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I Was Young And I Needed The Money

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the oh-richard dept.

The Escapist this week is running a great article by Richard Bartle entitled I Was Young And I Needed The Money. He doles out the sordid details of his experience developing a never-released sexy text MMOG. From the article: "All we required was some fiendish mind-control system to persuade people to play a text game when they really wanted to play EverQuest. So, that would be sex, then. I'd written a pitch for a sex MUD about five years earlier, but the funding fell through. Now was the time to dust it off! The thing is, sex in a text world has three things going for it that sex in a graphics world doesn't ... "

12 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Freeform textual sex? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

    Has been around for ages. Where was he hiding when MU* games were created. I'm pretty sure the first line ever said in a MUD is "hey, cool, it's working!" The second: "Wanna fuck?"

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Freeform textual sex? by optikSmoke · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Where was he hiding when MU* games were created.

      Writing it?

    2. Re:Freeform textual sex? by msuzio · · Score: 4, Funny

      Where's the moderation option, +1 - "Oh, Snap"

      --
      It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
  2. This has to be good by mackil · · Score: 3, Funny

    "The thing is, sex in a text world has three things going for it that sex in a graphics world doesn't ... "

    Man am I waiting on the punchline for this!

  3. I thought... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 3, Funny

    Funny, when reading the title I thought it was an RPG about being a prostitute. It would be interesting for a change.

  4. Before the Karma Whores get here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative
    The 3 things are: (for the lazy)

    1.It's freeform. You don't have to motion-capture every position in the Kama Sutra and beyond, because people can animate it themselves using words.

    2.It's legal. You can write about antics that you would be jailed for depicting visually. The word is pornography, not pornotexty.

    3.For a basic sex game to work, you need comparable numbers of both men and women. A female-friendly game, by virtue of its having women in it, is male-friendly; therefore, you need to attract women. And hey, guess what? Study after study has shown that, in general, women prefer words to pictures - especially when it comes to sexual fantasizing.

  5. Bwahahaha!!! by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 4, Funny
    As for the sex act itself, we implemented it using a modification of the classic MUD combat system.

    Anyone else get to this line and laugh uncontrollably for five minutes straight?

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    Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
    1. Re:Bwahahaha!!! by darkhitman · · Score: 5, Funny

      I can't resist this, crude as it may be:

      It is now your turn.
      Your ejaculation hits Kara101 for 32 damage.

      Kara101 has died.


      Experience gained: 50 points.

      --
      Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
    2. Re:Bwahahaha!!! by g33uu · · Score: 3, Funny

      As for the sex act itself, we implemented it using a modification of the classic MUD combat system. This sounds appropriate. Battles in the classic MUD combat system never lasted very long for me.

  6. Textual by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I put on my robe and wizard hat"

  7. Was this freeform by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I get the idea from his description of some game mechanics that this was NOT just a mud with cybersex. Rather that the sex was a game mechanic. He does after all talk about how he adopted the combat system.

    So it would be far more then just chatting "wanna fuck". You would actuallly have to worry about stats. Probably for the male of making sure you stimulate her enough that you don't come to fast. Wonder if male players are disconnected within a few minutes of climax?

    It sounds like he was trying for way more then just another adult chatroom. Could have been intresting BUT hard to sell indeed.

    Companies got very weird attitudes to sex. Just check phone companies and how they handle porn. THey are happy to rake in the cash from phonesex lines and mobile porn sites but nobody wants to be the assigned to handle them.

    But all is not lost. Read the recent article of upcoming MMO's. Naughty America is sex based and I remember another story about an MMO set in London that has sex as well.

    I just hope that they indeed have the whole sex/relationship put in as game mechanics. If it is just freeform sex I am gonna suck at it as bad is in real life. Now anyone know how to grind a really big dick?

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  8. tag: sex-bad-violence-good by ofcourseyouare · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A note for the tagging beta people: I suggest you need a new tag called "sex-bad-violence-good". This article should be tagged with it, along with yesterday's one about the scandalous "sex scenes" in Oblivion, the shocking hot coffee mod etc. It's such a huge issue. It's the elephant in the living room of games culture. Or maybe there are two elephants. And God knows what they're doing together, but you better not make a game out of it.