July 1998
- Elven Language List J C Lawrence
- Summary: "Influence Mapping" J C Lawrence
- 1997 CGDC AI Roundtable Moderator's Report J C Lawrence
- 1997 CGDC AI Roundtable Moderator's Report J C Lawrence
- Summary: Recognizing Strategic Dispositions J C Lawrence
- Back to the Future (was WIRED: Kilers have more fun) Mike Sellers
- Back to the Future (was WIRED: Kilers havemore fun) Koster, Raph
- Back to the Future (was WIRED: Kilers have more fun) J C Lawrence
- Back to the Future (was WIRED: Kilers have more fun) S. Patrick Gallaty
- Back to the Future (was WIRED: Kilers have more fun) J C Lawrence
- Help Request On Creating MUD Strahd Von ZAROVICH
- Help Request On Creating MUD Jon Leonard
- Help Request On Creating MUD J C Lawrence
- Help Request On Creating MUD J C Lawrence
- Help Request On Creating MUD J C Lawrence
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Chris Gray
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Adam Wiggins
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun J C Lawrence
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Koster, Raph
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Jon A. Lambert
- [RELEASED] Update release of ScryMUD (Accepting builders) Ben Greear
- Meta (Are code release announcement appreciated?) Ben Greear
- Meta (Are code release announcement appreciated?) Nathan F Yospe
- Meta (Are code release announcement appreciated?) J C Lawrence
- Ubiquity Scope & Requirements Greg Munt
- Ubiquity Scope & Requirements Vadim Tkachenko
- Ubiquity Scope & Requirements Greg Munt
- Ubiquity Scope & Requirements Chris Gray
- Ubiquity Scope & Requirements Vadim Tkachenko
- IMatix Tools: Libero and SMT J C Lawrence
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Till Eulenspiegel
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Marian Griffith
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Adam Wiggins
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Marian Griffith
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Orion Henry
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) J C Lawrence
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Marian Griffith
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Marian Griffith
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Adam Wiggins
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Marian Griffith
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Adam Wiggins
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Marian Griffith
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Maddy
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) cat
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) S. Patrick Gallaty
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) Dan Shiovitz
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) J C Lawrence
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) S. Patrick Gallaty
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) Marian Griffith
- SMAP: Small Application's Persistency, C++ Library J C Lawrence
- Development of a Smart Compiler J C Lawrence
- (fwd) command parsers: a modest proposal (with apologies to J. Swift) J C Lawrence
- (fwd) command parsers: a modest proposal (with apologies to J. Swift) Chris Gray
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Petri Virkkula
- An Introduction Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
- An Introduction Chris Gray
- An Introduction Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
- An Introduction J C Lawrence
- An Introduction Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- An Introduction J C Lawrence
- An Introduction Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- An Introduction Chris Gray
- An Introduction Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
- An Introduction Ross Nicoll
- An Introduction Chris Gray
- An Introduction Chris Gray
- An Introduction Ross Nicoll
- An Introduction J C Lawrence
- An Introduction Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- An Introduction Adam J. Thornton
- An Introduction J C Lawrence
- An Introduction Adam J. Thornton
- An Introduction Koster, Raph
- An Introduction Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- An Introduction Ilya, Game Commandos
- An Introduction Matthew Mihaly
- An Introduction Koster, Raph
- An Introduction Jon A. Lambert
- (fwd) command parsers: a modest proposal (with apologies to J. Swift) Richard Bartle
- Summary: The Game Design Mailing List "Learning AI" Thread J C Lawrence
- Summary: The "Extensible Game AI" thread J C Lawrence
- (fwd) command parsers: a modest proposa Michael.Willey@abnamro.com
- (fwd) command parsers: a modest proposa Adam Wiggins
- (fwd) command parsers: a modest proposa Ross Nicoll
- OT: Computer History Archive Holly Sommer
- (fwd) command parsers: a modest proposal (with apologies to J. Swift) Chris Gray
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Jon A. Lambert
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Matt Chatterley
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Adam Wiggins
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Dan Shiovitz
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Adam Wiggins
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Shawn Halpenny
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Adam Wiggins
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Travis S. Casey
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Katrina McClelan
- Massive brainstorm rant about an imaginary class system. (resent) Till Eulenspiegel
- PRNGs: Pseudo Random Number Generators J C Lawrence
- (fwd) command parsers: a modest proposa Richard Bartle
