{"id":1287,"date":"2014-03-23T21:25:13","date_gmt":"2014-03-24T01:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/?p=1287"},"modified":"2015-07-01T12:21:31","modified_gmt":"2015-07-01T16:21:31","slug":"a-first-time-mud-experience-in-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/?p=1287","title":{"rendered":"A First-time MUD Experience in 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have spent a notable amount of my life in <strong>virtual worlds<\/strong>. One of <a href=\"http:\/\/annwn1985.storynexus.com\/s\">my games<\/a>, and my upcoming novel, are set in one, in fact. The big ones:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I dallied a year in World of Warcraft, which was essentially running around in a fantasy world and wondering when my friends were jumping on. Meh.<\/li>\n<li>I spent many moons in Second Life, which allowed me to actually <em>make<\/em> stuff. \u00a0I built a few airships, and a little brass orb that followed me around and talked to people. This was fun.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Fun, but <strong>limited<\/strong>. At a certain point in WoW, I had done everything that didn&#8217;t require a three-hour minimum play time. I didn&#8217;t want to start paying for space in Second Life, and most of places I went were pretty barren.<\/p>\n<p>This is <strong>what I want<\/strong> &#8212; to jump in as I see fit, be able to get together with friends, and see a ton of content, preferably user-made.<\/p>\n<p>I recently read <a href=\"http:\/\/aeon.co\/magazine\/world-views\/before-minecraft-or-snapchat-there-was-micromuse\/\">this article on MicroMUSE<\/a>, a 1990-era text-based MUD which allowed users to build their own environment. Come on, now. Green-on-black text and<strong> freedom to create<\/strong>? This sounds perfect.<\/p>\n<p>Having never played on a MUD (&#8220;played a MUD&#8221;? &#8220;been in a MUD&#8221;?), I figured it was time. I found a list and got to it.<\/p>\n<p>I set up a character and played about fifteen minutes on a Tolkien MUD, right up until the NPC Numenorean who was showing me around ordered a beer and it came in a bottle. Napes.<\/p>\n<p>Then I came across a cyberpunk-themed thing. Oh, why not.<\/p>\n<p>So, this MUD, which I choose not to name, starts you off on a street filled with strip clubs, prostitution, and sex acts right out in the open. Fine. Sure. Dark streets, seedy underbellies, glowing neon. Straight <a href=\"http:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/blog\/it-evolved-into-birds-ten-science-fictional-thinkers-on-the-past-and-future-of-cyberpunk\">pantone<\/a>. But, the very first area you enter is the sex industry neighborhood?<\/p>\n<p>Before long, an admin pulled me out of the game and put me in some sort of holding center until I wrote a history for my character. I did. Ah, but it was not good enough.<\/p>\n<p>So I fleshed it out. And then received<strong> revision notes<\/strong>. This process took two days.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, having passed this enforced-character-background barrier, I got back to it. Where &#8220;it&#8221; was wandering around from street to street watching kidnappings and harassment I could do nothing to stop. Just background text, apparently; the same way you might see &#8220;there is a tapestry on the wall&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>And here&#8217;s the kicker &#8212; the in-character chat was lame at best. Discussion of how fat a character is. Claims of sexual prowess. When I asked in the out-of -character help chat where I could buy a sword (this is cyberpunk, after all), I was told to look in stores. Oh, and anything can be a weapon in this game. And that&#8217;s an in-character question and should be asked somewhere else and here&#8217;s a link to the rules.<\/p>\n<p>This is <strong>my problem<\/strong> with virtual worlds. The internet is other people, just like Hell.<\/p>\n<p>I hear good things about Minecraft, but I don&#8217;t particularly want to play shared Legos. Something text-based seems perfect, or even something with basic graphics. Something we can jump in on from a handheld or phone. Where I don&#8217;t have to interface with anyone I don&#8217;t want to, but can easily join groups etc. Second Life without the graphics engine.<\/p>\n<p>Wait, did I just describe Facebook?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have spent a notable amount of my life in virtual worlds. One of my games, and my upcoming novel, are set in one, in fact. The big ones: I dallied a year in World of Warcraft, which was essentially running around in a fantasy world and wondering when my friends were jumping on. Meh. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cyberpunk","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1288,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions\/1288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}