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

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

Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl> wrote:
>On Sun 07 Dec, Mike Sellers wrote:

>> 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).
>
>Rightly so. Roleplaying is a cooperative environment. If somebody deci-
>des to ruin my fun in the game  because he thinks it is 'in character'
>then he is definitely not playing the same game as I am.

Yeah, that's true.  The main question is then, who should yield?  If
the game you enter is a RPG, provides you with a sword, asks you to
kill objects, allows you to kill other players, and even give you
benefits for doing so...

Maybe the game is a "jerk game" (if it insists on a neutral policy,
then it is at least sending out some strong signals in that
direction), but perhaps a significant portion of the players don't
want to participate in that game, only the environment, and therefore
define the more chaotic players as jerks.

My ideal world would consists of zone layers, moving from order (be
yourself, what you say will be taken seriously) towards chaos, with
rituals in the transitions between zones, to make them visible.  Only
then can you really rightfully expell other players from certain
zones. (This is something I am emphasising in my thesis)

Ola.