Subject: Atlantic Monthly article on MUDs

From: Gilberte Houbart <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 10:11:22 -0700

>These relationships are probably no specialty of muds, but exist also
>in other wide area communication media, like IRC (Internet relay chat)
>and ham radio. But muds add much to create the right athmosphere to
>make come-together easier.

Yes, I think it's important not to forget about other media in order
to understand the specifics of MUDs. I developed myself close
relationships with friends just by "plain" email. I'm also closer to
those of my friends in France who have email. I remember on the other
hand, repeated long distance phone calls with friends and family.
Phone happens in real time, it may be expensive so you have to think
in advance and have quick answers. But if you can take more time, it
has in common with email that you don't see the person which is an
important factor for your imagination. (Voice though gives additional
information).

What your imagination builds to "fill in the blanks" seemed to me very
important and it could be bad or good depending on what your goal is.
With MUDs you want to be surprised (I guess), enjoy new feelings based
on what your imagination creates but if you are trying to build or fix
problems with people from your "real" life, you don't want your
imagination to be in the way.

The only solution I found was to try whenever possible to have some
reality check by just actually meeting people. We say a lot with body
language (Negroponte says that eyes are a great ouput system...).

The problem is certainly not new. Some of us were talking about
comparing the way people used to exchange letters in the past and
electronic communication. I'm sure that imagination used to create an
environment to these letters, the same way it does with email or MUDs
now. It may also vary from person to person.

If what you want is to unleash your imagination as much as you can, I
wonder if graphics are necessary or obviously the only way to go. It
reminds me of how disapointed I was when watching Natacha played by
some real human in some movie version of "War and Peace"...

Gilberte

---

From: [email-masked] (Martin Brenner)
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 17:29:01 -0700

Jacques Leslie writes:

> I am a journalist doing a piece for the Atlantic Monthly on MUDs. 
> This idea, by the way, was spawned at the DIAC conference. Now I'd 
> like to invite you to get in touch with me, either by phone (415) 
> 331-2644 or email, and leave your own phone number. 

I'm running a mud in Tuebingen/Germany which is called Nightfall.
I'll try to answer some of your questions.

> Among the questions I'm interested in exploring:
> 
> -- Can you provide examples of close relationships forged through 
> MUDding?

Yes. I know of at least 3 close relationships in my mud. The farest
is probably about 5000 miles between a boy and girl in the U.S. who
are using muds as way of communicating besides using a phone.
They came together in person these days.

Muds often provide some sort of 'wedding' and I think this shows
how close relationships might be in a mud. The intensity of a relationship
is also obvious when it breaks.

> -- Can you provide examples of MUD addicts?

Yes. Me. Let's face it, especially in extensible muds, a lot of fun
comes from being able to create and invent new things for a public
audience. This is similar to being a writer or artist (at least I
think of it this way). But the difference is that it is not a solo
enterprise but a whole group working on a huge project and having
fun in the meantime. This is far better than all entertainment 
which passive media provide.

> -- Can you cite and briefly describe unusually rich, innovative, or 
> intriguing MUDs?

Nightfall? My definition of a innovative mud is that it continously
evolves, which it must because as the mud becomes larger it must
somehow organize itself. The danger is always that it becomes a
dictatorship. We in Nightfall have always tried to keep things
going without opressing people. Decisions are normally voted upon
democratically.

A good mud should have rich room descriptions. Since there are no
graphics, the text must describe the scenario as best as possible.
Probably nothing surpasses the description in the commercial
Infocom adventure games (single user computer games).

The probably most interesting current mud is BSXMud, a mud with
graphical representations of rooms. I'm not sure that it really
adds to the atmosphere of the world but it is interesting as a
step into the future of Virtual Reality. Another important step which
is about to take place soon is a networked mud which will provide
an even more fascination group experience.

> -- How prevalent have you found gender-switching on MUDs, and what is 
> its impact on participants?

I have found it more or less annoying and I think it only creates
bad feelings for all participants. Nevertheless, male players have
told me that it is an interesting experience to play a female and
get all attention. 

> -- WhatUs the social benefit, if any, of MUDs?

Muds provide an easy understandable wordwide communication which no 
other medium besides personal contact does. Because it is restricted
to transmitting text it emphasizes the intellectul abilities of its
participants. There is no discrimination because of race, for
example. As a low bandwidth medium it provide a cheap worldwide
communication for those who have access to it which the telephone
with its still expensive long distant rates cannot.

> -- Do MUDs represent a new form of social interaction? Are they "the 
> wave of the future"?

They provide interaction based only on the imagination of its participants.
They provide a reality-like medium without the necessity to meet in person
or going to conferences. They are the first step to the future global
'cyberspace' evolving from the powerglove & video helmet of today's 
'virtual reality' experiments to direct mind-machine interfaces.

> -- Does the development of MUDs have great value for people studying 
> how societies and communities take shape, or is the value limited 
> because the people who typically participate in MUDs are so 
> unrepresentative of the general population?

That is difficult to answer, but I have met people out of many different
cultures and places in society. I am no sociologist, but from my
observations in my mud I conclude that a mud society shows the
sympthoms of real world power structures and group behaviour.
We are currently in the process of distributing responsibilities for
certain administrative and geographical areas.

Probably I can only speak for German muds where the average age of
players is a few years higher than in the United States.

> You can post answers to any of these questions you'd like, or just 
> let me know how I can contact you by phone. The more you say about 
> your own MUD experiences, the better. Thanks for your help.

I hope that I helped you to understand what I think Muds mean for our
future. I regret that many people see muds just as 'games'. We are
racing towards a revolution in information production and we really
need ways to make this information accessible in an easy-to-understandable
way. Familiar paradigmas must be used to make handling the information
by humans possible and provide the 'global village feeling' for
everybody.

Virtually,
-Martin
-- 
Martin Brenner, Institut f. Theoretische Astrophysik, Universitaet Tuebingen
[email-masked]    <Deepthought the Nightfall Sourcerer>