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By Mark Damon Hughes <kamikaze@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>

   "The LCD crowd argues that since most people will spend money to watch shocking images of violence (often called mindless, for some reason)" -M. Abrams (mabrams#ns.computer.net)

   There is a difference between violence and mindlessness. You can make either mindless games or deep, moving, emotionally and mentally wracking games using shocking images. Only the gameplay and storyline can be mindless.

   "I believe this will prove to be an error, and at some point Artists who get their hands on Multiplayer Internet RPG design tools will prove it. I expect we will see a great flourishing of marvels the likes of which we can now only dimly imagine."

   More likely, they'll produce the same kind of rigid railroad plots almost all other games with "High Ideals" have had. Multiplayer or not will have no impact on that. It's just as easy to make a deep or mindless game with that as it is with any other technology.

   Take interactive fiction - at their height, Infocom produced some truly great works, mostly by focusing on freedom of action (the gameplay) within the story's context. There were also thousands of really horrid mindless text adventures. The medium did not compel anyone to produce great art or to produce crap, despite being an all-text and therefore potentially "literary" environment even by conventional definitions.

   Internet games are going to produce the same balance of good games, crap, and pretentious crap with lousy gameplay masquerading as "art". Just try not to encourage the last, okay?