[MUD-Dev] Re: Character evolution

[Jon A. Lambert]

On 27 Aug 97 at 8:18, Jeff Kesselman wrote:
> At 05:46 PM 8/26/97 PST8PDT, you(JCL?) wrote:
> >good face.  Under your system, and JeffK's for that matter, what is
> >his reputation?
> 
> 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.
>

I'm favoring a similar approach to perception of reputation.  At 
least in regard to how NPC AI will react to "recognized" characters.

A not uncommon scenario:
    It's high noon in market square in the city of Athens.  Boffo 
stands alone there and pauses to ponder.  Bubba the troll arrives and 
clubs Boffo to death.  Bubba leaves town and moves to Sparta.

Is the crime witnessed?  Are rumours started?  Is Bubba's reputation 
changed?  In Athens?  In Sparta?  In Trolltown?

My take:
Basically in any city, town or village there is a large population 
that may be unreasonable to model directly, but reasonably modelled as 
"simpeeps".  These "simpeeps" can be influenced by player activity
to some extent, either by providing witness material, reporting
crimes to authorities, fomenting rumours, or providing weight 
and possibly determining reputation in a given area.

I wonder how the simple system of "rank points" that was developed a
bit in early July can relate to this reputation discussion.  As a
generalization they both can be considered public opinion.

Shouldn't reputation be localised to a specific neighborhood?  And at
some point along the reputation scale be expanded to a global or
larger neighborhood?

> >
> >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.

I'm not entirely in agreement with this method, but I come close.  
I would like to have the infamy scale easier to increase and harder
to decrease than the fame scale.  And have the same decreases over
time but very gradual decay like you indicate.  
 
> (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.

Ditto on the locality of it.

> >>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....
>

I think recognition by reputation would be interesting and perhaps
mistaken recognition or deliberate disguise of famous persons would
be fun toys.
 
[snipped scenario - unfortunately I repeated the exercise above :( ]

> 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.

nod

Jon Lambert

p.s. - Jeff please do attribute.  I plead this not to irritate, but 
because I'm doing some thread summaries and it causes some 
difficulties in pulling these together.