May 2002

• Random Resets John Robert Arras
• • Random Resets Kwon Ekstrom
  • • Random Resets John Robert Arras
• [MLP] The use of ecology models Rayzam
• Interesting things to do (was: Player Accounts on a Non-Commercial MUD) John Buehler
• • Interesting things to do (was: Player Accounts on a Non-Commercial MUD) Damion Schubert
• Apple WWDC? amanda@alfar.com
• • Apple WWDC? Nathan F. Yospe
  • • Apple WWDC? Amanda Walker
    • • Apple WWDC? Sasha Hart
      • • Apple WWDC? amanda@alfar.com
        • • Apple WWDC? Brian Hook
          • Apple WWDC? John A. Bertoglio
          • • Apple WWDC? Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
            • Apple WWDC? Matt Mihaly
            • • Apple WWDC? shren
              • • Apple WWDC? Matt Mihaly
              • Apple WWDC? John A. Bertoglio
            • Apple WWDC? James Edward Gray II
        • Apple WWDC? Brian Hook
• Encouraging groups without grouping Brian 'Psychochild' Green
• Introduction and My solution to Powergamers, Treadmills, and Content Devaluation. Ken Raisor
• • Introduction and My solution to Powergamers, Treadmills, and Content Devaluation. shren
  • Introduction and My solution to Powergamers, Treadmills, and Content Devaluation. Gladimir
  • Introduction and My solution to Powergamers, Treadmills, and Content Devaluation. szii@sziisoft.com
• The audience is the medium. For now. John Szeder
• • The audience is the medium. For now. John Buehler
  • • The audience is the medium. For now. Damion Schubert
    • • The audience is the medium. For now. Ted L. Chen
      • • The audience is the medium. For now. Shane Gough
        • The audience is the medium. For now. Michael Tresca
        • • The audience is the medium. For now. Ted L. Chen
          • • The audience is the medium. For now. Marian Griffith
            • The audience is the medium. For now. Vincent Archer
  • The audience is the medium. For now. Damion Schubert
  • The audience is the medium. For now. David B. Held
  • The audience is the medium. For now. Ted L. Chen
  • The audience is the medium. For now. Marian Griffith
  • The audience is the medium. For now. F. Randall Farmer
  • • The audience is the medium. For now. J C Lawrence
  • The audience is the medium. For now. Frank Crowell
• Ownership of characters Jasper McChesney
• Explorers? (Was: Codename Blue & Facets - Nick Yee's new studies) Brian 'Psychochild' Green
  An interesting study.
  
  Like other people, I am most fascinated by the lack of validation in
  the study for the Explorer type. When I have taken the Bartle test,
  I have always scored high on the Explorer type.
  
  At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, I think part of this
  inability to validate the explorer can be explained by the change in
  the internet from the time when the original MUD made its debut to
  the time when this study was made. I think most people that have
  been around for more than a few years will agree that the internet
  has changed quite drastically.
  
  Let's start with the basics: what is an explorer? At it's base it's
  someone who likes exploring the various aspects of the game
  (interacting with the game world, as Bartle put it). This usually
  focuses on creating detailed maps, lists of items, and descriptions
  of game mechanics. (As a side note, I disagree with the Explorer
  being concerned with self-discovery and group-dynamic discovery as
  in Yee's study.)
  
  Let's look first at how this information is presented. In many old
  text MUDs, your stats were presented as raw numbers. In addition,
  many games were significantly simpler; many of the MUDs I originally
  played didn't even have skills, just your base stats and a level.
  
  In modern games, things have been obfuscated behind various layers
  in the game. Graphical bars often take the place of some things
  that were provided as numbers in the games. The addition of more
  skills, more stats, more everything has complicated the games. On
  top of this all, the basics of how these stats and skills work are
  not even described within the context of the game. How can I as an
  Explorer experiment with game mechanics if I'm not even sure exactly
  what the stat or skill does for my character?
  
