November 2001

• Digimask Technology. Matt Owen
• • Digimask Technology. Ian Macintosh
• Call for submissions to Game Programming Gems 3 Andrew Kirmse
• Virtual environments for education? Edward Glowacki
• • Virtual environments for education? Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
  • • Virtual environments for education? Bruce Mitchener
  • Virtual environments for education? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
  • Virtual environments for education? Dr. Cat
  • Virtual environments for education? Mats Lidstrom
• Playing NPCs Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
• A Hello, and thanks... o. rchaeus
• NPCS Mr Dylan Tovey
• • NPCS Travis Nixon
  • NPCS luke@rocketship.com
• Story in MM*s [was ] Joe Andrieu
• player-driven content? Sasha Hart
• • player-driven content? Paul Schwanz
  • • player-driven content? Bruce Mitchener
      Paul Schwanz wrote:
      
      > I'm not entirely sure what you mean here, but I think I agree.
      
      > I tend to believe that the best stories will be the result of
      > developer-generated content and context to some degree. I also
      > think that they will include player-generated content.
      > Unfortunately, I think that the terms content and context can have
      > broad definitions and as a result there has been some talking past
      > each other in this thread. I'll try to explain in a bit more
      > detail what I envision.
      
      > I think the game *design* can create quests that arise naturally
      > from gameplay. I'll give an example.
      
      > ... example snipped ...
      
      > If you design it right, you've created caravans and caravan
      > routes, which then give us quests for robbing the caravans or
      > protecting them. In reality, you are creating *the potential* for
      > quests by your design of the game world.
      
      > Additionally, instead of writing a canned quest, you could create
      > powerful, world-impacting items. Depending upon an item's nature
      > and how it functions, a quest could be the natural result. To me,
      > this is the difference between writing Tolkien's "Lord of the
      > Rings" trilogy and trying to imbed it as static, canned pieces of
      > text throughout the game world, or simply creating the Rings as
      > actual in-game items that have the properties of those in
      > Tolkien's stories. Then sit back and see what happens.
      
      > ...
      
      > So is this about developers creating content or context? I see it
      > as the developer creating game content that provides story
      > context. I don't think this is the same thing as the sandbox
      > approach. The developer is doing more than just creating a stage.
      > The developer may even have a story in mind or a concept of how
      > things could pan out. He is being very deliberate about creating
      > a quest, but he doesn't actually write the story and feed it to
      > the players.
      
      This could be looked at in terms of an application of an element of
      literary theory/criticism to mud/game design as well.
      
      Quoting from a translation of Umberto Eco's _The Open Work_:
      
      "To avoid any confusion in terminology, it is important to
      specify that here the defintion of the "open work," despite
      its relevance in formulating a fresh dialectics between the
      work of art and its performer, still requires to be separated
      from other conventional applications of this term. Aesthetic
      theorists, for example, often have recourse to the notions of
      "completeness" and "openness" in connection with a given work
      of art. These two expressions refer to a standard situation
      of which we are all aware in our reception of a work of art:
      we see it as the end product of an author's effort to arrange
      a sequence of communicative effects in such a way that each
      individual addressee can refashion the original composition
      devised by the author. The addressee is bound to enter into
      an interplay of stimulus and response which depends on his
      unique capacity for a sensitive reception of the piece. In
      this sense the author presents a finished product with the
      intention that this particular composition should be
      appreciated and received in the same form as he devised it.
      ... a road traffic sign, on the other hand, can be viewed in
      only one sense, and, if it is transfigured into some fantastic
      meaning by an imaginative driver, it merely ceases to be
      /that/ particular traffic sign with that particular meaning.
      ...
      
      None the less, it is obvious that works like those of Berio
      and Stockhausen are "open" in a far more tangible sense. In
      primitive terms, we can say that they are quire literally
      "unfinished": the author seems to hand them on to the
      performer more of less like the components of a construction
      kit. He seems to be unconcerned about the manner of their
      eventual deployment. This is a loose and paradoxical
      interpretation of the phenomenon, ..."
      
      Umberto Eco has written further about the role of the reader in
      fiction. (In a book called _The Role of the Reader_, as well as
      _Six Walks in the Fictional Woods_.) In his formualation of an
      "open text", there isn't a single path for the reader to follow (as
      in a closed text), but it has been written to allow the reader to
      make a series of interpretations and involving the judgement of the
      reader in the completion of the work.
      
      One of the reasons given by Eco for the usefulness of an open text
      is the ability for the reader to go back and read it again and
      again, continually gaining new insights, new interpretations, new
      ideas, and new value drawn from the work.
      
      In this way, the idea of an "open text" in contrast to a "closed
      text" appears fairly applicable to the analysis and design of MUDs
      and the worlds/environments that make them up. Some traditional
      MUDs provided, through mechanics, a fairly rote set of actions and
      responses within the environment, providing for little depth and
      were largely a means of pulling a player towards predetermined
      goals. More recent and advanced systems are providing for the
      capability of an "open environement" wherein the player has much
      greater ability to interpret and act upon a rich world, which has
      been designed and structured to be an open environment.
      
      How can we can take advantage of the literary theory on the
      interpretation of closed vs. open works/texts to aid us in designing
      and analyzing closed vs. open environments for our virtual worlds?
      What sort of analysis of a game might be done?
      
      Some potential questions:
      
      * To what extent do we allow the player the latitude within
      the provided content to make interpretative choices that
      affect how they perceive the world, in terms of not only
      the events that they participate in, but also the backstory
      and the events being carried out by other players?
      
      * How does the imposition of an allowance for interpretation
      by the players change how the GMs or the people ostensibly
      running the game interact with it? (Comparing this to the
      recent imposition of the plot line on Anarchy Online could
      be interesting.)
      
      * What role might NPCs play and how might they act out this
      role?
      
      * When new content is depending on the expenditure of fairly
      expensive resources by the people running the game, is
      the use of content rather than context something that is
      maintainable in the long run?
      
      * How does this interact with the potential needs and requirements
      for a licensed world/storyline/plot? (For example, if there
      was a game based on the current Star Trek television series,
      and a major plot line devised and maintained by players ran
      afoul of the intentions of the people who run Star Trek's
      television series, how much might this matter or not matter?
      
      * What other aspects of literary analsyis and theory could
      be useful in analyzing the design of muds?
      
