From: jwtlai@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Jim W Lai)
Subject: Re: More on MUDs (Was Re: VR Worlds better than Reality)
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 1991 19:36:13 GMT
Message-ID: <1991Aug18.193613.24929@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Organization: University of Waterloo



In article <1991Aug18.112239.9895@milton.u.washington.edu> Jeff.Bone@EBay.Sun.
COM (Jeff Bone) writes:

>Opening shot:  there's no particular definition of user interface
>implicit in the term "virtual reality";  our prejudice toward calling
>only graphics-based virtual worlds "VR" is entirely due to the media
>hype and marketeering currently surrounding the term.
>
>jwtlai@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Jim W Lai) writes:
>>
>> Creating a detailed world with complex interaction rules takes more 
>> effort, though some people are no doubt trying to remedy this lack.
>
>This is a naive statement.  The prevalent model in MUD technology
>today is the metaMUD or the extensible MUD, both of which provide
>powerful mechanisms for "creating a detailed world with complex 
>interaction rules".  In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the 
>world-building paradigm in most MUDs is more mature, flexible, and 
>sophisticated than most VR implementations.

I am well aware of such extensible MUD systems.  Ideally, the only
hardcoded sections are the interpreter and the network-interface code.

>MUDs on the other hand, freed from the computational constraints
>of interactive graphics, potentially allow for much greater levels
>of abstraction and description of the worlds they model.  In systems
>like MOO and UberMUD, the "universe rules" can be interactively
>determined and modified to any extent by the participants.

And creating an initial world in Uber was a task seldom completed for
many due to the sheer complexity of interaction possible.  I suppose
a better way of stating what I had said before was that a library of
meta-tools which would speed up world creation and manipulation is still
lacking.  World editors, in short.  One way is to implement them is
in the MUD interpreter in question.

This is why TinyMUDs are more prevalent that Moos, although TinyMUD can
be easily implemented in Moo (and has been by the author and musician
Steve White: plug plug!).  The very freedom allowed in fully-programmable
systems can scare away new users.  Database integrity is also another open
problem.

>In short, what I'm saying is this:  sophistication is in the mind
>of the beholder.  In VR tech, the emphasis is entirely visual and 
>spacial;  in MUD, the emphasis is on richness of the model.  Both 
>simply use the available interface means to convey the depth of the 
>world in question.  UIs are the ONLY fundamental difference.

I claim that the MUD UI is still in its infancy as well, and can be made
more accessable with more powerful tools for manipulation.  One example of
such an effort can be found in the Crossroads Project, which has recently
been opened up to the public (well, the public with full Internet access).