  I think the bigger issue, however, is how information that is found
  is presented. In the ancient days of text MUDs, we used to pass
  around info by word of mouth and in-game mail. "Oh, get the Sword
  of Foozle! It gives a +2 to Strength and seems to do more damage,
  too!" I used to pride myself in the text MUDs I played on the fact
  that I could share info with other players quite easily.
  
  Now, however, this information is put into a database for
  presentation on a web page. I think this is mostly a function of
  the scale of these games. In a text MUD I honestly could go around
  and test damn near *every* weapon in the game to see what was the
  most effective. Doing this in a game like EQ or DAoC would take an
  amount of in-game resources and time that frankly boggles the mind.
  The "expert" you go to to ask game questions is now any person that
  can type out the URL of the web page.
  
  I think that the "explorer" function has been diversified into the
  population as a whole. Anyone can send a screenshot of a new weapon
  into the game's web site. It doesn't take some geek with a notebook
  and a pen cataloging every item in the game, anymore.
  
  Another major factor is content generation. In most free text
  games, there are people becoming new coders all the time. They
  produce a new area or two for the players, so there is always a new
  area to explore, a new weapon to add to your catalog of items. The
  content is generated on a semi-regular basis and can be gleefully
  consumed.
  
  This is not the case in graphical games. As every professional
  knows, adding content in graphical games is EXPENSIVE. This content
  is also consumed rapidly by players eager to go see the newest thing
  in the game and grab the newest toys. Graphical games simply cannot
  create content as fast as the text games with free labor can.
  
  To give a personal example, Meridian 59 had a very standard usage
  pattern. Meridian 59 produced updates to the game that were made
  freely available to current players. Every update (which happened
  about every 6-8 months while I worked at 3DO), we would get a spike
  of activity for about a week or two immediately after the update.
  What was this? I figure it was the explorers logging on, exploring
  the new areas, then going into hibernation when there was nothing
  new under the sun.
  
  Finally, I think we should look at the motivations and personalities
  for Explorers. I personally explore because I'm a gaming geek and a
  game developer. I love tearing apart mechanics to see how things
  tick. I love to use this knowledge to improve my own toolkit of
  design methods for designing new game mechanics.
  
  In the old days of text games, the audience was more
  self-selecting. Damn near everyone had a .edu address, and 99% of
  the people on the internet were either in a computer-related
  industry or studying to get into one. The audience was more
  tech-savvy and tended to have a greater background in mathematics.
  
  How are things now? A majority of people have an msn.com or aol.com
  or other address that had traditionally been laughed at by the .edu
  elite. There is a lot more diversity on the 'net. We don't just
  have computer and math geeks tearing apart game mechanics, we now
  have housewives transforming into bold socializing amazons, lawyers
  taking out their aggression by killing other helpless players, and
  bored corporate drones working their way up the ladder to achieve a
  higher number than other people. Where are the geeks crunching
  numbers?
  
  I think most of them are probably making the game. :)
  
  Fodder for thought.
  
