[MUD-Dev] Are eBay sales more than just a fad?

[Jeff Freeman]

At 01:48 PM 9/27/00 -0400, Paul Schwanz wrote:

>> From: Jeff Freeman <skeptack at antisocial.com>
>> Isn't player-skill all client-side anyway?  What happened to "never trust
>> the client"?
>
>"Never trust the client" isn't the same thing as "don't ever accept any
kind of 
>input from the client."  If the client isn't allowed to contribute to the
game, 
>then it ain't interactive.

You can accept input from the client without basing the results on the
players' skill.

>> Sounds like you're saying that if we DON'T trust the client (base the game
>> mostly on player skill), then it isn't a game.
>
>Not at all.  I don't understand why accepting player input must be equated
with 
>trusting that input.

Basing the game on player-skill?  At the very least, you have to trust that
the player is the one that actually originated the input, and not, say,
some third-party utility that never misses a shot.

>Can a game like Quake (usually considered highly dependant upon player
skill) 
>not attain a server/client model in which the client is not trusted?

Nope, but Quake isn't a MUD (and as I recall, does have issues with proxy
aiming, etc. where a given player isn't using his skill at all - because
Quake trusted the client).  Same thing happened in UO before they put
LastTarget in the client:  Mages using UOAssist never "missed" when casting
a spell at someone, whereas everyone else had to rely on their own skill.
i.e. the "trust" was that if the client said the mage targetted their
victim, then it was just assumed that the mage's player really was that
skilled.

It's a much better function now that it (spellcasting on the same target,
anyway) doesn't depend on player skill at all.

But I took your assertion to mean that if it *doesn't* depend on
player-skill, then it isn't a game.  Like I said, that just seems like a
really odd place to make the distinction.

>Besides, I think we are crossing semantical wires, here.  When I talk
about a 
>game being dependant upon player skill, I'm not speaking to the usual 
>distinction between player skill and character skill or 'twitch' vs. 
>role-playing.  Even in the traditional die-hard role-playing game, player
skill 
>is still primary...it is simply skill in politics, characterization, 
>story-telling, strategy, interpersonal communications, etc. instead of
'twitch' 
>skills.

Yeah, different thing.

I think regarding those, we can trust that a player skilled in
story-telling really is that skilled, and isn't relying on a third-parry
utility.  :)

>success in a MMORPG.  It doesn't seem very 'sporting' to me.  I feel that
gold 
>medals and success in MMORPG's should be based primarily on the skill of the 
>competitors (and again, I include many and various categories of skill in
the 
>distinction).  To me, even a broad concept of games and sportsmanship
requires 
>this, but I confess that this is simply my opinion...and apparently the
opinion 
>of others who have expressed discomfort with the notion of buying success
in a 
>game.

Seems to me that its really just a difference in currency.  Most MUDs I've
seen (even MMORPGs), people buy success with their time rather than with
their "skill".

But moving from a small number of MUD enthusiasts with lots of time and
little money (or little desire to spend it just to "save time" doing
something they'd prefer to spend their time doing anyway), to a more
mass-market sort of thing (where many more people value their time more
highly than their money), maybe it's not a terrible idea to change currency.

I'm not sure you can change that currency from "time" to "skill" though,
just because developing skill takes time.

--
  http://home.swbell.net/skeptack/




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