Potential Methodologies for MUDs, at Game Studies. All my hot buttons, all at once. It's difficult to pick a single point out of this wide-ranging article on how to play and the players of MUDs, but the three aspects deserve a mention. Mortensen identifies three influences on how the game is player: the technical aspect (the limitations/built-ins of the game software); the In Character culture (the influence of the game win-state and incentives); and the Out Of Character culture (social interaction, morality).
There's more to say here than I can write down, but for the moment compare these: One. Popper's three worlds (objective, subjective, social; or: of-game, in-game, in-players). Two. The geography of a game (immutable laws of physics, or the board itself, depending on whether the "game" is a board-game or Real Life); the rules of a game (win-states and rules explicitly set by the game, eg get a line of three crosses, or take Berlin); the morality of the players (rules implicitly set by the game, that is, agreeing to obey the explicit rules, or declining to bomb civilians). Interesting.
Potential Methodologies for MUDs, at Game Studies. All my hot buttons, all at once. It's difficult to pick a single point out of this wide-ranging article on how to play and the players of MUDs, but the three aspects deserve a mention. Mortensen identifies three influences on how the game is player: the technical aspect (the limitations/built-ins of the game software); the In Character culture (the influence of the game win-state and incentives); and the Out Of Character culture (social interaction, morality).
There's more to say here than I can write down, but for the moment compare these: One. Popper's three worlds (objective, subjective, social; or: of-game, in-game, in-players). Two. The geography of a game (immutable laws of physics, or the board itself, depending on whether the "game" is a board-game or Real Life); the rules of a game (win-states and rules explicitly set by the game, eg get a line of three crosses, or take Berlin); the morality of the players (rules implicitly set by the game, that is, agreeing to obey the explicit rules, or declining to bomb civilians). Interesting.