From: capehart@cs.swarthmore.edu (AC Capehart) Subject: Re: More on MUDs (Was Re: VR Worlds better than Reality) Date: Wed, 7 Aug 91 16:52:44 EDT Organization: Swarthmore College In article <1991Aug7.002128.12782@milton.u.washington.edu>, evard@plover.mcs.anl.gov (Remy Evard) writes: RE> Howard Rheingold asks: RE> RE>HR>Can you tell us about LPmud in a way that is consistent with living in RE>HR>a kind of VR world? And something about the scope of LPmud as a RE>HR>subculture? Do you think this world will be enthralled with VR RE>HR>frontends, or is the text format essential to the illusion? RE> RE>A bit of background on this answer - I just finished reading your book RE>"Virtual Reality" a few days ago (assuming there is only one "Howard RE>Rheingold" at the WELL...). It's a very interesting book. Thanks for RE>writing it. (No more critique... :) During some of the time that RE>I read it, I was at Siggraph, and had the unique (for me) experience RE>of meeting the people that I had been reading about... Oh neat. A book. I'll have to pick it up. Sounds interesting. Currently as a poor undergrad working on a project with little official support, I can only dream about things like Siggraph, but in the meanwhile, I can still read books :) RE>I know you mentioned MUDs in your book so I assume the question was to get RE>some reaction, and perhaps some personal views. Many people on the net RE>will be able to answer better than I, but I thought I'd point out that RE>"teledildonics" is a basic concept in most MUDs, one that was probably RE>thought of within minutes after creating the very first one. Many MUDs RE>or variants of them allow two or more players to have sex. The funny RE>thing about the sex thing is that although the MUD session may be say that RE>a macho viking is going at it with a blonde, vivacious wench from Valhalla, RE>99% of the time, it's actually two male, teenaged computeroids glued to RE>their monitors... Whoa here. Um. I _think_ this is an overgeneralization. It is true that most characters "glamorize" themselves. Some (real) examples: Angel is a 5'5" bundle of lean muscle^!" Angela is a beautiful, well-built, blond woman. Arno is a wonderful man with a BEAUTIFUL wife, Victoria. Arwulf is a wretched warrior of bitter memories. He is covered with scars from innumerable tavern brawls and bears them proudly. (and I only grepped in the As :) of couse, frequently characters prefer to be animals as well: Albedo is a blindingly handsome cat with brilliant white fur and a long tail. He grins a lot. Though, they are seldom ugly animals. There are exceptions though. People tend to be very attractive, nondescript (they use the describe feature for a message of some sort), or very ugly. Seldom does one look entirely "normal" WRT "teledildonics", that varies greatly according to the mud. It was quite frequent in "TinyMud" to the extent that a "Tiny Purity Test" popped up somewhere. In many LPs, regular players don't have the capability (other than " say I'm a hot stud doing it with a beautiful babe " that was present in TinyMuds. In Tiny's (and some LPs and others) there is an emote or colon command. The user types a colon and then what they wish to be doing. for example: : does the dishes. Everybody in the same "room" would see: does the dishes. But this sort of thing is used for battling other players in a test of wits, creativity as well as teledildonics. RE>In this sense, MUDs will only work when VR allows you to define your RE>own appearance. This will probably be a normal feature with VR interfaces. RE> I think that being able to define your own appearance may be an important facet, but I don't think an essential one. I think a generac appearance would work, but just not be as accepted as being self defined. RE>Yes, it's a definite subculture. It's the intersection of many other RE>subcultures, mainly gamers and bulletin board freaks. Programmers get RE>into it too, but typically only for the world-building possibilities. RE>These people usually do it for a while, and either get bored, and move on RE>to more interesting things, or write newer, better MUDs. Of course, RE>I'm generalizing, and will probably get flamed by the non-general cases. If you insist! (smile)--------^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ How you define our subculture, I'm not sure. Gamers, yes. BBS freaks? I'd say to a significantly lesser extent. Programmers only for world building? Again, I'm not sure of the validity of this generalization (o.k., I don't like generalizations much anyway). I am a bit of a programmer, but was taken to AberMud in a serious way even though once you finished the "adventuring", there was no world building to be done. I think a lot more of the addiction comes from the advancement process. Well, I'll only play until I get to the next level. Well, I got there and now I can use "fireball", so I'll advance so much faster... etc. RE>One other point - and I'm sure it's flammable too - as Johan said, to RE>really get something out of a MUD, you have to spend at least 8 to 10 RE>hours in it. All of the good MUDders that I know spend much much RE>more than that. There's no doubt in my mind that people will end up RE>being *at least* as dedicated to virtual worlds, potentially spending RE>most of their time hooked up. Hell, I know people who spend most of RE>their waking time reading and posting news... The point is that people RE>will get addicted to VR, but people get hooked on things anyway. At RE>least VR is interactive and potentially thought provoking, unlike, RE>say, television... No flames on this one. I have been running a MUD (lpswat) since late January, 1991. In that amount of time, our oldest character has become over 31 days old. That is almost 750 hours just logged into this particular game. RE>MUDs will be much more interesting when VR becomes publicly available, RE>but as Johan pointed out, VR world builders could learn a lot from MUDders. RE> So, if you are interested, telnet to: pompeii.cs.swarthmore.edu 2020 feel free to explore using the "guest" character. Also, ask for "Thymeless" (that's me) and I'll show you around. RE> -r'm RE> RE>Re'my Evard RE>Overworked Grad Student, CS Dept, U of Oregon remy@cs.uoregon.edu RE>Support Staff , MCS Division, Argonne National Labs evard@mcs.anl.gov RE><------------ Disturbing Environmental Thought of the Day -------------> RE> At the present rate of deforestation, the last tree in the United RE> States will be cut down in 50 years. Scary thought.-----^^^^^^^^^^^^ For reference (and since I have to leave now), I thought I would give you a list of commands that are available for use by one's self or as an action to another person. Called "atmosphere" or "feelings". They reside in an invisable object called the "soul" of every player. Each mud has a standard set which is easily modified by those that operate/run it. Ours is: ack applaud bleed blush bounce bow burp cackle caress cheer chuckle clap comfort cough cry cuddle curtsey dance drool fart faint flip fondle french frown gasp giggle glare grin groan grope growl grumble hiccup hug kick kiss knee laugh lick love moan nasty nibble nod pat peer pick poke ponder pout puke purr ruffle scream shake shiver shrug shudder sigh sing slap smirk smile snap sneeze snicker sniff snore snuggle spit squeeze stare strut sulk swear thank think tickle twiddle wave whistle wink yawn (fyi, "nasty" was added by a renagade wiz and has been removed. It simulated (very quick) sex between two players. (all based on the initiation of only one of them)). More from me as the thread continues. :) --AC Capehart (Thymeless@lpswat) real -------- A C Capehart ----------- snail capehart@cs.swarthmore.edu 500 College Ave. st0559 (Applelink) _ Swarthmore PA 19081 |_| <- "box" --