[MUD-Dev] SOC: Will company sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity?

[Morris Cox]

On 5/7/05, Barry Kearns <barrykearns at qwest.net> wrote:

> Yet today's reality speaks to an entirely different conclusion.
> You seem to be saying, in effect, that everyone would rather have
> fully PvP-enabled servers in every game and just have the GMs
> "punish" those who engage in PvP on a subset of the servers as
> "cheaters".  Yet the code-enforced split between PvP and non-PvP
> servers has largely been considered a success in catering to
> differing audiences who judge the matter in different ways.
> Manual GM enforcement under such a regime would be a complete
> customer service nightmare.

Why have GMs "punish"? If someone PVPs, the game could have the
equivalent of a NPC police force that seeks out the player (perhaps
with the ability to summon a "SWAT team"). Or an automatic bounty
system.

It's obvious that virtual game worlds are still in their infancy.
Things like a player being struck in a piece of terrain can be
automatically detected and avoided (at the very least automatically
fixed). There should not be a need to involve a GM.

I would like to see a self-evolving MMOG. Maybe something like Sims
2 crossed with Fable and Morrowind. Players could have some
influence via passing laws aka A Tale in the Desert and by many of
the ways they do now (killing named NPCs, quests, etc.), just the
changes will be more permanent. Instead of having the same NPCs
spawn at the same spot, a new generation can arise and inherit (and
go hunting for their parent's killer).

I know I'm getting off the subject. However, games with the ability
to automatically compensate for certain behaviours since as
griefing, PVPing, powerleveling, nerfing, and twinking might come up
with very interesting systems that one wouldn't have thought
of. Emergent behaviour might be the next level in games.

--=20
Morris Cox
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