      - Bruce
• (no subject) J C Lawrence
• • (no subject) Koster, Raph
  • (no subject) Peter Tyson
• WebRPG Travis Casey
• [TECH][SURVEY] non-mainstream languages? Bruce Mitchener
• • [TECH][SURVEY] non-mainstream languages? Brian Hook
  • [TECH][SURVEY] non-mainstream languages? Nathan F. Yospe
  • [TECH][SURVEY] non-mainstream languages? Mats Lidstrom
  • [TECH][SURVEY] non-mainstream languages? Bruce Mitchener
• "sweeping change"? Sellers, Mike
• • "sweeping change"? Michael Tresca
  • • "sweeping change"? Sellers, Mike
    • • "sweeping change"? Michael Tresca
    • "sweeping change"? Freeman, Jeff
    • "sweeping change"? Matt Mihaly
    • • "sweeping change"? Sellers, Mike
• Re[4]: Expectations of in-game reality Travis Casey
• Cynical at a young age T.A.J.BARTON
• Tabletop RPGs and Inspiration (was: no subject) Brian 'Psychochild' Green
• • Tabletop RPGs and Inspiration (was: no subject) John Mariotti
  • Tabletop RPGs and Inspiration (was: no subject) Matt Chatterley
  • Tabletop RPGs and Inspiration (was: no subject) Sean K
  • Tabletop RPGs and Inspiration (was: no subject) Don Healey
• Some survey results... Andrew Wilson
• • Some survey results... Matt Mihaly
  • • Some survey results... Jeremy Noetzelman
    • Some survey results... Andrew Wilson
  • Some survey results... Dr. Cat
  • • Some survey results... Andrew Wilson
    • • Some survey results... Dr. Cat
  • Some survey results... Derek Snider
  • • Some survey results... Andrew Wilson
  • Some survey results... Matt Mihaly
• Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Michael Tresca
• • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Dave Rickey
  • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Ryan S. Dancey
    • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric
      • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Leland Hulbert II
        • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric
          • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Matt Mihaly
        • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Paul Schwanz
        • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Dave Rickey
    • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Sellers, Mike
    • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Ryan S. Dancey
  • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Valerio Santinelli
  • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Koster, Raph
  • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Michael Tresca
    • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Brian Hook
    • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Lars Duening
    • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Ola Fosheim Grøstad
      • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Phillip Lenhardt
        • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Lars Duening
      • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Matt Mihaly
      • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Travis Casey
        • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Matt Mihaly
          • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Travis Casey
    • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Don Healey
    • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Michael Tresca
      • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Matt Mihaly
      • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Paul Schwanz
      • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Travis Casey
        • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Phillip Lenhardt
        • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Don Healey
        • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Koster, Raph
  • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Ling Lo
  • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Ryan S. Dancey
  • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Paul Schwanz
  • • Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead Michael Tresca
• [DGN] The Human Condition Kwon Ekstrom
• Multi-protagonist stories. Paul Schwanz
• • Multi-protagonist stories. Matt Mihaly
• licensing Adam Martin
• • licensing Vincent Archer
  • licensing Travis Casey
• Tabletop RPGs and Inspiration (was: no subject) Sami Kosonen
• Licensing PnP RPGs was "sweeping change"? Brian Hook
• • Licensing PnP RPGs was "sweeping change"? Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric
  • Licensing PnP RPGs was "sweeping change"? Freeman, Jeff
• Good Writing (was: Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead) Brian 'Psychochild' Green
• New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Marian Griffith
• • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
  • • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) John Buehler
    • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Bruce Mitchener
    • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Marian Griffith
    • • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
  • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Bruce Mitchener
  • • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Marian Griffith
    • • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Mark Eaton
      • • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Marian Griffith
      • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
      • • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Travis Casey
        • • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
          • • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Travis Casey
        • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Andrew Hefford
        • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Paul Schwanz
  • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Matt Mihaly
  • • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Marian Griffith
  • New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) Paul Schwanz
• Storied Games Paul Schwanz
• • Storied Games amanda@alfar.com
  • Storied Games Lee Sheldon
  • • Storied Games Dave Rickey
    • • Storied Games Travis Casey
    • Storied Games Paul Schwanz
    • • Storied Games Marian Griffith
      • • Storied Games Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
      • Storied Games Lee Sheldon
      • • Storied Games John W. Pierce
        • • Storied Games Lee Sheldon
          • • Storied Games jsmithn@hotmail.com