- (fwd) command parsers: a modest proposa Adam J. Thornton
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Michael.Willey@abnamro.com
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Todd Lair
- MapMaker S. Patrick Gallaty
- (fwd) command parsers: a modest proposa Chris Gray
- My "mud" server, A.T.O.M. and the coming design notes Mike L Kesl
- Output Classification Notes, version 061098 Mike L Kesl
- Output Classification Notes, version 061098 CJones@aagis.com
- Output Classification Notes, version 061098 J C Lawrence
- Output Classification Notes, version 061098 Vadim Tkachenko
- Output Classification Notes, version 061098 Ben Greear
- Output Classification Notes, version 061098 Chris Gray
- Output Classification Notes, version 061098 J C Lawrence
- Universe Design Notes, version 061098 Mike L Kesl
- Universe Design Notes, version 061098 Chris Gray
- Universe Design Notes, version 061098 Mike L Kesl
- Universe Design Notes, version 061098 J C Lawrence
- Universe Design Notes, version 061098 s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- World Creation Notes, version 061098 Mike L Kesl
- World Creation Notes, version 061098 Chris Gray
- World Creation Notes, version 061098 Mike L Kesl
- World Creation Notes, version 061098 J C Lawrence
- (fwd) command parsers: a modest proposa Richard Bartle
- Alternate UOL's J C Lawrence
- Alternate UOL's S. Patrick Gallaty
- Alternate UOL's Felix A. Croes
- Alternate UOL's Jason Goodwin
- Alternate UOL's Ben Greear
- Alternate UOL's Felix A. Croes
- Alternate UOL's J C Lawrence
- Alternate UOL's D. B. Brown
- Alternate UOL's Adam Wiggins
- Alternate UOL's Koster, Raph
- Alternate UOL's D. B. Brown
- Alternate UOL's Koster, Raph
- Alternate UOL's Nathan F Yospe
- Alternate UOL's Damion Schubert
- Alternate UOL's Damion Schubert
- Alternate UOL's J C Lawrence
- Alternate UOL's Adam J. Thornton
- Support for remote NPCs Joel Kelso
- Support for remote NPCs Nathan F Yospe
- Affordances and social method Jon A. Lambert
- Affordances and social method Marian Griffith
- Affordances and social method Jon A. Lambert
- Affordances and social method Marian Griffith
- Affordances and social method J C Lawrence
- [Fwd: brainstormer] Richard Woolcock
- Physics Lesson John Bertoglio
- Physics Lesson Mike Sellers
- Physics Lesson Ling
- (fwd) command parsers: a modest proposa Chris Gray
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) Chris Gray
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) Adam Wiggins
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) S. Patrick Gallaty
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) Koster, Raph
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wired Magazine...) Damion Schubert
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) J C Lawrence
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wire d Magazine...) J C Lawrence
- META: MUD-Dev is a NewHoo "Cool Site" J C Lawrence
- Biomass project Joel Kelso
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Koster, Raph
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Dr. Cat
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Koster, Raph
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Dr. Cat
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi J C Lawrence
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Jon A. Lambert
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Jon A. Lambert
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi J C Lawrence
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Holly Sommer
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi quzah
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi J C Lawrence
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Dan Shiovitz
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi T. Alexander Popiel
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Jon A. Lambert
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Dan Shiovitz
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- Affordances and social method (Was: Wi J C Lawrence
- Affordances and social method (Was: Re:Wired Ma gazine...) Koster, Raph
- Affordances and social method (Was: Re:Wire Michael.Willey@abnamro.com
- Amit's Games Programming Page Ling
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Holly Sommer
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Adam Wiggins
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Holly Sommer
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Adam Wiggins
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Matthew R. Sheahan
- You think users won't number crunch and statis Damion Schubert
- You think users won't number crunch... Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- [OT] Private emails Richard Woolcock
- [Java] multithreading: update and a question Vadim Tkachenko
- [Java] multithreading: update and a question Chris Gray
- [Java] multithreading: update and a question Vadim Tkachenko
- [Java] multithreading: update and a question Ben Greear
- [Java] multithreading: update and a question Vadim Tkachenko
- [Java] multithreading: update and a question J C Lawrence
- [Java] multithreading: update and a question J C Lawrence
- [Java] multithreading: update and a question Chris Gray
- [Java] multithreading: update and a question Vadim Tkachenko
- [Java] multithreading: update and a question J C Lawrence
- [Java] multithreading: update and a question Vadim Tkachenko
- [Java] multithreading: update and a question Nathan F Yospe
- [CODE RELEASE] ScryMUD, and the Hegemon Client 1.4.3 (minor release) Ben Greear
- [DESIGN] Antagonizing players Ben Greear
