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Salon on M.U.L.E Creator Dani Bunten
douglips writes "If you're a hacker of a certain age, chances are you played M.U.L.E. Salon is running a story on M.U.L.E. creator Dan[i] Bunten. Ahead of her time, she insisted that games would be most enjoyable when they involved social interactions rather than just flashy single-player action and graphics."
As I recall, this was referred to as Edu-Tainment, which fell out of favor when faced by the likes of first person shooters and one-on-one combat games. I still play M.U.L.E. on a 64 emulator and have hacked it various times over the past 15 years. I've had it play as many months as I like, usually by 18 you can see some actualy economic cycles develop, though in the c64 version there's some issues with the money cap. I don't recall which one, but one value rolls over at 32678, the other value does at 65536, which can make for some radical changes in ranking :-)
Still, it's one of my all time favorites. And it Dani was ahead of her time, then those who enjoyed the game, like I did, were also.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
but nobody can say Counter-Strike involves social interactions...
Sure they can. I've played both ways: online and just with bots (in CS and in other games). Despite the shallowness of the social interaction, there is quite a lot of it when the players are human. The way that you form quick non-verbal alliances with teammates to get a certain thing done. The way vendettas come and go. The brainless voice commments...
But that's just it - it's _not_ brainless. I mean, it certainly isn't what one might call intelligent, but it's very human. In fact it's so human that we think it's brainless. But I've yet to see any AI that provides even a dash of the thrill or depth of going against humans - even in a flashy action game.
Nothing wrong with the flashy graphics in and of themselves, but I bet even you would prefer - over the long term - a satisfying game with average graphics to an empty game with flashy graphics.
I don't think there's any doubt that computers have raised the single player game to levels previously unimaginable.
We've gone from puzzle games, crosswords, solitaire and such to fully immersive interactive worlds like Grim Fandango and IL2.
I, for one, think that there's too *much* emphisis on multiplayer these days, to the extent that single player is often totally ignored.
However, all that being said, whether you *think* you are acting socially or not, a multiplayer game of Counter-Strike is an entirely different, ummmm, ball game, just because you *know* those are actually other people out there.
And while I may spend many, many, *many* more hours driving Grand Prix Legends in solo mode it's the online racing against real human beings that gives the game the spice that has allowed it to remain the king of Driving Sims for over 4 years, in a world where a game more than one year old is considered dead.
I'm a geek and a Buddhist. I deeply revere hours spent in solitary concentration and contemplation, even in my recreational hours, but I am *not* socially averse or inept either.
If you think Thoreau was a hermit than if you read Walden for the first time you'll be likely to proclaim him, as did one Amazon reviewer, a "fraud." Thoreau posed an experiment in reducing human living to its bare essentials. He considered social interactions to be one of the things that man cannot truly live *entirely* without and remain a man.
He strove to find the right *balance* between solitude and social interaction.
So should you - and so should game designers.
KFG
You might as well say the same thing about board games or DnD.
Some of the best times I had with my friends were playing poker or Risk.
Such is the infinite Grace of Popeye.
When I read the article this morning I was glad that it wasn't five pages on her struggle with a sex change. The thing that endeared her to me and to many other people was that she created a game that was a fun part of our childhood. A number of people have had sex changes but what makes her stand out is her game, M.U.L.E., and the impact on the video game industry of the time.