[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jon A. Lambert [mailto:jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com]
> Sent: Monday, August 17, 1998 8:56 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers
> 
> There is a single troubling aspect to [Marian's Tailor Problem].  
> There seems to 
> be an insistence here that the tailor still be subject to a 
> non-consentual PKill and/or PSteal, yet to have it occur as rarely as 
> in RL, but not as frequently as in most MUDs.
> 
> I daresay, you have not attempted to address the tailor scenario 
> either.  What I have read from Marian's scenario is the game allows 
> murder and stealing, yet makes available options to deal with it
> similar to those in RL societies.    
> 
> To say that such games do not exist or are not addressed is to have 
> a blindspot to the perhaps 100 or so such games currently running on 
> the internet.  
> 
> Why is disallowing PKill or PSteal an unsatisfactory solution to this
> scenario?   Why is only allowing "consential" PKill or PSteal an 
> unsatisfactory solution to this scenario?  

It IS a solution, in a way. But that's the not the scenario. You're
solving the dilemma by changing the parameters of the problem.

If I had to state this and Dr Cat's Stamp Collector Problem, they'd be
stated thus:

Marian's Tailor Problem: Given an environment that supports violence
between players, and given that it also supports a robust set of
features for non-combat-oriented activity and advancement, is it
possible to allow the peaceful player to have fun without being impinged
upon by combat?

Dr Cat' Stamp Collecting Problem: Given that we know there are a wide
range of features that people find enjoyable in muds, and given that we
know some of these features are in conflict, is it possible to have a
successful mud that incorporates all of these features, or must the
design choose not to include some of the features?

Marian's problem is of course a subset of Dr Cat's broader problem. (And
forgive me if I have misstated the core underpinnings of these two
dilemmas, guys, and ascribed your names to issues you weren't raising,
but the statements above seemed to be the central issues in your posts).

-Raph