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Burr · 07-19-2002, 10:16 PM

It occurred to me that the best roleplay would come from placing yourself in a new, but real, situation, rather than pretending to be in such a situation. (That is, it would be if we were to define roleplay as acting in a role that isn't your normal role.) Increasing the reality of a situation does not necessarily decrease the "play" of the roleplay. After all, are we not playing in the real world, at the same moment that we are working or fighting in the fantasy world? Our play is very real; it is the work and fighting that is not.

So what if rather than starting with the idea of creating a world for fake work and fighting, and hoping to make it playful on a more real level, we tried to create a world specifically for real play.

If I haven't been so vague as to absolutely confuse you all, then I'm sure one of you is right now thinking of how "utopian" muds were created in the past, and they just didn't work as well as the muds that had some amount of psychological risk (thus making them game-play rather than just play). But I think such a mud <i>could</i> work well now that people have more experience creating virtual worlds.

Someone recently posted an article that talked a lot about the Sims. I submit the success of the Sims as evidence to support my claim. I haven't had the opportunity to play it myself, but from what I gather, yes, there is gameplay involved in the Sims. However, I infer from the article that there is much less than there is in muds. The game focuses on the creation worlds to live in, not so much on the attempt to live in the world. The game focuses on real play derived in large part from pretend play, not so much on real play derived from pretend work. Often, because the play focuses on sociability, the play isn't pretend at all.

However, like a lot of muds, even the Sims limits itself. The creators of the Sims, just like the creators of all the muds I'm familiar with, are evolving their world in large part as an imitation of the real world, rather than as a real extension of it. It's as if we are saying, "Well, it's not real, but it will just have to do."

The Internet is real. It has real limits, real capabilities, and real potential, not to mention real people. One of the Internet's capabilities, through telnet, is the ability to organize information into the navigable sections that we call "rooms" in muds. But just because we call them "rooms" doesn't mean we have to limit ourselves to concepts we might call "rooms" in the real world. For example, here's an admittedly half-baked idea I had while writing this post:

1) Somehow obtain permission to the text of a good book.
2) Put each page of the book in a single room.
3) Add page-by-page navigation, as well as a teleportation type navigation.
4) Encourage people to read the book in this way together. Give them means to talk and such on the way.
4) In pages that describe a battle, allow fighting.
5) In pages that have dialogue, have NPCs act it out, or allow the readers to roleplay alternate conversations.

Now they aren't "rooms" at all, but "pages."

Of course, as I said, that was just a half-baked idea for the purposes of giving example. My real purpose for writing this long post was to bring up the idea of creating a real world rather than a pretend world in a mud, a True World.

What distinguishes a True World from a pretend world? For one, in creating a True World, no limits would be created merely for the sake of imitating the real world. Why force people to navigate slowly if, with the option to teleport or some such thing, they can achieve their goals much faster? Real limits, those that would be accepted (though only temporarily), would be things like the number of coders on hand, the capabilities of the server, the amount of information that a person can absorb at one time, etc.

Another thing that would distinguish a True World from a pretend world is that the risk (or the gameplay, which ever you want to call it) would evolve naturally, such as those from real conflicts of real motivations of real people in a world with real limits. That is to say, create a complex enough world, and the gameplay will come all by itself, just like in the real world. Oh, but it isn't fun gameplay. Murder and theft in the real world aren't fun. That isn't the point. On the level of mudding, being pked isn't fun either. The fun is in the life you lead in the world despite the rather un-fun gameplay.

Now, this isn't all to say that the creators of muds have been wrong all along. Rather - as I believe was also mention in the article recently posted - the history of muds has been a beneficial evolution. Limiting ourselves with imitations of the real world as we are used to it is much like limiting a student to the laws of Newtonian physics before teaching him Einstein's theories.

I suppose my conclusion is that a True World is what we are evolving towards. Like Marx, I think certain evolutions can be inevitable, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't help it along if and when we can. The best world we can create on the Internet will be, by definition, a True World, and it would be foolish to strive for any world other than the best we reach.

