10 March 2013

The Maunderings of Doooooom

I was thinking about FurryMuck tonight. As I did paperwork, wrapping up yesterday, preparing for today, I was thinking about who I used to be. Mucks started after the grand hayday of text-based adventure games, after InfoCom stopped being a gaming company, but they were the same sort of thing... a text-based environment where you could relate to people through their words, and yours.

And even then, I foresaw that they wouldn't last forever; that graphics would overtake them. And though FurryMuck is still there (I had to check; I myself have not signed on in years), it has been made less important by the advent of MMO games. In some ways, MMO games are not as free an environment as the mu* worlds, because you can't do whatever you want; only what the programers have set up for you to do.

But I wonder how long it will be before technologies like Kinect make it possible for you to be in those worlds more fully; before you find the line between reality and virtual reality blurring.  I read an article which suggested that gaming insiders believe holodeck-equivalent technology is no more than ten or fifteen years away.

And I find myself wondering... how will we find each other there?  FurryMuck was found because people had a common interest in antropomorphic animals (or theriomorphic people, depending on how you view it) but I haven't found that the PlayStation Network's Home has any organizing principles.  I haven't played Second Life... in part because no one I know seems to play it... but I wonder how people find each other there.

I talk, sometimes, about how great it would be to be able to play RPGs with Michael and Steve, who now live far away from me, or with Grace in England.  I wonder... will the technology make that possible, or will there always be barriers such as time zones stopping us from getting together?  Will we be able to gather for a few hours once a week with those who are congenial to us, and have shared adventures?  And... how would we find those people, new people, who are congenial to us?

It's a brave, new world.

3 comments:

Cozy Badger Fiber Arts said...

I was on FurryMUCK for awhile, back in the day. An otter named Fiorenzia. Frequently I'd go on there when TwoMoons MUSH was down.

Jenny said...

I played a raven-winged Coyote girl. And, if you know where to look, I even have my own entry in the Furry Wikipedia.

Anonymous said...

You pose questions which are valid across many venues. I thought my grandmother and my mother had lived through interesting times, seen great technological leaps, but I think we are on the cusp of some amazing things. Yet I wonder - what happens when we don't need to face each other any more?