[MUD-Dev] Interesting dilemma

[Mattias Lönnqvist <Mattias.Lonnqvist@uidesign.]

>I am currently facing an interesting and complicated dilemma in my mud.  The
>problem is what I call "Illegal Equipment."  This is equipment that is
>unbalanced for normal gameplay in one way or another.  Most of this
>equipment has a legitimate in-game purpose, whether it exists on mobs or as
>artifacts.  

[snip]

>There are several issues that I see here.
>
>1)  Trusting my immortals.  I have to trust them to conduct day to day
>operations such as building and clan leadership.  They normally do excellent
>work.  How do I restrict them from taking advantage of their positions?
>They basically need to be able to load equipment at will as part of their
>work, so I cannot restrict the commands.  I have posted rules, but they got
>around it by using the quest equipment excuse.  (Somewhat valid, quests with
>rewards are encouraged, but sometimes they go a little overboard).

What you could try is a different system for quests. We're using a system
with questpoints. A certain quests can only be rewarded with a certain
amount of questpoints. For example, a trivia could be 5-10 questpoints, a
scavenger quest 5-15, a major roleplay quests could be 10-20 questpoints, etc.
These questpoints the player in turn can use to buy questequipment is
special questequipment shops. 

[Snip]

>Another problem that I have is then confiscating these items.  Is there any
>way to do it nicely?  I have one immortal who has taken it upon himself to
>start clearing out these items.  While I approve of the effort, the mud has
>suddenly taken a hostile turn.  Morts seem to have gained a distrust for
>immortals.  How can I heal this rift?  No mud can survive with such conflict
>for long.  The imms will win, only to find no players.

If you want to confiscate certain items, I'd recommend the automated
approach: Post something about it, then make the code auto extract certain
objects. Or, even better: Post about it, asking the players to hand over
certain items, and reward the players who actually do so; then make the
code autoextract remaining items a week or so later.

As for Imms loosing the players trust, that is very hard to repair, and
unfortunately I have no easy answers here. We're still trying to repair
issues that happened a year ago at the mud I am co-imping.

>Any help would be appreciated.

HTH, 

/Mattias


--
Mattias Lonnqvist, M.Sc.C.Sc., Software consultant, Nokia MNT     
Main coder MiT, http://www.envy.com/~tyme , mattias at tyme.envy.com
c64 addict, http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/~malo , malo at ctrl-c.liu.se
"What's a Meredith Baxter-Birney memorial towel?"




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev maillist  -  MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev