(Faire) What's Wrong?
I've heard a few people complaining or expressing what they see as the problem with the MUCK. Some things I agree with, but I see from a different angle. I find the situation unfortunate, as I don't really see a good solution myself.
But where to begin?
Tashiro did a lot of work in forging the background of the setting from bits and pieces of different people's visions. It really wasn't cohesive in any sense until that point. And even then, he proceeded along those lines when the MUCK was rebooted to the new site. That was a lot of work, and in many ways helped the MUCK come into its own to begin with.
There's a downside to that, too. Not being omnipotent, a lot of his efforts have pulled some of those pieces away from their original design. Things I remember one way are completely different these days. This probably first started to bug me with the sudden declaration that the central area was a port - which was nowhere near being true given the early maps or the original grid as it was laid out. And as more things have "changed," it's added up in my book. Names of orders and people. Additions to history. Bringing back areas completely different from how they were before. It was something like a 20-year time lapse, and more in play since, but I look around and barely see anything I recognize from its original form.
It has also made the place more and more his vision, and that makes it harder for anyone else to do anything. Writing history requires permission, essentially, to meld it with what exists. People are encouraged to run their own plots, but also reminded that things are a certain way and that's how it is. And he's the only one who _knows_ everything, no matter how many pages are written in a wiki. The prospect of anyone else running any notable plots is something of a Catch 22. Though not everyone may realize it, I think most find this stifling of creativity to some extent.
Then there's also the matter of the rules system. The way it was designed, it's reasonably balanced at low levels. Unfortunately, it gets rather out of whack (by my estimation at least) later on, and advancement came pretty quick. We have characters who are quasi-gods on the grid (not even counting the 'real' gods), and it becomes hard to operate in the shadow of that. Yeah, someone with powers X, Y, and Z at such high levels can read the mind of anyone who would threaten peace and off them in advance. Whee. Challenging such people in a direct sense requires a threat that can level a field of starting characters, and that's not much fun for anyone.
...
So I don't know what to do with the place. I play in small, private scenes that are usually some effort on my part to cling to elements of the past and familiar. The "public" MUCK as it stands now just doesn't feel right to me. I feel out of place. I sometimes miss the past dearly and want to bend things back to that, but... it just doesn't feel worth it to fight. Instead, my method of coping seems to be telling myself over and over to care less. By letting go, the changes and difficulties don't bother me so much. It just also makes me feel more removed from the place.
But where to begin?
Tashiro did a lot of work in forging the background of the setting from bits and pieces of different people's visions. It really wasn't cohesive in any sense until that point. And even then, he proceeded along those lines when the MUCK was rebooted to the new site. That was a lot of work, and in many ways helped the MUCK come into its own to begin with.
There's a downside to that, too. Not being omnipotent, a lot of his efforts have pulled some of those pieces away from their original design. Things I remember one way are completely different these days. This probably first started to bug me with the sudden declaration that the central area was a port - which was nowhere near being true given the early maps or the original grid as it was laid out. And as more things have "changed," it's added up in my book. Names of orders and people. Additions to history. Bringing back areas completely different from how they were before. It was something like a 20-year time lapse, and more in play since, but I look around and barely see anything I recognize from its original form.
It has also made the place more and more his vision, and that makes it harder for anyone else to do anything. Writing history requires permission, essentially, to meld it with what exists. People are encouraged to run their own plots, but also reminded that things are a certain way and that's how it is. And he's the only one who _knows_ everything, no matter how many pages are written in a wiki. The prospect of anyone else running any notable plots is something of a Catch 22. Though not everyone may realize it, I think most find this stifling of creativity to some extent.
Then there's also the matter of the rules system. The way it was designed, it's reasonably balanced at low levels. Unfortunately, it gets rather out of whack (by my estimation at least) later on, and advancement came pretty quick. We have characters who are quasi-gods on the grid (not even counting the 'real' gods), and it becomes hard to operate in the shadow of that. Yeah, someone with powers X, Y, and Z at such high levels can read the mind of anyone who would threaten peace and off them in advance. Whee. Challenging such people in a direct sense requires a threat that can level a field of starting characters, and that's not much fun for anyone.
...
So I don't know what to do with the place. I play in small, private scenes that are usually some effort on my part to cling to elements of the past and familiar. The "public" MUCK as it stands now just doesn't feel right to me. I feel out of place. I sometimes miss the past dearly and want to bend things back to that, but... it just doesn't feel worth it to fight. Instead, my method of coping seems to be telling myself over and over to care less. By letting go, the changes and difficulties don't bother me so much. It just also makes me feel more removed from the place.
Way back in the day, when I was gathering information and writing it out, people had the opportunity to inform me of things I was missing or offer insight into what was present to be used. The more the players gave me, the more in tune with their memories it would have been. Lacking that, all I had to go on was the bits and pieces I had, and the slight details others gave me.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. And I don't want to be sitting around whining "oh, it's all his fault," especially when it was mainly your efforts that made the place more than just a hodge podge of ideas from different people in the same general area with no connections. From where I sit, though, a lot of changes came out of nowhere. I didn't think I had to specify "West Wood isn't a port town" because that seemed obvious to me (and I surely did argue over that one for a while). You got a laugh when I ICly called the Brotherhood "of the Book" way back when, and yet that became their official name. The Rymnian Sky Gate that used to open near a village that was linked to the grid suddenly went to some wilderness across the island. I didn't think anyone would touch Shademire ever again, yet here it is looking nothing like the glimpses I remember. In the same way it's impossible for you to just know how everything was before, there's no way everyone else could dump every tidbit of information they had in a way you could absorb and include. No-win situation, perhaps, and one that has become clearer over time.
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