[MUD-Dev] New Topic: Butthead features

[Koster]

On Saturday, August 02, 1997 3:16 PM, Jeff 
Kesselman[SMTP:jeffk at tenetwork.com] wrote:

I've now got several days worth of things to catch up on. :) So my 
reply here will be brief...

> No offense to Raph but my playing arounf with UOL broguth thsi to 
mind.

No offense taken; it's a very valid issue.

> There is a philisophpical/practical issue in the inclusion in your 
MUD of
> "butthead" features. [snip]
> How do you control them?
> Do you just avoid features that could be so abused, or do you count 
on
> oither mechanisms to keep thsi behavior in chack and if so what 
agurantees
> do you have of success?

I thin it comes down to this basic fact. Buttheads will show up and 
harass people regardless. They do it on talkers, in IRC, on 
newsgroups; they do it whether or not you allow pkilling or stealing 
or whatever else. Therefore you MUST have other mechanisms to deal 
with them.

> (1) PC pickpocketing of other PCs... always upsets people.

Yes, always annoying. However, also, fun. For many, at any rate. 
Pretty closely tied to player killing, for that matter. Remember 
Bartle's classification, however: for a game to be balanced for the 
long haul, it has to support all four types of activity... the 
"buttheads" are the "killer" types, and without them the game loses 
challenge.

> (2) Fixed tport points so that oterh can lay in wait and way-leigh
> unsuspecting traverls befoe they can see whats up.

Actually, I'd term it fixed "points of entry". This problem is common 
to all high-travel points of entry. Mountain passes that you have to 
traverse to leave town, inns where you enter the game, teleport pads, 
any geographical "gating" feature. Healers where you get resurrected. 
There's no way to eliminate all of these from the game, really. There 
are always ambush points.

> (3) The ability to take control of OTHERS PCs and make them do 
things (The
> Provocation skill in UOL looks at first blush particuarly nasty in 
this
> regard.)

Provocation only affects NPCs; however affected NPCs can be made to 
attack players (not unlike charms in a mud).

> Thoguhts, all? Raph? Whats your UOl philosophy on managing these 
things?

The overall philosophy is that you can take these actions, but they 
have in-game consequences. In UO terms,that means that if you steal, 
provoke fights, etc, you acquire a negative reputation for doing so,. 
Eventually, you are refused shop service and NPCs talk to you rudely. 
When your notoriety is negative enough, guards will simply kill you on 
sight like the scum you are.