[MUD-Dev] Wild west (was Guilds & Politics)

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

Adam Wiggins <nightfall at user1.inficad.com> wrote:
>[Alex Oren:]
>> How about dividing the mud into zones with more or less strict law enforcement
>> in each.
>> 
>> For example, you'll have cities in which even the slightest perceived act of
>> stealing or violence will instantly set the town guard on your tail, post
>> "wanted" ads all over the place and in general make life miserable for you.
>> While at the same time, there will be areas in which free PK is the norm.
>> 
>> Sort of localized governments or law-enforcement agencies.
>
>This is exactly what they do on Arctic.  The strictest town is Solace,
>where you can be arrested for public drunkeness and animal abuse.
>Many of the magic-using police NPCs are hidden and/or invisble, making
>planning a crime by simply watching for when there's supposedly no one
>around much more difficult.  The wanted board in each town gives a listed
>of wanted criminals to allow PCs to go after them.

This can of course work in a nonsocial world, but would be rather
horrible in a social world, right? (provided you replace NPC police
with PC police) Anyway, the problem will still exist as the common
user won't know the rules...  I guess that is the weakness of the
autonomous zones approach.  A workaround is to deny access to
strangers, but then these zones would have to be very limited in scope
to keep the game interesting.

Ola.