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

[Mike Sellers]

At 01:10 PM 12/5/97 PST8PDT, Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad wrote:
>>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. =20
>
>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?

Theoretically, nothing _should_ be wrong with playing a jerk.  The problem
is that, as currently constructed, online rpgs favor the jerks, the
killers, and in general the aggressors, while limiting more severely those
who choose more traditional/edifying roles to play.  In effect, "killing
things" becomes the path of least resistance, and dealing with characters
that have borne the brunt of this becomes a large focus for the game (and
the support organization).  Thus, those who desire to play in anti-social
roles find they can get some entertainment at others' expense, and yet they
perceive nothing wrong with doing so, since the game was clearly
constructed to enable actions like theirs (the customer support problems
come because of this inherent disconnect -- in Quake, everyone *knows* that
others are out to get them, while in online RPGs most players do not make
such an assumption).  If instead, playing a jerk/thief/killer carried with
it some discernable risk or consequences that were as onerous to those
players as being killed is to most others, fewer people would take this
route, and the rest of the online society would be more able to deal with
those remaining on its own.  Finding such risks and consequences is not a
trivial matter. =20


>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.

Frankly, no one knows: this is brand new unexplored territory.  There is
good social theory that says that the largest effective social units we
form top out at less than a thousand people; beyond that you're talking
about groups-of-groups, not groups-of-individuals.  If that's true, then
maybe adding many more to a virtual setting only dilutes your experience.
OTOH, maybe we need many more people to act as "extras" and bit players in
the drama in which each individual's character is the star.  This is
especially true if we want to make larger, more variable plots and things
like economies that have a diminishing role for background mechanics (the
more people that are actually there, the fewer you have to simulate in the
aggregate). =20

Mike Sellers                                    Chief Alchemist
mike at online-alchemy.com                         Online Alchemy             =
=20

        Combining art & science to create new worlds.