The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games - Michael J. Tresca [69]
Status
Although IF features a virtual world complete with monsters and magic, it does not operate under the same assumptions on which Dungeons & Dragons was built. In Crowther and Woods’s Colossal Cave Adventure, the player could throw axes at dwarves to kill them, but there were no experience points awarded or combat rolls made. In fact, the player character could kill a dragon with his bare hands (Barton 2008:28), which would normally be a serious level-making achievement for a more statistically based role-playing game. In IF, it’s just another part of the narrative.
Conclusion
Interactive fiction dominated commercial computer games in the early 1980s, but its legacy strongly influenced the CRPGs and MMPORGs of today. IF brought puzzle solving and spatial relationships to narrative games. “Even though some gamers and even some recent developers may know little about IF,” said Nick Montfort in a personal interview, “the influence of those games is clear, whether it is recognized or not” (Montfort 2010).
We explore interactive fiction’s influence on multi-player gaming in the next chapter.
SIX
MULTI-USER DUNGEONS
The anonymity and the lack of presence of the Internet seems to inflame people to swear, according to the thesis of Michael Tresca. The graduate of Michigan State University says “highly anonymous groups exhibit inflammatory disinhibition,” i.e. people are more likely to be offensive when they think others don’t know who they are [Cukan 2004].
Introduction
Multi-user dungeons (MUDs) are text-based collaborative computer games that allow users to interact with each other. The term “multi-user dungeon” is often thought to have been coined for Dungeons & Dragons, and that’s partially true. The acronym was inspired by DNGEON, the Zork prototype (Montfort 2003:224).
The Internet chat environment adds an important social element to the adventure game. With social interaction happening in real time, MUDs better approximate the typical role-playing setup around a gaming table. MUDs are also known as MUGs (multi-user games), MUSHes (multi-user shared hallucinations), and MOOs (multi–object-oriented).
MUDs generally have spells, equipment, and powers that are level-based, lending them to a Dungeons & Dragons style of play. MOOs and MUSHes rely on player-generated content and social contracts to conduct combat. These MUD variants have no actual hard-coded mechanic, but rather a series of descriptions with an agreed-upon outcome. This is similar to a live action roleplaying (LARP) game experience.
MUDs can be broken down into two types: LP for Lars Penjat, who developed a variety of C that allows an LP MUD to operate without having to reboot, and DIKU (named after Datalogisk Institut, Københavns Universitet, the Department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen), which carries equipment on the player character from reboot to reboot. DIKU MUDs tend to more closely follow the traditional tabletop version of Dungeons & Dragons, with six statistics and the standard classes and races.
It’s useful to contrast how MUDs fit into the larger schema of social games. Castronova (2005:103) describes online worlds by their size of user base, how they interact, and the presence of nonplayer characters (NPCs) controlled by artificial intelligence.
Worlds that have no artificial intelligence governing the game are primarily “player-killer” systems. These online games, such as first-person shooters (FPS), feature little consistency and development of characters, instead focusing on the player. The player achieves agency by taking on the role of the character (Mateas 2004:26). In online FPS games like Halo, Gears of War, and Modern Warfare, voice chat provides another level of media richness that can be a barrier for role-playing. Voice chat makes it particularly difficult for players to act as someone else, younger players to conceal their age,