- [DESIGN] Antagonizing players quzah
- [DESIGN] Antagonizing players Richard Woolcock
- Job offer for multiplayer game development J C Lawrence
- Job offer for multiplayer game development S. Patrick Gallaty
- Job offer for multiplayer game development Nathan F Yospe
- Job offer for multiplayer game development Spangler, Jason
- Job offer for multiplayer game development Dr. Cat
- Job offer for multiplayer game development J C Lawrence
- Java VM performance J C Lawrence
- UBE/high: Affordances and social method (Was: Wi Dr. Cat
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine Todd Lair
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine Chris Gray
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine Todd Lair
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine oliver@jowett.manawatu.planet.co.nz
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine Oliver Jowett
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine Joel Kelso
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine J C Lawrence
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine Adam Wiggins
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine J C Lawrence
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine Todd Lair
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine J C Lawrence
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine Chris Gray
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine T. Alexander Popiel
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engine Chris Gray
- [CODE] [LANGUAGE/PLATFORM SPECIFIC] My Event Engin Jon A. Lambert
- Scripting Design Notes Mike L Kesl
- Scripting Design Notes Chris Gray
- Scripting Design Notes Vadim Tkachenko
- Scripting Design Notes Jo Dillon
- Scripting Design Notes Chris Gray
- Login and Accounts Mike L Kesl
- Login and Accounts quzah
- Login and Accounts Matt Chatterley
- Login and Accounts Ling
- Login and Accounts Matt Chatterley
- Login and Accounts J C Lawrence
- Design Patterns for Concurrent, Parallel, and Distributed Systems Alex Oren
- DBMS in MU*'s Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
- DBMS in MU*'s Adam J. Thornton
- DBMS in MU*'s Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
- DBMS in MU*'s Adam J. Thornton
- DBMS in MU*'s quzah
- DBMS in MU*'s s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- DBMS in MU*'s quzah
- DBMS in MU*'s Adam J. Thornton
- DBMS in MU*'s Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
- DBMS in MU*'s J C Lawrence
- DBMS in MU*'s quzah@geocities.com
- DBMS in MU*'s Chris Gray
- DBMS in MU*'s The Arrow
- DBMS in MU*'s J C Lawrence
- DBMS in MU*'s Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- DBMS in MU*'s Ross Nicoll
- DBMS in MU*'s Chris Gray
- DBMS in MU*'s s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- DBMS in MU*'s Adam Wiggins
- DBMS in MU*'s J C Lawrence
- DBMS in MU*'s Jon A. Lambert
- DBMS in MU*'s J C Lawrence
- DBMS in MU*'s s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- DBMS in MU*'s Chris Gray
- Network Connectivity Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
- Network Connectivity T. Alexander Popiel
- Network Connectivity Matt Chatterley
- Affordances and social method Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Matthew R. Sheahan
- Overworld Maps on diku style Muds- Design notes Katrina McClelan
- Overworld Maps on diku style Muds- Design notes Richard Woolcock
- Overworld Maps on diku style Muds- Design notes Katrina McClelan
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Chris Gray
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Informix releases free version for Linux J C Lawrence
- Objects (was DBMS in MU*'s) s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- OT: Sid Meier s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- More on Informix Linux release J C Lawrence
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Koster, Raph
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun S. Patrick Gallaty
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Nathan F Yospe
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Leach, Brad BA
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Nathan F Yospe
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Markku Nylander
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Nathan F Yospe
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Adam Wiggins
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Brandon J. Rickman
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Damion Schubert
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Adam Wiggins
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Damion Schubert
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Adam J. Thornton
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Damion Schubert
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Brandon J. Rickman
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Koster, Raph
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Brandon J. Rickman
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] J C Lawrence
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Adam Wiggins
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Damion Schubert
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Adam Wiggins
- Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ] Chris Gray
- The Eternal City on The Big Network Mike Sellers
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Marian Griffith
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Chris Gray
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Marian Griffith
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Koster, Raph
