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VIKTOR First of all, Richard,
thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions in
this inaugural issue of our newsletter.
RICHARD You're welcome.
VIKTOR As you know, it is
titled Admiral Bombow's Chronicles ... but who, exactly, is the
good Admiral?
RICHARD All public houses ("pubs")
in the UK have names; inns are pubs which also offer
accommodation. When I added the inn to MUD (strictly speaking, I
added it to VALLEY, which was the second database for MUD but
which is now fully integrated into it) I therefore had to think
of a name for it. The person in charge of the computer service at
Essex University at the time was one Brian O'Mahoney, whose
nickname was BOM, so I decided to name it after him (not in his
honour, but because it was derelict, much like he often appeared
to be). Rather than simply called it "The BOM Inn",
which was rather crass-sounding, I decided to dress it up a
little so it was more in keeping with the game's atmosphere while
retaining the reference I wanted. I chose to combine the BOM
initials with the name of the inn from the novel "Treasure
Island", which is the "Admiral Benbow".
I hope all your questions aren't going to be this hard!
VIKTOR This is the first
opportunity to ask publicly your opinion about our site, so allow
me to ask bluntly: what do you think of MUD2.COM?
RICHARD The full screen of dross that
arrives every time I connect is annoying; if you really must give
out all that data, can we have a second port we can connect to
which doesn't splurge it out at us?
The web site is good, and growing better all the time. It
certainly makes LIBRARY look antiquated (but then LIBRARY really
IS antiquated!).
The game, well, that's good because of the players. We've had
fewer of the usual teething troubles that I'd expect with a new
site, but then you've been an arch-wiz for long enough to know
what you're doing!
VIKTOR Are there any other
sites in the works that you can talk about? Would they in any way
affect our right to retain a license to run MUD2 at MUD2.COM?
RICHARD There are no Internet sites, no.
There is a major UK site which will go into open testing soon,
but as it isn't in it yet I can't comment on it. I expect that it
might snaffle a few of your UK players, but it won't affect the
Internet traffic. Yours remains the only Internet-accessible
MUD2, and I see no reason to doubt that it won't stay that way
for some time. The license that the UK site has (or will have,
once the contract is signed) is non-exclusive, so it won't affect
your license.
VIKTOR What are your immediate
and longer-term plans for our game? Shall we expect any
significant improvements or changes in the near future?
RICHARD It depends what you mean by
"improvements". There will always be changes, of
course, and you'll get them first; whether they're improvements
is for the players to decide!
VIKTOR Are you working on
improving the game from a programming standpoint (i.e., a richer
command set, improved parsing, more elaborate features) or are
you working on additional areas to the game?
RICHARD All of these. My main priority is to
correct bugs and right perceived unfairnesses, but after that I
really just look at my list and decide what to do next. I think
some more help files are long overdue, but the new
"formal" system doesn't seem to be very popular. I may
therefore write up some commands in a shorter format and access
them from the game like the DEFN command accesses the
MUDspeke dictionary.
I don't intend to make any major changes to the parser, but I
still tinker with it. For example, one of the changes I intend to
make soon is with the way that if you type a word followed by a
space followed by a number then it concatenates them. This means
you can type things like K G 3 and mean KILL GOBLIN3;
I originally put it in so people could READ PAGE 17 of a
book or something, but I don't have any books with more than 1
page at the moment..! Anyway, there's a problem if the
word/number falls where a verb is, instead of a noun: people type
G 1 BRAND and it translates to G1 BRAND, ie.
tell GOBLIN1 the message "brand"..! I'll fix
that, of course, but I don't expect to increase the power of the
parser significantly in the near future. It's already excellent;
my only long-term aim for it is to increase the number of noun
groups it accepts, so you can POUR THE WATER FROM THE RIVER
INTO THE CORACLE USING THE GLASS and suchlike.
Additional areas: I do have some planned out, yes. I expect I
will add these (I certainly need to finish off the Pagoda), but
there's no call for it yet as there aren't enough players. When
the UK site opens, it may get crowded and oblige me to increase
the number of rooms.
VIKTOR Are there any really
long-term plans in the works, shall we expect a MUD3 sometime?
RICHARD I have long-term plans for other
games, but not for MUD itself. I have a specification for a
really snazzy client program, which might make MUD2 appear more
professional, but it would take me quite a while to write it. I
also have a partly-finished compiler which converts MUDDLE into
C; this would make the game run much faster than it does now, and
enable me to sell single-player versions for people at home.
However, it would also probably take several months to complete.
Ideally, I'd like to expand MUSE so I could pay some employee to
make these changes, but the company doesn't have the money.
