[MUD-Dev] Real Life Consequences

[Corey Crawford]

Everyone seems to have skipped over Scion's message, so I'm starting a new
thread here, because I think it touches upon an important topic..

----- Original Message -----
From: "Scion Altera" <keeler at teleport.com>
>
> Also keep in mind that the internet has a quality very different from
> your real life amusement parks. The visitors aren't physically inside
> the MUD. In an amusement park if you try and put fake money in a
> ticket machine, or sneak onto a ride for free, or harass other guests
> or the employees, they can not only eject you from the park, but they
> can call the police and have you sent to jail.
>
> Jail is not in any way analogous to any punishment possible on a MUD.
> When all is said and done and the troublesome character is frozen,
> slayed, banned, purged, turned into a newt and/or destroyed, whoever
> was controlling that character is still sitting in their comfy chair
> in front of their computer screen. There aren't any police officers
> stuffing them into a squad car as a result.
>
> The upshot of this is that after a troublemaker has been banned from
> one MUD, they have succeeded in their attempt to annoy people, they
> have not lost anything in the process except access to that one MUD
> (and it is generally very easy to regain access after being banned),
> and they are instantly ready to go cause trouble on any one of
> thousands of other muds without fear of retribution. The troublemaker
> in your real life theme park is still regretting his actions because
> they had real life consequences.
>
> All that in mind, I think the increased number of troublemakers on
> MUDs in comparison to those at theme parks is due to the internet's
> inability to impose real life consequences, and not to the level of
> immersion provided by the means of amusement.

Just sitting here and pondering about this issue, I see that Scion is right.
Because the player has no real consequences because of his/her harmful
actions, they will continue to do so; either in the same place or else
where.

My question is, has anyone ever thought of - instead of banning, deleting,
shrubing, whatever'ing - fining a player for grievances against the game?

I'm talking charging real life money (via credit card, most likely) because
of rules broken.

What kind of legal implications would this have?

Obviously this wouldn't work for a non-profit MUD, but it'd be interesting
to see how many people exploit the next EQ bug if all the previous
exploiters were fined $100 per incident.

---
Corey Crawford | myrddin at seventh.net | www.seventh.net



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