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Marian Griffith
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Adam Wiggins
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun J C Lawrence
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun quzah
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Koster, Raph
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Adam Wiggins
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Damion Schubert
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun quzah
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Marian Griffith
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Damion Schubert
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. Ben Greear
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. Scatter
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. Vadim Tkachenko
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. Jo Dillon
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. Chris Gray
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. S. Patrick Gallaty
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. Robert Woods
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. S. Patrick Gallaty
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. Katrina McClelan
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. J C Lawrence
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. karp@svconsult.com
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. Ben Greear
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. Ross Nicoll
- Ansii color, needing some specs and or pointers. Chris Gray
- WIRED: Kilers have more fun Chris Gray
- PANARD VISION -- 3D-Real-Time Portable Engine J C Lawrence
- Affordances and social method Leach, Brad BA
- Affordances and social method S. Patrick Gallaty
- Affordances and social method quzah
- Affordances and social method Leach, Brad BA
- Affordances and social method Robert Woods
- Affordances and social method Orion Henry
- Affordances and social method S. Patrick Gallaty
- Affordances and social method Mike Sellers
- Affordances and social method Joel Kelso
- Affordances and social method Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Affordances and social method Mike Sellers
- Affordances and social method Jon A. Lambert
- Affordances and social method s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- Affordances and social method J C Lawrence
- (subject missing) J C Lawrence
- User inventions (was:killers have more...) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- User inventions (was:killers have more...) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- User inventions (was:killers have more...) Matt Chatterley
- Unix vs NT and its relation to MUD environments. J C Lawrence
If the following isn't entirely coherent I apologise. I'm fat with a
very heavy meal and the cranium keeps chanting "Sleep!" as versus
"Type good message!"
This message is also prompted by a study I took part in today on the
human usability and ergonomic concerns of the design and operation of
plugs on system cables for large systems (eg SCSI, cluster
inter-connect, etc). It got me thinking about interface _function_
(as versus design) for MUDs.
What is it that a MUD interface is actually trying to DO?
How is it DOING that?
Is it DOING that well?
Could that <thing> be done better or differently?
In the case of the study I found that I liked several of the proposed
designs for very different and almost contradictory reasons. Each
suggested different useful, functional and valuable concerns to me as
a person who has assembled many large systems and clusters, but most
interesting was that the concerns and the way the designs approached
them in two cases precluded even the existance let alone the handling
of other concerns (ie QQQ does XXX well, but YYY poorly, but RRR does
ZZZ excellantly and in a manner that XXX doesn't even exist in the
problem space and YYY is done fairly well. ZZZ doesn't exist in the
problem space for QQQ. (I hope that's understandable (think
horizontal versus vertical insertion, insertion versus removal
mechanics, cable guides and cable interference with plug
insertion/removal, directional sensitivity, packing density and
manipulation ease for horizontally and vertically parallel socket
arrays, rotational orientation awareness of plug, ease of twisting the
plug and attached cable to an orientation and manipulating it there
with accuracy against stress, etc)).
ISD magazine held a discussion with various EDA vendor reps and a
large audience of EDA users on the question of "Linux vs NT". The
transcript is rather fun reading:
URL:http://www.isdmag.com/dac/linuxtext.html
However one of the more interesting sections occurs near the end:
--<cut>--
Dan Small (Microsoft): Yeah but the scripting is almost the failing
of UNIX not a virtue. [talkover] (Audience laughter)
...deletia...
Audience 12: The statement you made was very characteristically
Microsoft arrogance. You said basically that you don?t need
scripting, and scripting allows you, scripting says, "Okay, we
don?t know everything that you?re going to do as a user, you can
go off and put these things together."
Dan Small (Microsoft): Scripting means the tools may be inflexible
enough to adopt to every situation that they use them [talkover]
--<cut>--
Dan's last comment quoted above is both insightful and arrogant as
claimed. It states both that the tool vendor knows (everything) that
the user needs, and that the user should/will never need more than a
good/well designed tool supplies.
The problem is that neither is true, not compleatly.