I may be able to get outside funds to write another game in
MUDDLE, though.
VIKTOR There has been a lot of
talk lately about a graphical interface. While purists even
consider colourisation a heresy, most players shudder at the
thought of "graphics". But there is an obvious
difference between a artistic rendering of the MUD2 landscape
versus a front-end program that merely works under a graphical
operating system but retains the textual nature of the game.
Which of these two directions best describe your development
efforts?
RICHARD The latter.
If someone writes a novel using only words, people will read
it if it's good enough. The same people, and perhaps a few more,
might read it if it had accompanying illustrations. Whether
they'd go to see it in the cinema or not is another matter.
MUD2 was written to be expressed in text. If more people will
read it because it has some illustrative pictures, or music, OK,
I can provide that. However, if they want the words to be
replaced by pictures, they can forget it. I can do games like
that, but MUD2 isn't one of them.
The issue is one of professionalism. When people buy games
nowadays, they expect a certain level of quality. This means they
like to have a few windows, icons, and other things they can
click their mouse on. This can be provided, and it can be done in
such a fashion that it doesn't undermine the integrity of the
game. So long as people who play this way get no advantage over
people who don't (except, perhaps, in that their playing
experience is richer), it's fair enough. No-one is FORCING you to
use a GUI!
Of course, this is all irrelevant since I don't actually have a
GUI for the game (although the UK MUD2 service that's coming
later this year does have a rather sweet client).
VIKTOR The most often heard
complaint from mortals these days concerns the "loss of
mystery" in the game.
RICHARD Ah, the ol' "mystique"
problem.
VIKTOR Some of this loss is
inevitable when a large number of players are highly experienced,
with many former wizzes among them. Still, do you have any
thoughts as to how this lost mystery can be found again and in
particular, what we can do, mortals and immortals alike, to
preserve the aura of mystery for new players?
RICHARD I do, but it's rather brutal: let
the game handle it. The game is quite capable of generating
mystique, but it's the players (particularly the wizzes) who
spoil it. They THINK that by making mobiles speak, or by creating
new, exotic objects, they are somehow making the game more
mysterious, but in reality the (new) players just get the
impression that they are being messed about. Mystique comes not
because wizzes add mystery, but because the game is programmed to
lead people ever-deeper into the unknown. Thrusting artificial
mystery on people undermines this.
Needless to say, I do not expect matters to improve, although at
least they're unlikely to get worse.
VIKTOR Another frequent
complaint concerns "wiz interference". To me, the very
term implies that some think wizzes should act as idle spectators
in the game. What are your thoughts on this subject?
RICHARD Wizzes are allowed to interfere.
There are certain rules that govern the extent to which they can
do this (eg. it's usually a good idea if they FOD people for a
reason, rather than on a whim), but there are no rules which
proscribe wiz interference as a concept.
Most wizzes are actually very sensible about what they do. I'm
sure, as an arch-wiz, you're aware that most of the howls of
"wiz interference" do not bear up when the log files
are examined. Mortals may wish to believe that they lost a
persona because someone picked on them, rather than through bad
luck or incompetence, but rarely is that the case. Indeed, if it
IS the case, we de-wiz the wiz concerned..!
VIKTOR A little on the personal
side ... I had the good fortune to read both of your excellent
novels in manuscript form. I can only congratulate you on them
and hope, along with many MUD2 players I suppose, that on a not
too distant day one of them or both will be published. Do you
have plans to write anything else?
RICHARD I do, yes; I have sequels for both
novels plotted out, and will eventually write them. I also have a
number of other ideas which I hope some day to find the time to
turn into novels.
My next novel will either be the sequel to my second novel, or a
completely new one.
VIKTOR Perhaps a story set in
the Land of MUD2?
RICHARD Well, yes and no. I outlined the
plot of a MUD-based novel to Roy Trubshaw and a group of people
at Inter, Int, Interp, Int-int-int (it's no good, I can't say it)
at a US software company a couple of years ago, and they rather
liked it. I may write that next instead.
VIKTOR Still being personal if
you don't mind ... anything you care to share with us about your
family? What is being a father like?
RICHARD Fatherhood depends on the children
as much as the father. If I had different children, with
different personalities, it would be a different experience. As
it is, I have two daughters who love me far more than I deserve,
and I rather enjoy it. Doubtless I will change my mind the moment
they hit their teens...
VIKTOR I think I've taken up
enough of your time. Any parting thoughts, words of advice, or
hints you would care to offer our players?
RICHARD Be who you want to be.
VIKTOR Thank you again for your
time, Richard!
RICHARD My pleasure!
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