The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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12:27pm on Thursday, 16th January, 2025:
Anecdote
Every year, I have my third-year students play MUD2. This gives them a sense of what virtual worlds were like before they became all about the graphics, while showing that underneath, graphical and textual worlds are the same thing. When there's a lab full of people all playing at the same time, some of the feeling of the early days is recaptured — especially as most modern students have never played a textual game in their life and can therefore be awed by one.
Today was the day of the MUD2 lab this time round.
Eight students showed up, plus one regular player who was playing from home.
Thirty students or more would have been ideal. Eight was very disappointing. However, it was only to be expected: inexplicably, the timetable office had scheduled the lab against a Computer Vision lecture that pretty well all my own students were also taking. The eight who showed up decided to watch a recording of the lecture rather than miss the lab; the rest skipped the lab to attend the lecture (the first of the term, so of some importance). I don't blame the students, but I do blame the timetable office.
I only found out about the clash yesterday from one of my capstone project supervisees, so couldn't rearrange the lab.
The students who attended said they enjoyed it, and some may continue to play afterwards (although this is unusual: only one from last year did). That's not the point, though: most of my students didn't play it, so won't get the same insights that those who did play it got. They won't sense the mechanics, they won't sense the gameplay, they won't understand at an emotional level when I tell them what the game is about.
I'll see if I can arrange a second lab later in the term, but if the timetable office can't manage to slot one in when given several months' notice then I don't see that they'll be able to do it given a few days. I'll try, anyway.
I have a growing, fin de siècle impression of the decline of the era of games at Essex University.
Oh well.
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