Scripting does do a lot to make up for the weakness and feature lack
of tools. Tools will also never be the one-size-fits-all solution
that vendors would like to cream about.
But, to return this to the MUD world and the perrenial question of MUD
user interfaces, the same question and debate applies to the questions
of interface configuration, and to MUD world programmability.
There are, if you consider the extremes only, two base approaches:
1) The world shall define everything that happens and how the user
can make it happen, and that shall be the limit of the world.
2) The world shall define how everything happens, suggests how the
user can make it happen, the user gets to pick and choose as to which
suggestions he accepts and which he creates on his own, and the limits
of the world shall be bound by what the user can create within the
constraints of the world mechanics.
cf Aber or Shades vs MOO or MUSH (I'm deliberately ignoring IRC which
removes all central enforced definition of the world characteristics).
The happy medium is presumably somewhere in the middle with the
specific point in the middle defined by the answer to two questions:
1) How much can the user customise his interface to the game?
2) How much can the user define the game world or its mechanics?
I am a big fan of user programmable MUD worlds. I'm also a big fan of
goal-oriented worlds. To date these two world modelss have been
considered mutually contradictory due to security concerns. I intend
to reverse that assumption, but getting back to the topic:
In our brave new world of clueless AOL users and rampaging
anti-social GoP'ers, can we safely say that an interface not close to
the configurable end of #1 and #2 is going to be viable?
Non-programmable/scriptable MUDs assume that the MUD offers
everything that the user can/will want (non-scripting). To a certain
extent this is epitomised by the hard-coded MUD's very large list of
socials as versus the ultimate flexibility of MUSH'es emote commands.
One size fits nobody.
The heavy usage of the scripting features of TinTin, TinyFugue etc
with their scripting abilities on hard-coded text MUD's suggests that
users both want and demand scripting (I presume ZMud offers something
in this area). The fact that the same client configurations extend to
soft-coded servers is merely a large side-benefit (cf LP's alias
command and others).
Then again, judging by Usenet traffic alone, outside of simple
triggers, the apparent use of client-side complex scripting is
becoming quite rare (it used to be almost assumable). Most new MUD
users seem scared of complex scripting clients -- they like the idea,
but only use it at the level of using un-examined macros others have
written.
UOL (and M59 I assume tho I haven't noticed direct mention of it on
M59 user pages) has an extensive "problem" with users scripting their
actions both with the limited scripting supports within the UOL
client, and via client-external automation tools (simulates KB and
mouse inputs). A common phrasing of which taken from somewhere on the
UOL pages is that making an action have a very low probability of
success is equal to making its success rate 100% when a user can just
do a:
> do 10000 times: pick lock
Its either black or white -- no grays.
These people are scripting. They are automating. They are reducing
their world to customised tokenised self-adapting function blocks
which can be invoked as singular units, or chained and assembled in
variously complex structures. They are also doing extremely simple
simulus-response systems which as a whole regularly exhibit complex
behaviours. (cf Lambert's comments and assertions on visual scripting
environments).
Script configurations tend to be widely and heavily traded. Scripts
change the world and the world view in very incisive and pervasive
manners. Having to maintain a stock of food in your inventory and eat
when you get hungry can easy be a key and defining game mehcanic --
until you have a script that ensures that you always have a lot of
food, and that you are always fed. Ditto for the rest of the world.
How different would UOL, M59, and all the rest *really* be if any
possibility of scripting were utterly and absolutely removed? Would
they have achieved the level of commercial success they have were
scripting *NOT* possible? Why (not)?
How different would they be if they offered extensive scripting, say
to the level of a full micro-language with flow control, variables,
and all the rest? (Note the difference between demand and offer --
I'm not saying that users would be required to use it, just that it
would be available and that they could drop/plug-in scripts others had
written). Would this have affected their success? In what areas
would it help? Hinder? Why?
In interface design, when is one-size-fits-all a Good Thing? A Bad
Thing?
Okay, I'm outta here. Gonna go find a dead lower life form, eat some
of its slowly rotting carcass (yeah, I'm hungry again), and head back
to the humble abode.
--
J C Lawrence Internet: claw@null.net
(Contractor) Internet: coder@ibm.net
---------(*) Internet: claw@under.engr.sgi.com
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...