Sunday, April 02, 2006

if (MUD == MMORPG)

I find it depressing that this post from Raph was even made. To me, it is like the following:

Professor Raph walks into the room. He writes on the giant black board, "advanced cellular biology". The students watch, pulling out their notes.

Raph: "Cellular biology explores the foundation of life itself. This is the field which allows us to manage bacteria, virii, cancers, drugs, and even genetic engineering, in addition to simpler things such as proving that grass and trees are in the same kingdom. In this advanced course, we'll be first learning how to monitor retroviral-"

Student: "Wait, grass and trees are in the same kingdom?"

Raph: "Uh... yes. Yes, they are."

Student: "I don't believe you."

:P

4 comments:

Duncan M said...

The fact he had to explain that MUDs and MMOGs are the same thing is unfortunate. The post itself has a lot of merit beyond that. It goes a long way towards defining the role of the client application. It also provides examples of how clients of different scopes can interact with the same base simulation.

These concepts are fundamental and not always well understood by players. Developers yes, but it was primarily the players that couldn't see the MUDs as MMOGs.

Craig Perko said...

Yes, he put some good stuff in the post. But I wish he'd do meaty posts instead of fluffy ones.

Anonymous said...

So... okay... MUD is MMOG. So what?

It depends on how you define MUD and MMOG. No big deal really. Why to argue about that?

Craig Perko said...

The point is that many of the same dynamics apply to both MUD and MMOG. The way that they scale is a fascinating look into some fundamental algorithms.

I want to hear him talk about those.