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MUD influenceJune 27th, 2008 |
As part of the ongoing raking over the coals of Richard Bartle for saying the obvious (yes, you can tell what side I am on in those debates!), Steve Danuser says over at Moorgard.com » Sacred Cows
I get tired of people implying that today’s MMOs owe their entire existence to the MUDs of yesteryear. Sorry, I disagree. The gameplay style of EQ or WoW is obviously influenced by MUDs, but I propose that MMOs would have evolved anyway.
And Ryan Shwayder posts in comments saying
Ultima Online is a direct descendant of what MUD? I’m not saying it isn’t, I’m just saying that I don’t know what particular MUD had a profound influence on that game. It seems like the MMO industry was born of different influences; EverQuest from DikiMuds, Ultima Online from Ultima games. Not all MMOs have a lot of direct comparisons to MUDs, so I think he’s right that they’d exist whether MUDs did or not.
Well…
There’s little doubt that MMOs would have evolved anyway. In fact, they actually DID evolve anyway. MMOs were created simultaneously and independently by a dozen groups at once. The folks doing Meridian 59 did not know about the folks doing Kingdom of the Winds, and so on. Not to mention older antecedents like Habitat. MUDs, in fact, were also invented independently at least four times, as Bartle himself has stated many times over.
That said:
- The early Everquest developers played Diku derivatives in the form of Sojourn and children muds such as Duris and Toril.
- Early folks on Meridian 59 played Diku derivatives such as Worlds of Carnage.
- The original core team on Ultima Online was a mix of two LP Mudders, a MUSH/MOOer, and a few Diku-folks. And one Ultima guy.
- I could go on — The Realm and many others also had those sorts of antecedents.
The result? Today’s MMOs are mostly reskinned muds. It is very very hard to find an MMO that doesn’t have a direct comparison to a text world. Yes, even EVE, even A Tale in the Desert.
And, I must point out, even today much of the leadership behind the MMOs today is still from that “old guard” (though not necessarily from the mud world) — the designers and executives of the mid-to-late 90’s are still the ones determining what you play in many ways, from Mark over at Mythic/EA to Damion, Rich, and Gordon over at Bioware, to Kim Taek-jin and the Garriotts at NCSoft…
If they had been invented independently, they would be different.
What did MMOs really bring to the table, designwise?
- Greater sense of spatiality. This mostly affected aggro management, and it did make combat significantly richer.
- More advanced raiding — it existed, but it lacked all of the support infrastructure that eventually popped up.
- Much heavier use of instancing — it was a very unusual and rare technology back then.
- Lots of cool support features — like, adding quest logs to quests, for example.
- Dancing.
- Pictures.
In the recent discussions, a lot of folks have cited stuff like WAR’s upcoming public quests as new, or the Tome of Knowledge. These people have clearly never played MUME. Or maybe not Everquest, which had public quests too. Or…
I think it’s easy to be dismissive of history, and say that it’s not relevant. I’m pretty sure I have heard a quote somewhere about the consequences of that. Moving forward without knowledge of the past is far more likely to result in going in circles. MMOs have removed more features from MUD gameplay than they have added, when you look at the games in aggregate.
The fact that people can cite things like “big boss battles in a public zone” or “really rich badge profiles and player stat tracking” as truly differentiating features mostly speaks to how narrow the scope of the field has gotten in the public’s mind. This is like arguing over whether scalloped bracing in acoustic guitars is a defining characteristic for all of music, when in fact it has zero relevance to MIDI controllers. By analogy, Bartle, like many of us, is arguing from the perspective of all music — all virtual worlds. And his detractors are people who only listen to indie rock from the Athens, GA, area circa 1989. All Richard is asking for is for someone to please play some jazz.
Failure to evolve more radically isn’t a flaw — in that sense, I agree completely with Moorgard. But then, I tend to think that all the current MMOs in the game industry are already the Old Guard relative to the new webby folks. I think the mudder crew is already the Older Guard anyway. So in a sense this is kind of like an argument between art rockers and disco musicians. 