  --
  "And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...." -"Defender", Manowar
  Brian Green, brian@psychochild.org aka Psychochild
  |\ _,,,---,,_ *=* Morpheus, my kitten, says "Hi!" *=*
  ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ Meridian 59
  |,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-' http://meridian59.neardeathstudios.com/
  '---''(_/--' `-'\_) Welcome back to your favorite online game.
• • Explorers? (Was: Codename Blue & Facets - Nick Yee's new studies) Matt Mihaly
• Befriending Critters (was: Random Resets) Arthaey
• • Befriending Critters (was: Random Resets) Rayzam
  • Befriending Critters (was: Random Resets) shren
• Questions about server design Ben Chambers
• • Questions about server design Michael Bayne
  • Questions about server design Sean Middleditch
  • Questions about server design Mike Shaver
  • Questions about server design Kwon Ekstrom
  • Questions about server design szii@sziisoft.com
  • Questions about server design F. Randall Farmer
  • • Questions about server design James Edward Gray II
  • Questions about server design Shane Gough
• Extensibility Ben Chambers
• • Extensibility Ammon Lauritzen
  • Extensibility Kwon Ekstrom
  • Extensibility Ben Chambers
  • • Extensibility "Christopher {siege} " OBrien
  • Extensibility Sean Middleditch
  • Extensibility Sean Kelly
  • • Extensibility John Buehler
    • • Extensibility shren
      • • Extensibility John Buehler
    • Extensibility szii@sziisoft.com
    • • Extensibility John Buehler
      • • Extensibility szii@sziisoft.com
  • Extensibility Mike Shaver
• Question: Any published research on Sims type game personae? susan wu
• • Question: Any published research on Sims type game personae? Robert Zubek
• [MLP] Why care about levels? (was: The use of ecolo Richard Woolcock
• [MLP] Why care about levels? (was: The use of ecolo gy models) Jon Lambert
• Component Design (was: Extensibility) Scion Altera
• [BIZ] Selling Stock (formerly Blacksnow revisted ) Robert A. Rice, Jr.
• Games are Hot. Period Michael Tresca
• • Games are Hot. Period Gladimir
  • • Games are Hot. Period Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric
    • • Games are Hot. Period Freeman, Jeff
      • • Games are Hot. Period Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric
      • Games are Hot. Period Koster, Raph
      • • Games are Hot. Period Vincent Archer
        • Games are Hot. Period Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric
  • Games are Hot. Period Matt Mihaly
• fun Matt Mihaly
• [TECH] Shortest Path William Murdick
• [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Ted L. Chen
• • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction John Buehler
  • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Ted L. Chen
    • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction John Buehler
  • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Ted L. Chen
  • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Eli Stevens
    • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Jon Leonard
      • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
      • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Rec onstruction Robert Zubek
      • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Rec onstruction ceo@grexengine.com
  • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
  • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Ted L. Chen
    • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Rec onstruction Koster, Raph
      • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Rec onstruction lynx@lynx.purrsia.com
        • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Ted L. Chen
  • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Rudy Neeser
  • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Ted L. Chen
  • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Matt Mihaly
  • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Rec onstruction Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
    • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction John Buehler
      • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Ted L. Chen
        • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction John Buehler
        • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction Mike Shaver
        • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction John Buehler
          • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Reconstruction amanda@alfar.com
        • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Rec onstruction Koster, Raph
        • • [TECH] Voice in MO* - Phoneme Decomposition and Rec onstruction Steve {Bloo} Daniels
• Combat with Style (was Player Accounts on a Non-Commercial MUD) lynx@lynx.purrsia.com
• Playskins Koster, Raph
• People were talking about resets.. Anderson, David
• • People were talking about resets.. Sasha Hart
  • • People were talking about resets.. Anderson, David
  • People were talking about resets.. John Buehler
  • People were talking about resets.. Anderson, David
  • People were talking about resets.. Arnau Rossell=?US-ASCII?Q?=F3?= Castell=?US-ASCII?Q?=F3?=
