Subject: Re: MOO + gaming system[s]

From: Quinn Avery <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 14:46:04 -0700

Have you been living in a MOO-cave for the past two years? ;)

There have been numerous MOO-RPGs and MOOs devoted entirely to a 
 a gaming environment.  Muds in general spring from the gaming
 tradition, tho sadly many (especially Dikus and LPs) tend to be
 more hack-and-slash than role-playing.

Take a look at LRPG for the oldest example.  It's been around longer
 than 90% of the LambdaMOO wizards.

-quinn

---

From: Quinn Avery <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 14:49:26 -0700

Just realised you're coming from NWU.  I co-wizzed DalMOO-- an
 RPG-MOO at that very university a year or so ago.

-quinn again

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 14:53:34 -0700

> For some time now, I've been thinking that a MUD + a gaming system (eg AD&D
> or gurps or war-games) would be really cool.
>
> I'm envisioning a world where the MUD itself is the DM (modulo wizard
> 'fixes') and various puppets (term?) would be the npcs.
>
> Has anybody already tried this?

Uh, aren't the vast majority of MUDs exactly that?

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 11:31:36 -0700

>   Isn't there a danger that a MOO could be turned into a MUD by the
>addition of an RPG area? If your home computer has limited resources, I'd
>think there would be a danger that a sizeable number of folks would just
>zoom through the MOO in order to get to the RPG area. Of course, if the
>gaming is thematically connected to the MOO theme, then no prob.... I
>guess. But I would think there could be a danger of losing a MOO's
>identity if the RPG part loomed bigger and bigger.

Well, I take a bit more tyrranical of an attitude about themeliness
 at OpalMOO than some do, so you can be assured that the RPG area
 is very thematic.  In fact, I think that area is necessary to really
 complete the gritty, backstreets feel.  Also, I'm not limiting RPG
 to hack-n-slash.  We also have drug addiction, sex, disease, bad
 relationships, and a host of other things.  It's gonna be slick!

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 14:24:33 -0700

Well, um, MonoHaze was running on a machine I got them.  I did warn them
that the particular disk they were using was not on the normal backup
schedule.  And, well, one day we came in and Solaris had eaten every
single disk (5 machines, 5 disks).  I'm not sure what the status is now.
We couldn't recover the db, and there is still nothing to be done about
local backups for those disks if they continue working on the MOO.

-- void *(*(*schlake())[])(void *);

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 22:56:09 -0700

> Care to say more about this? Are you saying that there's no difference
> between a MOO and a MUD? I realze that some writers (like Brenda Laurel) 
> treat computers as theater. But if MOOs = MUDs, then why use two terms?

Well, MOO is an acronym which stands for "MUD Object-Oriented", so I've
 been told.  And since MUD is an acronym for Multi-User Dungeon/Dimension/
 Demesne, I guess you could say it's one darn obfuscated term.

MOO simply denotes a MUD with a particular design environment.  It's a
 different flavor of MUD just as we have other MUD varieties such as
 LP-MUD, dikuMUD, MUSE, MUSH, and so on.  Personally, I prefer MOO
 because it has a much easier to use environment, in my opinion.

--- Dov Sherman
    [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 07:10:45 -0700

Pfui.  Saying MOO stands for "MUD Object-Oriented" and therefore all
MOOs are MUDS misses the point.  They seem to be attracting different
cultures.  It's like saying "a Hopi is just a Londoner who doesn't
speak English."

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 10:58:56 -0700

> And no, I'm not critcizing combat muds, just saying that MOOs
> usually are more socially oriented.

Uh, don't take this the wrong way but, it doesn't sound like you've been
 on many other MUDs.  A LOT of them are predominantly socially-oriented.
 As a general rule, dikuMUDs are hack-n-slash but most places that big
 with the word "Tiny" are social.

Interesting note: I remember that one MUD writer got so sick of people
 being ONLY social and using page too much that he made a MUD that only
 had ONE room.  As sort of talking-heads MUD.

--- Dov Sherman
    [email-masked]