  • Storied Games Matt Mihaly
  • • Storied Games Miroslav Silovic
    • • Storied Games Derek Licciardi
      • Storied Games Matt Mihaly
      • • Storied Games amanda@alfar.com
        • • Storied Games Matt Mihaly
          • • Storied Games amanda@alfar.com
            • • Storied Games Matt Mihaly
• Player Manipulation of Environment/New Laws Paul Schwanz
• • Player Manipulation of Environment/New Laws Bruce Mitchener
  • • Player Manipulation of Environment/New Laws Paul Schwanz
  • Player Manipulation of Environment/New Laws Marian Griffith
• Player Manipulation of Environment Paul Schwanz
• • Player Manipulation of Environment Paul Schwanz
  • • Player Manipulation of Environment Matt Mihaly
    • Player Manipulation of Environment Andrew Hefford {Coregen}
    • • Player Manipulation of Environment Eli Stevens
  • Player Manipulation of Environment Jasper McChesney
  • • Player Manipulation of Environment Paul Schwanz
    • • Player Manipulation of Environment Adam Martin
      • Player Manipulation of Environment Jasper McChesney
      • Player Manipulation of Environment Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
      • • Player Manipulation of Environment Ling Lo
        • • Player Manipulation of Environment rayzam
          • Player Manipulation of Environment Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
          • Player Manipulation of Environment Marc Hernandez
• Fw: AVATARS2001 this weekend Frank Crowell
• [NEWS] Lineage: The Blood Pledge Interview Dave Kennerly
• • [NEWS] Lineage: The Blood Pledge Interview Dave Kennerly
• Storytelling and Professionals (was: ) Kathleen Foley
• • Storytelling and Professionals (was: ) Lee Sheldon
  • • Storytelling and Professionals (was: ) Dave Rickey
    • • Storytelling and Professionals (was: ) Lee Sheldon
• not about telling stories Joe Andrieu
• • not about telling stories Freeman, Jeff
  • not about telling stories Travis Casey
• Storytelling and Professionals (was) Lee Sheldon
• A Non-Cumulative Character MMORPG? Heresy! Paul Schwanz
• Storytelling and Professionals (was) Ananda Dawnsinger
• Asheron's Call, Story and Population Density. Zak Jarvis
• • Asheron's Call, Story and Population Density. Sasha Hart
  • • Asheron's Call, Story and Population Density. Christopher Kohnert
    • • Asheron's Call, Story and Population Density. Sasha Hart
      • • Asheron's Call, Story and Population Density. Christopher Kohnert
  • Asheron's Call, Story and Population Density. Lee Sheldon
• Tech: Pathfinding with Rooms Sanxion
• • Tech: Pathfinding with Rooms vognsen@post10.tele.dk
  • • Tech: Pathfinding with Rooms David Bennett
    • • Tech: Pathfinding with Rooms Sanxion
      • Tech: Pathfinding with Rooms Christopher Kohnert
      • Tech: Pathfinding with Rooms Per Vognsen
      • • Tech: Pathfinding with Rooms David Bennett
        • • Tech: Pathfinding with Rooms Eli Stevens
  • Tech: Pathfinding with Rooms Christopher Kohnert
  • Tech: Pathfinding with Rooms Nicholas E. Walker
  • • Tech: Pathfinding with Rooms Marcus Johansson
    • Tech: Pathfinding with Rooms Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
    • • Tech: Pathfinding with Rooms Leland Hulbert II
• [NEWS] Lineage: The Blood Pledge Interview - Richard's blunder :) Mathieu Castelli
• Subject: New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment) John Robert Arras
• Meridian 59 purchased by developers Andrew Kirmse
• • Meridian 59 purchased by developers James C. Nugen
  • Meridian 59 purchased by developers Frank Crowell
• [STORY] Story and population size Adam Martin
• • [STORY] Story and population size Derek Licciardi
  • • [STORY] Story and population size Christopher Kohnert
    • • [STORY] Story and population size Timothy Dang
      • • [STORY] Story and population size Derek Licciardi
      • [STORY] Story and population size Vincent Archer
      • • [STORY] Story and population size Christopher Kohnert
    • [STORY] Story and population size John Buehler
    • • [STORY] Story and population size Derek Licciardi
      • • [STORY] Story and population size John Buehler
        • • [STORY] Story and population size Jeff Freeman
          • • [STORY] Story and population size Travis Nixon
          • [STORY] Story and population size Wells, Thomas
          • [STORY] Story and population size Matt Mihaly
          • • [STORY] Story and population size John Buehler
            • • [STORY] Story and population size Matt Mihaly
              • [STORY] Story and population size Jeff Cole
              • • [STORY] Story and population size John Buehler
                • • [STORY] Story and population size Jeff Cole
                  • • [STORY] Story and population size John Buehler
            • [STORY] Story and population size Michael Tresca
            • • [STORY] Story and population size Matt Mihaly
        • [STORY] Story and population size Dave Rickey
        • • [STORY] Story and population size Jeff Cole
          • • [STORY] Story and population size Dave Rickey
            • [STORY] Story and population size Paul Schwanz
            • [STORY] Story and population size Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
            • • [STORY] Story and population size Andrew Hefford
          • [STORY] Story and population size Bryan "Cyngon" Helmkamp
  • [STORY] Story and population size Bobby Martin
  • • [STORY] Story and population size Marian Griffith
    • • [STORY] Story and population size Bobby Martin
  • [STORY] Story and population size Bruce Mitchener
  • • [STORY] Story and population size Sellers, Mike
    • [STORY] Story and population size Bobby Martin
• [GENETICS] Evolving prey populations Adam Martin
• Stories, why? Ian Collyer
• • Stories, why? amanda@alfar.com
• Purchase of Meridian 59 by Near Death Studios Brian 'Psychochild' Green
• • Purchase of Meridian 59 by Near Death Studios Rob Ellis II
  • Purchase of Meridian 59 by Near Death Studios Lee Sheldon
  • Purchase of Meridian 59 by Near Death Studios Sellers, Mike
• Community Building Sanvean
• doesNotUnderstand behavior in C++ (was: Spoofs) Eli Stevens
• Importance of player roles Sasha Hart
• RTS aspects in MUDs (LONG) lhulbert@hotmail.com
• • RTS aspects in MUDs (LONG) John Robert Arras
  • • RTS aspects in MUDs (LONG) Leland Hulbert II
    • RTS aspects in MUDs (LONG) holding99@mindspring.com
  • RTS aspects in MUDs (LONG) Dave Kennerly
  • • RTS aspects in MUDs (LONG) Takis Kalogiratos
• Agora, a Wiki for MUD topics Bruce Mitchener