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

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

Mike Sellers <mike at online-alchemy.com> wrote:
>>- 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.  

I've got one question here.  Both UO and M59 was marketed as
roleplaying games right.  What's wrong about being a jerk then?  Will
this tendency translate well to non-roleplaying games?

>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 recall M59 users using external programs for chatting as well. 

>>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 
[...]
>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

I've got another question.  Does thousands (or rather millions) of
players add anything vital to the experience at all?  Maybe thousands
of separate systems with several hundred players each is equally
rewarding, even more rewarding, because the probability of bumping
into a friend is higher.

Ola.