design instead of the external game.

I can see his point…to a degree. I played Guild Wars for a couple of weeks, but rapidly lost interest in it. Once upon a time I'd have probably found it fun, but when I entered combat I saw straight through the fancy graphics and thought "Oh, point-and-drool automated combat". The same with many of the other parts of the game, such as the restricted landscape, the collectors, the opponents, and so on. I found myself thinking of it as a fairly simple game with a few cool ideas (which I then pinched).

It's much the same when I log on to other muds to check them out, which I do from time to time. I'll occasionally see some cool ideas or concepts, but the old innocence that allowed me to spend hour after hour playing on an empty stock Merc mud is long gone.

For me to enjoy a game, it has to actually be something fun. Sticking some pretty graphics over the standard grind-grind-grind and jump-through-the-hoops just isn't going to fool me any more. There are some games I enjoy (including ones I've written myself), but most muds (graphical or otherwise) simply don't hold my attention.
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