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Old 07-23-2008, 06:11 AM   #17
shasarak
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Emily's Shop
Posts: 60
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Re: Triggers, scripts, and bots

I don't know if you're being deliberately stupid or merely stupid, but I'll have a go at clarifying things for you.

Think about why a typical person would want to play soccer. Does a person play a sport because he hates the experience, because every single second of the game he is desparately longing to be doing something, anything else except play this awful, dull, insufferable, pointless thing, but he is nonethless obliged to keep playing anyway because it's the only way he is able to obtain an orange (at half-time)?

If a person actually were in that position he might understandably resent someone who is able to go to the shop and buy his own oranges. "Damn it, he doesn't deserve an orange, he hasn't done the work he needs to do to earn the right to eat an orange!" he might say.

However, it is considerably more likely that the reason a person plays soccer is because he enjoys playing soccer. If someone else chooses not to play soccer (because he doesn't like the game) but instead decides to go to the shop and buy an orange instead, that does not mean he is cheating at soccer. Sure the "reward" that he gets is the same, and it is obtained by other, more direct means, and requires less physical effort; but if that's the way you view soccer (that it's an inherently horrible and unejoyable activity whose sole function or purpose is to obtain oranges) then, frankly, you've missed the point. Actually the purpose and function of soccer is that it is enjoyable to play. Paying soccer is an end in itself: the pleasurable experience of playing is why people do it. If someone chooses not to play it and obtain oranges by another method, there is no earthly reason why soccer players should be upset by that. The sensible reaction is to shrug and say "well, I don't understand why that guy doesn't enjoy sport, but if he doesn't, that's his prerogative."

Similarly, the purpose of playing a MUD is to have fun. Part of the way in which the average player has fun is by completing tasks that require effort or ingenuity to complete, and he quite rightly derives satisfaction from doing that. A MUD in which everyone starts out at max level and which has no challenge is not fun. So, clearly MUDs shouldn't function like that precisely because MUDs are supposed to be about fun not about hard, unenjoyable labour that you only endure because of the reward you get at the end. If any MUD admin thinks it's okay for MUDs not to be enjoyable to play (and that does, of course, include those who think that a complete absence of challenge is not a problem) then I have no desire to play his MUD.

This is what I mean by "MUDs are not work": the purpose of a MUD is to have fun.
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