[MUD-Dev] Guilds & Politics [was Affecting the World]

[Mike Sellers]

At 09:15 AM 12/3/97 PST8PDT, Koster, Raph wrote:
>Just as a quick aside, many of the solutions adopted in UO (which are 
>undeniably externally imposed solutions) were imposed purely because 
>of scale. What we found was that when dealing with a mass market 
>audience you have:
>
>- more jerks than you can handle
>- more jerks than mass market people are willing to handle in their 
>play space
>- a playerbase that assumes the game will settle their grievances, 
>rather than themselves
>- the same tiny proportion as usual of people willing to enforce 
>societal mores.

Yeah, this profile is becoming increasingly common -- we certainly were
awash in this with M59 (as I'm sure Rich can tell you ;) ).  In fact the
first two points are encompassed by "Hanke's Law", which basically says
that "in any virtual space, there will be some irreducible number of jerks
[sometimes a stronger term is used here ;) ], and in general they will be
more than any standing 'customer support' organization can handle."  This,
in my experience, has become axiomatic with large Internet spaces.  

However, I definitely disagree that this means that only externally-imposed
solutions are viable.  In fact, as we saw with M59 and as you guys are
seeing now with UO, I believe that relying solely or even primarily on
external solutions is doomed to failure -- and the larger or more immersive
the world, the more this problem is amplified.  

Rather, I believe that we can (and must) make use of that small proportion
of people (the usual 10% or 20% who do 80% or 90% of good things in any
community setting) to create and enforce their own societal mores.  We can
best do this by understanding who these people are, and then giving them
limited, compartmentalized, generally localized power -- but real power
nonetheless to affect the social landscape of the game.  In effect, this
enables "the game" to settle their grievances, only now some of them have
essentially become part of the game from others' point of view -- and as we
know, often the best game play is created by the people in the game, not
the monsters or situations we create externally.  The same goes for
resolving problems.  

(Not that I expect you to fully agree with me, Raph.  The proof of this
must necessarily come in the form of a working game.  Hang on, it's coming.
:) )

>And even if people DID want to police themselves, lack of a global 
>namespace (thank heavens for that term!), difficulty of long range 
>communications, and sheer amount of other people make the task 
>basically impossible for the wannabe cop.

I don't see how the difficulty of long range communications fits into this;
most policing and governance can and should be handled on a geographically
local level (and re: long range communication -- you *do* know that many UO
players use ICQ or Ichat while playing to talk to others at long distance,
don't you?).  

>I don't know how many of you have had your muds invaded by 14 year 
>olds talking gangster rap who find great delight in "capping yo' 
>beeatch ass wi' my gat, ho!" but I know LegendMUD has seen an increase 
>in it, and judging from UO and other games, it's an Internet wide 
>phenomenon propelled by the current popular teen trends, and made 
>worse by the typical newbie unawareness of the emotional and social 
>implications of their actions in the virtual context.

Yes, and we can only expect this sort of thing to increase over the next
few years.  The migration of people onto the Net is increasing -- as I
think I mentioned here before, there are some great stats that essentially
say that the majority of the people who will be on the Net in 2000 have not
yet logged on for the first time -- and many of them will fit squarely into
the demographic Raph mentions above.  We can either be swamped by this, or
make it an opportunity that adds to the vitality of our worlds.  I don't
see much of a third option.  

>Which makes me wistfully think of small muds whereby much of this 
>problem can be handled by administrative proselytization, some harsh 
>human-administered rules, and little else.

To some degree this is what Randy Farmer and the folks at Electric
Communities hope to have: server-less virtual spaces where local control
reigns supreme.  It looks good from what I've seen, but there is something
to be said for some degree of central control too (especially in terms of
product creation).  

>So I have an answer to that question of a while ago, "How DO you 
>govern a mud with thousands of players?" Well, you try not to, but in 
>the end the answer is "painfully, with great difficulty, and a lot of 
>imperfect code crutches."

I disagree, at least in terms of the imperfect code crutches.  It's going
to be painful for some folks, no doubt, but that's part of the adjustment
of all of our social mores while these new societies get started.  My goal
is to make that pain as small and short as possible, and to eliminate as
many of the code crutches as we can.  I don't think the solutions we've
seen thus far scale to where the Net and online entertainment spaces are
going to be in, say, three to five years.  IMO, we absolutely must stop
looking at this as a problem with a technical solution, and begin
addressing it as a predictable and tractable situation with social
solutions.  

Mike Sellers          mike at online-alchemy.com         Online Alchemy 

"...the state of the Web today is like 10 milliseconds after the Big Bang. 
The laws of physics are in place, but no one knows exactly how this
universe will expand. We do know its going to be a very big deal, for a
long time."
        -- John Doerr, of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB)