Many muds even supplied “seamlessness,” allowing users in one node to look into another node to see what is going on via an explicit command (for example, the “scan” command on Diku derivatives). Its links to adjacent zones use a geographical metaphor, but are in fact hyperlinks just like a MUD’s exits. The term itself has a MUD heritage, where it meant a collection of nodes that were linked thematically or via database tags but in effect, a zone today is a node in a directed graph, with an embedded Cartesian coordinate system. In fact, the modern successor to a MUD’s room is not a given location within an MMORPG, but in fact a zone. Many text muds employed Cartesian coordinates within their nodes. The most obvious alternate method to use is the standard Cartesian coordinate system. This doesn’t mean that you cannot build other maps of that space. It’s akin to a subway map only stops are shown, and moving to the next stop is assumed to involve an arbitrary amount of uninteresting travel.
The hypertextual directed graph is a model that compresses and elides only locations of significance are included in its map. Space can be modelled in many different ways. It’s important to realize this, because the metaphor of location is a key characteristic. Spatial relationships between nodes were generally established, and while the spaces may have been non-Cartesian or even non-Euclidean, there was an explicit desire to represent location. It’s important to note that nodes are therefore not required to rest on any form of coordinate system nonetheless, mud maps reveal that frequently, the developers did indeed do this, for ease of navigation. Nonetheless, as with any node system with links, these environments could be mapped, using directed graphs. Many of these links were literally labelled with cardinal map directions (“north”), but some of them were instead “prepositional” such as “under,” “through,” or “into.” Indeed, more adventurous builders sometimes created links that were conceptual, carrying users to “places” that were not real, such as dream states.
In these room-based systems, therefore, you could move a very large “distance” by traversing a link. Text muds, exploiting the power of hypertext, treated each block of text as a discrete location, but did not apply scale to the “room” that was described. For example, the early hypertexts and the text muds both make use of brief database entries with a title and a block of text they both make use of hyperlinks between these blocks of text to allow a user to move from one to the other. Broadly speaking, the basis of this simulation is that it is modeling space, providing a sense of place. Virtual worlds of all stripes are undeniably running a simulation model. You’ll notice that graphics or text appear in neither of our definitions, and the reason is that word “simulation” that appears in Richard’s list.
The environment continues to exist and to develop internally (at least to some degree) even when there are no people interacting with it this means it is persistent. Because several such people can affect the same environment simultaneously, the world is said to shared or multi-user. Some - but not all - the entities in this environment act under the direct control of individual people. Virtual worlds are implemented by a computer (or network of computers) that simulates an environment. Others have taken a whack at it as well, of course to wit, Richard Bartle comments in the opening paragraphs of his indispensable Designing Virtual Worlds A sandbox to play in that offers persistence for some amount of the data represented within the virtual world.A spatial representation of the virtual world.So here’s my stab at explaining why I think both are really the same thing in many ways, there are far larger differences between certain kinds of text muds than there are between graphical and text-based games.ĭoing definitions is always tricky I’ve offered mine in the past, with these following core requirements: I’ve usually found that those who have worked on the implementation side of both tend to feel that they are the same thing, but that thsoe who haven’t see them as somehow categorically different. This always comes up, and I often seem to be on the opposite side of the argument from many players.
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