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

[Vadim Tkachenko]

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Marian Griffith wrote:
> 
> > Tossing in other things that factor into this: there's a general lack
> > of major support structures for victims, in the virtual setting
> > (family, friends, Salvation Army, what have you); and it's very easy
> > for a traumatized victim to just "check out" of your virtual
> > environment and thus not deal with the trauma.
> 
> Indeed. After one such incident I decided never again to allow people
> I met on a game to learn my real name

Absolutely agree here

> and to never again visit a mud
> that  allowed players to attack others.  As a matter of self defense.
> And I vote with my feet against games that add this 'feature'.

But not here. Let me explain in details.

First of all, I want to state clearly that I'm not a fan of pkilling,
and I know what is a MU* harrasment (a close friend of mine, a girl, was
a victim - and that wasn't even the MUD, that was just a talker).

Now, let's try to look at the problem from the different angle.

Can somebody explain to me why
- it's perfectly normal for a MUD player to go hunting after rats,
rabbits, squirrels, hoblins, dragons, you name it;
- it's not pleasant, but it's still OK to be killed by a monster (even
the squirrel, as it was mentioned before)
- but your hearth is broken and you're about to cry out loud in despair
when the real player kills you?

I've been there, and that was my state of mind, too, so I've tried to
analyze that from a psychological point of view.

My answer seems to be - this is your own ego popping out from the ears
of your (not _your_, Marian, abstract 'your') character. It's not an
insult to do something stupid to the dragon or just slightly
overestimate yourself and/or underestimate the target and die - so,
what's the big deal, this is a part of the game. But if anybody other
than a monster/NPC (BTW, no difference) kills you, you take it as a
personal offense and/or suffer from a trauma, but why? Once again, this
is a part of the game.

There is a remedy, though.

I believe that if you wouldn't know WHAT exactly has killed you, it
would be much easier to go with. In other words, you just can't
differentiate the monster/NPC from the different player, nothing
personal will be left.

By the way, have anybody ever tried to RP a rat? Or anything else which
is small/weak enough to be vulnerable? And, it all depends on the
circumstances, too - even a single rat can kill you, if you're asleep.

So, I strip all the personal information from the players until they get
powerful enough to overcome the initial kill'em all syndrome (BTW, can
you tell me - is my assumption right that the more experienced player
is, the less chance [s]he behaves like jerk?).
Also, I'll try to make NPCs as intelligent as possible - in fact, from
the implementation point of view, I want them to be the independent
services (daemons, in UNIX terminology), which can possibly reside on
other computer[s] and don't add any performance penalties - and, in the
ideal world, [almost] indistinguishable from the real PCs.

Details, as usual, at my project pages (see below).

Also, I think that the idea about muting the offender is excellent, the
only thing I'd add to it that I'd strip the offender from his/her body
and give them, say, a rat's one. In other words, be prepared for others
do treat you as you've treated them before.

>From the RP perspective, it may be treated just as a curse of some
powerful [NPC] mage, in case connection between the violation and the
punishment is clear enough.

> Marian,  who is afraid this thread is going to degenerate into a pro-
> or con-pk discussion again.

--
Still alive and smile stays on,
Vadim Tkachenko <VadimT at 4CS.Com>
Gradient MUD Project: http://206.139.13.23/~vt/gradient
--
UNIX _is_ user friendly, he's just very picky about who his friends are
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