07-19-2002, 10:16 PM	#1
Burr Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 123	It occurred to me that the best roleplay would come from placing yourself in a new, but real, situation, rather than pretending to be in such a situation. (That is, it would be if we were to define roleplay as acting in a role that isn't your normal role.) Increasing the reality of a situation does not necessarily decrease the "play" of the roleplay. After all, are we not playing in the real world, at the same moment that we are working or fighting in the fantasy world? Our play is very real; it is the work and fighting that is not. So what if rather than starting with the idea of creating a world for fake work and fighting, and hoping to make it playful on a more real level, we tried to create a world specifically for real play. If I haven't been so vague as to absolutely confuse you all, then I'm sure one of you is right now thinking of how "utopian" muds were created in the past, and they just didn't work as well as the muds that had some amount of psychological risk (thus making them game-play rather than just play). But I think such a mud <i>could</i> work well now that people have more experience creating virtual worlds. Someone recently posted an article that talked a lot about the Sims. I submit the success of the Sims as evidence to support my claim. I haven't had the opportunity to play it myself, but from what I gather, yes, there is gameplay involved in the Sims. However, I infer from the article that there is much less than there is in muds. The game focuses on the creation worlds to live in, not so much on the attempt to live in the world. The game focuses on real play derived in large part from pretend play, not so much on real play derived from pretend work. Often, because the play focuses on sociability, the play isn't pretend at all. However, like a lot of muds, even the Sims limits itself. The creators of the Sims, just like the creators of all the muds I'm familiar with, are evolving their world in large part as an imitation of the real world, rather than as a real extension of it. It's as if we are saying, "Well, it's not real, but it will just have to do." The Internet is real. It has real limits, real capabilities, and real potential, not to mention real people. One of the Internet's capabilities, through telnet, is the ability to organize information into the navigable sections that we call "rooms" in muds. But just because we call them "rooms" doesn't mean we have to limit ourselves to concepts we might call "rooms" in the real world. For example, here's an admittedly half-baked idea I had while writing this post: 1) Somehow obtain permission to the text of a good book. 2) Put each page of the book in a single room. 3) Add page-by-page navigation, as well as a teleportation type navigation. 4) Encourage people to read the book in this way together. Give them means to talk and such on the way. 4) In pages that describe a battle, allow fighting. 5) In pages that have dialogue, have NPCs act it out, or allow the readers to roleplay alternate conversations. Now they aren't "rooms" at all, but "pages." Of course, as I said, that was just a half-baked idea for the purposes of giving example. My real purpose for writing this long post was to bring up the idea of creating a real world rather than a pretend world in a mud, a True World. What distinguishes a True World from a pretend world? For one, in creating a True World, no limits would be created merely for the sake of imitating the real world. Why force people to navigate slowly if, with the option to teleport or some such thing, they can achieve their goals much faster? Real limits, those that would be accepted (though only temporarily), would be things like the number of coders on hand, the capabilities of the server, the amount of information that a person can absorb at one time, etc. Another thing that would distinguish a True World from a pretend world is that the risk (or the gameplay, which ever you want to call it) would evolve naturally, such as those from real conflicts of real motivations of real people in a world with real limits. That is to say, create a complex enough world, and the gameplay will come all by itself, just like in the real world. Oh, but it isn't fun gameplay. Murder and theft in the real world aren't fun. That isn't the point. On the level of mudding, being pked isn't fun either. The fun is in the life you lead in the world despite the rather un-fun gameplay. Now, this isn't all to say that the creators of muds have been wrong all along. Rather - as I believe was also mention in the article recently posted - the history of muds has been a beneficial evolution. Limiting ourselves with imitations of the real world as we are used to it is much like limiting a student to the laws of Newtonian physics before teaching him Einstein's theories. I suppose my conclusion is that a True World is what we are evolving towards. Like Marx, I think certain evolutions can be inevitable, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't help it along if and when we can. The best world we can create on the Internet will be, by definition, a True World, and it would be foolish to strive for any world other than the best we reach.