From: jao@teer1.acpub.duke.edu (JOSEPH OSWALD)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: multi-player IF
Date: 22 Jan 93 23:02:02 GMT
            <BENH.93Jan19172359@gradient.cis.upenn.edu>
	    <RUSTY.93Jan21092420@groan.Berkeley.EDU>

In article <RUSTY.93Jan21092420@groan.Berkeley.EDU>, rusty@groan.Berkeley.EDU
 (Rusty Wright) writes:
|> As one who has played on MUDs for several years, and who loves IF, my
|> guess is that the two won't really mix (multi-player IF).  The problem
|> is that when you get multiple players, there's a very strong
|> inclination to just sit around 	and shoot the breeze.
....
Well, I guess I can understand this, but it would help if someone could e-mail
me some info on exactly what a MUD is, and how it works, either in a theoretical
sense or a real example.

|> 
|> I think it boils down to the the problem that living, talking people
|> are invariably more interesting than some interactive fiction puzzle
|> or story.  Until we get some really good AI in our IF software, the IF
|> will always be more static in it's behavior, and therefore less
|> interesting, than people.
|> 
....

This indicates to me that the problem might be that an essentially un-regulated
number of people can get on board (like xtrek), so that roles are essentially
all equal and also very general--you can't count on having a certain number of
people around, so you can't have a certain number of roles that need to be
filled. It's a lot easier to write a multi-player game that way. 1000 looters-
and-pillagers in a game have very similar effects to 100 looters-and-pillagers,
just more so. This may be my misunderstanding of MUDs, but it's one possibility.

My thinking was of a fixed number of players (perhaps not all needed at the same
time, but just periodically logging in to catch up on their thread) each with an
assigned persona that is part of the game. To use a _Suspended_ analogy, one
person is Auda, the listening robot, and one person is Whiz, the computer-
interfacing robot, etc. Perhaps the character one plays in the one-player
version, the central directing intelligence, would NOT be one of the players,
and the organization and direction would have to arise as cooperation between
the players, none of whom alone could solve the puzzle.

Another problem could be the means of communication, and how aware one is of the
other characters being around. If you are constantly aware of where everyone is,
or can talk to anybody on demand, it might degenerate more easily than if you're
not as in touch.

Of course, this issue of communication would be pretty central to the idea of
multi-player IF. In _Suspended_ (I sure hope most people understand this game
at least in concept, if not in play), the central director interacts solely
by a "radio" connection that lets him assume the usual IF role of one robot.
That means that one can always tell, on demand, where Auda is, what he hears,
and what journey you sent him on, if you did so.

If multi-human player IF works like this, with essentially unlimited contact,
then it might degenerate. BUT, if you could limit it in some way, like
"person is in the room to talk, or you have picked up the communicator and he 
has the other one, or you have sent a message to his computer terminal
(fictional, not physical), and he has checked his (fictional) e-mail account"
perhaps it would be more interesting. 

Note, that any limitation could be potentially overcome. If four people are all
wired in to one PC box on 25' serial lines, then there's going to be a lot of
table talk. In xtrek (a X-window shoot-em-up with ships logged on from possibly
all over the country), two ships on consoles right next to each other in a lab
are on a different relationship than "Joe from Duke" and "Max from MIT", although
if the game were slow-paced, e-mail would let Joe and Max communicate equally
well.

This would be rather difficult, then--if one has limited communication to help
the plot, then this extra-game communication would overcome the limitations,
allowing "cheating:" Joe on Planet X can talk to Max, on Planet Y, just by
calling across the computer lab (which xtrek players do, to much annoyance to
people trying to do Comp.Sci. homework), or sending him e-mail on the net,
even if "communications" between planets X and Y are disrupted by an "ion
storm" 

On the other hand, if GOOD communication is needed in the game, as in a battle
situation, or a run-away robot that needs to be stopped before he throws himself
in an acid bath, then how do you do that, if it is potentially being played 
over the net, or if Max may have logged off to do real work?

A difficult balance--technical communication issues, uncertainty of whether
players may be more able to talk than you think, and how to write a plot that
is fun (or at least frustrating in the entertaining sense) in whatever mode
of communications is REALLY in effect.

I've raised a lot of points here, (and used a lot of net.bandwidth)
respond/flame as desired.

*please, remember to fix my ignorance of what multi-player stuff has been
already accomplished.

--Joe