[MUD-Dev] Reputation, was butthead features

[Koster]

On Tuesday, August 05, 1997 3:11 PM, Jeff 
Kesselman[SMTP:jeffk at tenetwork.com] wrote:
> Raph Koster wrote:
> >I am curious as to how exactly you are handling this. I assume that 
> >mere words can only lower reputation, not enhance it? Otherwise it 
> >seems easy to seesaw the value... Also, do you have both fame and
>
> Or to correct for your  bad deeds with empty words.
>
> Indeed, words can only lower it.  In fact, infamy can only go 
"up"...
> We are considereing a very gradual infamy decay but havent decided 
yet.
> This IMO pertty accurately models real people as well as having the
> practical effects we want.  People are quick to collect the bad info 
on
> others and tend to forget the good (aren't we an awful species??)
>
> Our goal here is primarily to control overt nasty behavior.  You can 
still
> be nasty, but you need to hide it if you want to remain accepted by
> society and to have access to all that brings. Again, we feel a 
reasonable
> if over simplified model of a society.

Ok enough lurking for me. =)

I'm curious as to how you plan to implement the actual parsing more 
than the actual character attribute ramifications (I took those as a 
given).

Won't players just come up with new code words to say the same things 
as fast as they're deemed "nasty"?

Instead of saying "I killed 3 newbies last night" once they figure out 
the game penalizes (or rewards them as some people will surely see it 
as a badge of honor to have that low an imfamy) won't they just say 
something like "Hehheh, I squished 3 ants last night".

How does the game tell the difference? Does it? Does it need to?
How do you plan to handle all the possible variations easily and 
efficiently?

-Kristen Koster
(And yep, I'm related to Raph, I'm his wife. I'm also co-implementor 
of LegendMUD, and also a designer on Ultima Online.)