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While still enjoying the pretty.
[...] president, MetaPlace developer, and all-around-MMO-authority Raph Koster wrote up a blog post about the influence of MUDs on today’s graphical MMOs. The post is part of the broader, cross-blog discussion that began with our interview with Richard [...]
isn’t a flaw,” said Koster. He finished up by positing that all the current MMOs “are already Old Guard,” and that “the mudder crew is already the Older Guard. So in a sense this is kind of like an argument between art rockers and disco musicians.”Read| Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Raph Koster is one of those few members of the industry who is really outspoken and keeps in touch with the community and expresses his thoughts in a way that is accessible to anyone. It’s fitting that we share his argument here.On the topic of MMO’s evolving from MUDS:Theres little doubt that MMOs would have evolved anyway. In fact, they actually DID evolve anyway. MMOs were created simultaneously and independently by a dozen groups at once. The folks doing
[...] Raph Koster has been around long enough to know most virtual world history. He’s raised some interesting points about MUDs and MMOs, stating that the latter have “removed more features from MUD gameplay [...]
[...] added:Areae president, MetaPlace developer, and all-around-MMO-authority Raph Koster wrote up a blog post about the influence of MUDs on today’s graphical MMOs. The post is part of the broader, cross-blog discussion that began with our interview with Richard [...]
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[...] influence of history - designers and gamers Raph Koster posted an interesting blog entry related to the latest discussions that popped up regarding the Richard Bartle transcript and the [...]
[...] Raph’s Website » MUD influence Not to mention older antecedents like Habitat. MUDs, in fact, were also invented independently at least four times, as Bartle himself has stated many times over. (tags: http://www.raphkoster.com 2008 mes5 dia28 at_home MUD Bartle raph_koster blog_post history games MMOG) [...]
[...] post here by Raph, countering some claims by some newer developers that MMOs don’t owe as much to text MUDs as [...]
like many of us, is arguing from the perspective of all music all virtual worlds. And his detractors are people who only listen to indie rock from the Athens, GA, area circa 1989. All Richard is asking for is for someone to please play some jazz.Go read the whole thing. Very much worth it. Raphs in a particularly good place to support Richards arguments, of course, as hes working on Metaplace - which may, if it turns out right, allow all of us to play whatever
[...] Its called World of Warcraft.” or somesuch (I’m too tired to link the quote). Raph Koster has weighed in and said that MMOs left more features of MUDs behind than they implemented. A [...]
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or EA to make a conscious effort to make a game nobody wants to buy? Why complain about a game like Diablo 3 being developed, if we already know that millions of people will buy it and enjoy it? A few people might have preferred Blizzard to developa text MUD instead, but we all know that only a handful of people would have played it, even if the idea would certainly be original. Adam Smith said “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their
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or EA to make a conscious effort to make a game nobody wants to buy? Why complain about a game like Diablo 3 being developed, if we already know that millions of people will buy it and enjoy it? A few people might have preferred Blizzard to developa text MUD instead, but we all know that only a handful of people would have played it, even if the idea would certainly be original. Adam Smith said “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their
[...] own dislikes or that of the marketeers is hard to tell… But in the current discussion about how MMOs have been dropping more MUD features than innovating new features themselves, it regularly comes up to debunk the ‘PvP is hardcore’ myth that surrounds PvP in MMOs. From MUDs [...]
[...] experienced players”. Here are some more links that tie into this very amusing little discussion: http://www.raphkoster.com/2008/06/27/mud-influence/ http://www.moorgard.com/?p=235 http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2008/06/wow.html [...]
[...] to some degree to the discussion previously begun on MMOs vs the World. Read on!Quoted from Raph’s Website: As part of the ongoing raking over the coals of Richard Bartle for saying the obvious (yes, [...]
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