(MUCK) Perspectives
I've managed to get involved with a relatively "new" little set of players on the MUCK. There's definite ups and downs to that. I find the fresher view of things invigorating at times. But I also see behavior that I grew out of years ago. It's a little weird.
But from a more objective standpoint, it's also a little fascinating to see the old guard perceptions of the place versus the new. For these newer players, their vision of the setting is based on what's in the Wiki (which is outdated and incomplete in many cases) mingled with their own biases. To those of us of the "old guard" we experienced a lot of the stories directly and (at least in my case) haven't even looked at what the Wiki says for months or years. Of course, it doesn't help that a lot of things existed primarily in one person's head, and getting all that onto a web page is virtually impossible.
In some cases, this has led to two (if not more) completely different takes on the setting's culture and society.
And that's caused some problems here and there, as interesting as it may be. When these two perceptions clash, who wins? The old-timers can't exactly be wrong since they were probably there when things were laid out and defined, but the newer players can't exactly be wrong either, since they did their best based on the available information and may well have been weaving stories around certain concepts since they started.
So if you have groups with conflicting views, neither of which is exactly wrong and both of which are awful attached to either perceptions, where does that leave you? Aside from American politics? With a bit of a mess, really.
It brings me back to that saying I liked so much when I heard it, because if listed setting information doesn't get people on the same page, it's not doing its job very well: "Communication is not what I say, but what you think I said."
But from a more objective standpoint, it's also a little fascinating to see the old guard perceptions of the place versus the new. For these newer players, their vision of the setting is based on what's in the Wiki (which is outdated and incomplete in many cases) mingled with their own biases. To those of us of the "old guard" we experienced a lot of the stories directly and (at least in my case) haven't even looked at what the Wiki says for months or years. Of course, it doesn't help that a lot of things existed primarily in one person's head, and getting all that onto a web page is virtually impossible.
In some cases, this has led to two (if not more) completely different takes on the setting's culture and society.
And that's caused some problems here and there, as interesting as it may be. When these two perceptions clash, who wins? The old-timers can't exactly be wrong since they were probably there when things were laid out and defined, but the newer players can't exactly be wrong either, since they did their best based on the available information and may well have been weaving stories around certain concepts since they started.
So if you have groups with conflicting views, neither of which is exactly wrong and both of which are awful attached to either perceptions, where does that leave you? Aside from American politics? With a bit of a mess, really.
It brings me back to that saying I liked so much when I heard it, because if listed setting information doesn't get people on the same page, it's not doing its job very well: "Communication is not what I say, but what you think I said."
One reason I'm not keen on the 'wiki' angle and would rather have a concise web page. Static and only able to be updated by the one with the information. :P
ReplyDeleteDifference is minimal when no one much edits the wiki anyway. It also doesn't solve what I perceive as the main problem with any such knowledgebase: You don't know what important stuff is lacking until it's needed, and by that time it's often "too late" to integrate smoothly because someone has taken a "faulty" idea and run with it in the absence of details.
ReplyDelete