[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

[Marian Griffith]

On Tue 07 Jul, Matt Chatterley wrote:

> On 24-Jun-98 Marian Griffith wrote:

> > True that you can not (entirely) force people to play nice  by making it
> > impossible  to be anything else.  However providing mechanisms for other
> > players to deal with the social misfits 'on their own terms' plays right
> > into their hands.  You made the game  which was intented a nice roleplay
> > environment into something that fits the killers. Even players who don't
> > want to fight others are forced to,  because  that is the only way there
> > is for them to protect themselves. So in a sense the killers have won.

> > Not a nice dilemma.

> Marian (partially) highlights something very interesting; more by implication,
> really.
> The thing is, the entire approach is based on negative reinforcement - you
> add mechanisms to punish people who PSteal or PKill, and to allow retribution,
> and so forth - this is all well, and good (well thought out methods for this
> can be *fun* to play with, in a reasonable environment). How about positive
> enforcement to toe the line, though? It's often overlooked (particularly
> when a rapid solution is desirable).

*grin* rapid or rabid?

[snip]

> But, what is 'to gain' for Bubba, if he does NOT PK that
> traveller, and steal his gold?

The most immediate and potentially powerfull reward is that Bubba and that
traveller can become friends, or at least help each other out. This is the
one thing that killer characters do not tend to have,  an extensive social
circle to draw on. If the game is such that a player cann't survive on her
own then those social relations and friends suddenly can become important.
I have seen the reverse happen on a mud I used to play. The mud used to be
one where most areas required groups. Then one fatefull day the imms deci-
ded that multiclassing was cool and set out to make it happen.  Soon every
other character had all skills in all classes. The players loved it but it
had a very serious side effect.  Players suddenly could travel pretty much
everywhere on their own.  The entire social structure that had been strong
on that mud was torn down and things that were unheard of before, like pk,
stealing and harassment, began to appear with the influx of new players.

> An alternative of course, is to change our perception of normal, instead of a
> binary state (Normal, Criminal, or 0, 1), how about trinary? Back to the old
> Good, Neutral, Evil (no Chaos theory accepted at this time). You're evil if
> you do bad things (PS, PK). You're good if you kill a PKer, or return goods
> which a PS took, to their rightful owner. If you do neither, you are neutral
> (criminal status = -1, 0, 1 for Good, Neutral, Evil). If you are Good, and then
> PK or PS, you flick straight to evil (no 'adjustments'), but.. does that make
> sense? Now we only have a 'snapshot' of you - you were Good, but now, you're
> Evil! Decreased granularity can perhaps tackle this; the point is that if you
> ever PK, PS, or counter one of these crimes, you will *never* be 'normal'
> again. Punishment is doled out to the Evil (they get bashed by the Good). The
> Good are rewarded (bounties, and reward money). The Normal.. well.. anyone care
> to jump in?

This seems rather complicated to me and it will not work well against other
types of abusive behaviour,  like harassment or plain irritating activities
like channel spamming, diseasing the inhabitants in town, poisoning the one
fountain all newbies drink from and so on.

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey