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<H1>[MUD-Dev] Re: (fwd) AD: [custom graphical] whitestar Crossfire MUD</H1>
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<LI><em>To</em>: "'<A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A>'" <<A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A>></LI>
<LI><em>Subject</em>: [MUD-Dev] Re: (fwd) AD: [custom graphical] whitestar Crossfire MUD </LI>
<LI><em>From</em>: Adam Wiggins <<A HREF="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</A>></LI>
<LI><em>Date</em>: Mon, 4 May 1998 14:15:48 -0700 (PDT)</LI>
<LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
<LI><em>Sender</em>: "Petidomo List Agent -- Kanga.Nu version" <<A HREF="mailto:petidomo#kanga,nu">petidomo#kanga,nu</A>></LI>
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<PRE>
On Mon, 4 May 1998, Koster, Raph wrote:
> I'd be curious to hear what the motivations of those on the list are.
> Or as a broader topic: what do people see as motives for people
> crafting muds? One of the primary motivations I have seen in the past
> is, "to make a game like the one I used to play until they changed it
> on me." How much of the stagnation of mud development do you think is
> attributable to this motive?
I always think of myself as making the game I thought I was playing in the
first place. That is; when I first started playing muds, I imagined them
as being carefully-balanced game worlds modeled in intricate detail and
controlled by an intensely complicated set of neural nets. I imagined the
players as being devoted followers whose primary concern was complete
immersion in the game world and their role. I imagined NPCs with
long-reaching personal agendas.
Obviously it didn't take very long for me to realize that they were
actually a ramshackle collection of "areas" written with what was
frequently far less detail or interactivitey than an old Infocom game;
that the AI scripts for NPCs rarely exceeded fifty lines or kept any sort
of storage; and that the game mechanics were mostly a huge list of
conditional logic for handling special cases. (The first mud I played had
such a huge number of special-case handlers that I was fooled into
thinking it was much more comprehensive than it actually was.)
So, I set to trying to create a world which had all the posibilities which
current muds overlook. Mainly this involved re-examining the fundamnetals
of the server design and philosophy and decided what were the worthwhile
of current muds that I (we, actually) wanted to preserve. We found that
many of those qualities were practically side-effects of the way that the
muds worked, and set about trying to integrate those things into the base
design. We wanted to model things in such a way that you had both the
fantastic and exciting elements of heroic fantasy without using the linear
and closed world of a normal RPG.
Was this commercialy viable? Of course not. But it has been extremelly
rewarding in ways that catering to the mass market never is. And, there
is a commercial venture (potentially a big-name one) on the horizon for
Orion and myself to which I hope that we can apply all that we've learned
with our experiments to make a completely unique kind of gameplay, just as
Raph did with Ultima Online.
Adam
--
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.
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<LI><STRONG><A NAME="00353" HREF="msg00353.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: (fwd) AD: [custom graphical] whitestar Crossfire MUD</A></STRONG>
<UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> "Koster, Raph" <rkoster#origin,ea.com></LI></UL></LI>
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<ul><li>Thread context:
<BLOCKQUOTE><UL>
<LI><STRONG>[MUD-Dev] Re: (fwd) AD: [custom graphical] whitestar Crossfi</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM>
<ul compact>
<ul compact>
<ul compact>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00328" HREF="msg00328.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: (fwd) AD: [custom graphical] whitestar Crossfi</A></strong>,
Jon A. Lambert <a href="mailto:jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com">jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com</a>, Sat 02 May 1998, 17:11 GMT
</LI>
</ul>
</ul>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00747" HREF="msg00747.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: (fwd) AD: [custom graphical] whitestar Crossfire MUD</A></strong>,
Chris Gray <a href="mailto:cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA">cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA</a>, Sun 26 Apr 1998, 16:00 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00255" HREF="msg00255.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: (fwd) AD: [custom graphical] whitestar Crossfire MUD</A></strong>,
Jay Sax <a href="mailto:cimri1#gte,net">cimri1#gte,net</a>, Thu 30 Apr 1998, 01:43 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00353" HREF="msg00353.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: (fwd) AD: [custom graphical] whitestar Crossfire MUD</A></strong>,
Koster, Raph <a href="mailto:rkoster#origin,ea.com">rkoster#origin,ea.com</a>, Mon 04 May 1998, 07:53 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00372" HREF="msg00372.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: (fwd) AD: [custom graphical] whitestar Crossfire MUD</A></strong>,
Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</a>, Mon 04 May 1998, 14:47 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00401" HREF="msg00401.html">[MUD-Dev] Motivations (was something else...)</A></strong>,
s001gmu <a href="mailto:s001gmu#nova,wright.edu">s001gmu#nova,wright.edu</a>, Tue 05 May 1998, 15:55 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00403" HREF="msg00403.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Motivations (was something else...)</A></strong>,
Richard Woolcock <a href="mailto:KaVir#dial,pipex.com">KaVir#dial,pipex.com</a>, Tue 05 May 1998, 16:39 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00358" HREF="msg00358.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: (fwd) AD: [custom graphical] whitestar Crossfire MUD</A></strong>,
Jay Sax <a href="mailto:cimri1#gte,net">cimri1#gte,net</a>, Mon 04 May 1998, 10:16 GMT
</LI>
</ul>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00654" HREF="msg00654.html">[MUD-Dev] How to represent a 3d object...</A></strong>,
Ben Greear <a href="mailto:greear#cyberhighway,net">greear#cyberhighway,net</a>, Sat 25 Apr 1998, 02:44 GMT
</LI>
</UL></BLOCKQUOTE>
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