  • • People were talking about resets.. shren
    • People were talking about resets.. Anderson, David
    • • People were talking about resets.. David B. Held
  • People were talking about resets.. shren
  • • People were talking about resets.. Anderson, David
    • • People were talking about resets.. Michael Tresca
      • • People were talking about resets.. Fred Clift
        • • People were talking about resets.. Lars Duening
          • People were talking about resets.. Michael Tresca
          • • People were talking about resets.. Rayzam
            • • People were talking about resets.. Matt Mihaly
  • People were talking about resets.. Tand'a-ur
  • • People were talking about resets.. John Buehler
    • People were talking about resets.. Leland Hulbert II
  • People were talking about resets.. lynx@lynx.purrsia.com
  • People were talking about resets.. Jason Murdick
  • • People were talking about resets.. Jeff Lindsey
    • People were talking about resets.. Ben Chambers
  • People were talking about resets.. Sasha Hart
  • • People were talking about resets.. David B. Held
    • • People were talking about resets.. Sasha Hart
      • • People were talking about resets.. Anderson, David
        • People were talking about resets.. David B. Held
        • • People were talking about resets.. Acius
          • • People were talking about resets.. Marian Griffith
• Question about copyovers. Anderson, David
• • Question about copyovers. Tand'a-ur
  • • Question about copyovers. Anderson, David
    • • Question about copyovers. Kwon Ekstrom
      • • Question about copyovers. Adam
        • Question about copyovers. Oliver Jowett
        • • Question about copyovers. Kwon Ekstrom
          • • Question about copyovers. Adam
      • Question about copyovers. Lars Duening
  • Question about copyovers. Jon Lambert
  • Question about copyovers. fred@clift.org
  • • Question about copyovers. Zach Collins {Siege}
  • Question about copyovers. Smith, David {Lynchburg}
• non-violent activities (was People were talking about resets..) Ammon Lauritzen
• References on personality and emotion models Robert Zubek
• Multimodal interface conference. Rayzam
• Hyperbolies R Us shren
• • Hyperbolies R Us Matt Mihaly
• TECH: Systems Administration Issues Thomas Leavitt
• Questions about ... XML as data format Adam
• • Questions about ... XML as data format Anderson, David
  • Questions about ... XML as data format Kwon Ekstrom
  • • Questions about ... XML as data format Adam
• R&D Matt Mihaly
• • R&D Dave Rickey
  • • R&D apollyon
    • • R&D shren
    • R&D Zach Collins {Siege}
    • • R&D Sean Kelly
      • • R&D Matt Mihaly
        • • R&D Sean Kelly
        • R&D Derek Licciardi
        • R&D Brian Bilek
        • • R&D Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric
          • • R&D Brian Bilek
            • • R&D Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric
              • • R&D Brian Bilek
          • R&D Damion Schubert
          • R&D Matt Mihaly
          • • R&D Brian Bilek
            • • R&D amanda@alfar.com
              • • R&D Brian Bilek
                • • R&D Koster, Raph
                  • • R&D Ron Gabbard
                    • R&D Amanda Walker
                    • R&D Frank Crowell
              • R&D Dave Rickey
              • • R&D Brian Bilek
              • R&D Matt Mihaly
              • • R&D Dave Rickey
            • R&D Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric
    • R&D Jessica Mulligan
    • R&D Damion Schubert
• Conversation logs? Robert Zubek
• • Conversation logs? Rudy Fink
  • • Conversation logs? Vincent Archer
  • Conversation logs? Shane Gough
• DGN: Elastic Advancement in MUDs? Jeff Lindsey
• • DGN: Elastic Advancement in MUDs? David B. Held
• Building histories off civilizations automatically adam Martin
• ADMIN: Virii and mail forgeries J C Lawrence
• Hi from the Dragon Empire's CLM Peter Tyson
• Linux gaming ( was Apple WWDC? ) Kevin Mack
• [TECH] Preferred LPC replacement? Jeff Bachtel
• • [TECH] Preferred LPC replacement? Damion Schubert
• Who `owns' conversation logs? Joshua Judson Rosen
• The Online Gaming Life for Me! Michael Tresca
• Boredom Ben Chambers
• • Boredom Michael Tresca
  • Boredom Matt Chatterley
• Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility [was Boredom] Ron Gabbard
• • Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility [was Boredom] Caliban Tiresias Darklock
• "MMOG" Bible Brian 'Psychochild' Green
• • "MMOG" Bible David Kennerly
• TECH: Single process v.s. multi process? Philip Mak
• • TECH: Single process v.s. multi process? Smith, David {Lynchburg}
  • TECH: Single process v.s. multi process? Bruce Mitchener
  • • TECH: Single process v.s. multi process? Bruce Mitchener
• In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Clay
• • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] apollyon
  • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Caliban Tiresias Darklock
  • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishi ng Marginal Utility] Koster, Raph
  • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Jeff Cole
    • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Damion Schubert
    • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] John Buehler
    • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] amanda@alfar.com
      • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] John Buehler
  • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Michael Tresca
  • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Paul Schwanz
    • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Martin C. Martin
    • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Dave Rickey
      • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Vincent Archer
      • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Sanvean
      • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Matt Mihaly
      • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] F. Randall Farmer
        • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Matt Mihaly
      • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Michael Tresca
  • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Kwon Ekstrom
  • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Marian Griffith
    • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Yannick Jean
      • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Marian Griffith
  • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Ron Gabbard
  • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Sean Kelly
    • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Ron Gabbard
      • • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Sean Kelly
        • In defense of "soloability" [was Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility] Matt Mihaly
• Game shows Peter Tyson
• What keeps people interested in social muds? Martin C. Martin
• • What keeps people interested in social muds? Rudy Fink
  • • What keeps people interested in social muds? Martin C. Martin
    • • What keeps people interested in social muds? Joshua Judson Rosen
  • What keeps people interested in social muds? Ron Gabbard
  • What keeps people interested in social muds? Marc Bowden
  • What keeps people interested in social muds? Joshua Judson Rosen
  • • What keeps people interested in social muds? Matt Owen
  • What keeps people interested in social muds? lynx@lynx.purrsia.com
  • What keeps people interested in social muds? Richard A. Bartle
  • • What keeps people interested in social muds? Martin C. Martin
  • What keeps people interested in social muds? Richard A. Bartle
• New Beginings Drylar Levre
• • New Beginings Acius
  • New Beginings ceo@grexengine.com
  • • New Beginings Bruce Mitchener
    • New Beginings David B. Held
    • • New Beginings Kwon Ekstrom
      • • New Beginings David B. Held
        • • New Beginings Kwon Ekstrom
          • New Beginings Sean Kelly
      • New Beginings Lars Duening
      • • New Beginings David B. Held
        • • New Beginings Lars Duening
      • New Beginings Bruce Mitchener
      • • New Beginings David B. Held
        • • New Beginings Kwon Ekstrom
          • New Beginings Paul Schwanz
          • • New Beginings Zach Collins {Siege}
          • New Beginings Miroslav Silovic
        • New Beginings David B. Held
  • New Beginings Draymoor a Vin il'Rogina
  • New Beginings David B. Held
  • • New Beginings Kwon Ekstrom
    • New Beginings Bruce Mitchener
• [DGN] Creating a MUD Richard Krush
• • [DGN] Creating a MUD Acius
  • [DGN] Creating a MUD Caliban Tiresias Darklock
  • • [DGN] Creating a MUD Edward Glowacki
    • • [DGN] Creating a MUD Kwon Ekstrom
  • [DGN] Creating a MUD Edward Glowacki
  • • [DGN] Creating a MUD Fred Clift
    • • [DGN] Creating a MUD David Bennett
      • • [DGN] Creating a MUD fred@clift.org
  • [DGN] Creating a MUD Damion Schubert
  • • [DGN] Creating a MUD Taylor
  • [DGN] Creating a MUD Matt Mihaly
  • • [DGN] Creating a MUD Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
• On the creation of constructive/social behaviours in online games! Marc Demesel
• [DGN] MUD Books James Edward Gray II
• • [DGN] MUD Books Scion Altera
  • [DGN] MUD Books Jeremy Noetzelman
  • [DGN] MUD Books Tand'a-ur
• Positive reinforcement for socializing [was In de fense of "soloability" ] Jeff Lindsey
• Character skill distribution and trade-offs Ron Gabbard
• • Character skill distribution and trade-offs Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
  • • Character skill distribution and trade-offs Vincent Archer
    • • Character skill distribution and trade-offs Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
    • Character skill distribution and trade-offs John Buehler
    • Character skill distribution and trade-offs Sean Kelly
    • • Character skill distribution and trade-offs Ron Gabbard
      • • Character skill distribution and trade-offs Travis Casey
        • Character skill distribution and trade-offs Rayzam
• Space partitioning, R-Trees? Dread Quixadhal
• • Space partitioning, R-Trees? Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
  • • Space partitioning, R-Trees? Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
  • Space partitioning, R-Trees? Crosbie Fitch