[MUD-Dev] Re: Character evolution

[Jeff Kesselman]

At 05:46 PM 8/26/97 PST8PDT, you wrote:
>good face.  Under your system, and JeffK's for that matter, what is
>his reputation?

The key for "my" system ( and ist really ours, i have 2 co-designers) is
the lack of witnesses.  Reputation is gloabl, it gets aroudn relaitvely
quickly.  As we have world-wide person-to-person chat in the game thats
only logical.  (Its a very psychic world so that is easy explained.)

But witnesses are key.  Witnesses actually generate a % chance that the
system then rolls against to see if this act gets tarcked to your infamy.

>
>Variation on a theme:
>
>  Identical to the above, except that now Bubba strangles beggars he
>finds in alley-ways in the city with no witnesses present.
>

Depedns  on the alley way.  In very bad sectiosn of town it effectively no
witnesses.  In good sections of town though "the walls have eyes".  

Some ntoe son our plans:
(1) Infamy only get bigger. Actiosn cannot decrease it, though we may give
it a gradual decay over time.

(2) Fame, if we do it at all, will be orthogonal and not effect infamy.
Actually we're considering making fame a local phenomenon, so someoen cna
be infamous over most of the world but have a Hamlet hes done ntohign but
good for who are willign to shelter him, but we are less decided on that one.


>>Something important of note is that while players can get an idea of
>>their reputation (by little signs - if you hear good songs about

We're nmot sure of thsi one ourselves.  We are leanign toward makign a
eprsons infamy known, though not in any ckind of nuerical way that coudl be
sued to make a game otu of gettign the lwoest infamy.  The reason for
makign it knjwon is "newbie' players really shoudl knwo that Black bart is
a well known wanted killer....

>
>Okay:
>
>  Bubba is a generally, Okay-sh sort of character, not to good, not
>too bad.  One day he's out and about and discovers a Super-Whammy
>Sword.  He then wanders into a fairly sizeable town and slaughters
>every soul therein.  No survivors.  None.  Nada.  Zip.  Perhaps a
>dragon comes along as well and eats the corpses and burns the place to
>the ground after the fact.
>
>What is Bubba's reputation?

Again depends on teh size of the town.  In general above a fairly small
size we are going to assume soem of the "men on the street' thata rent in
game rpesent can survive and run away.
>
>What is his reputation?
>
>That point I am heading towards here is that reputation is dependant
>on perception.  The fact that Bubba takes off on a long voyage and

We agree HOWEVERE we also believe that our game does not physicaly
represent on screen al lthe potential witnesses.  In fact, ina  reasonably
densly populated area yo uare virtually ASSURED of NOT accountign for all
the witnesses.

JK
Jeff Kesselman
Snr. Game Integration Engineer
TEN -- The Total Entertainment Network -- www.ten.net

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