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

[Maddy]

Previously, Mike Sellers wrote....
> At 04:38 PM 12/7/97 PST8PDT, Felix A. Croes wrote:
> >What I meant is that to
> >seek out certain players and give them special powers -- apart from
> >my doubts as to whether this will work at all -- is not going to
> >significantly reduce the workload for administrators.  Rather, it is
> >going to put them one step away from the power of influencing things.
> 
> No, even in the worst case (IME) it does reduce, or spread, the work load
> of doing customer support activities.  This comes at a price, in that the
> players with the special powers ("Guides" on M59) are sometimes seen as
> turncoats, spies, advanced cheaters, egomaniacs, little dictators, or
> brown-nosers -- all with some (if small) degree of validity.  

Giving players extra abilities above their peers alienates them quite a bit. 
The admin then have to make sure that they don't abuse their extra powers,
which can easily happen in the heat of the moment.

> >If you do go about it in the way that you suggest above, letting
> >players vote for a police to keep order, what you accomplish is
> >that every troublemaker will consider bringing down this system as
> >his highest goal.  They will form the group of most dedicated voters.
> 
> Yep.  It's important to realize this: if there's one thing that advanced
> "troublemakers" do well, it's organize themselves (see
> <http://www.dragonorder.com> for an example!).  And if everyone is tied to
> their town in closed universe, this could be a problem -- unless the
> regular citizenry act to take back their town and put in place strong law
> enforcement.

Well this would only hold true, if you only consider the "citizens" as being
the players that lived in the city/town.  If you also take into account the
1000s of NPCs that live there as well, then the problem is greatly reduced. 
Admittedly you then need some way of letting the NPCs evaluate each of the
candidates and work out which one is best suited towards them.  A city full
of lawful, friendly NPCs may not vote for the renowned baby eating bishop of
Buffingdom, but they would rally behind Bubba the hero who saved the city
from the evil Dragon hoardes.

>               In a more open universe, the citizens could take back their
> town or contain the problem areas or go start a new one; it's important
> that they have these options open (which they're not on the vast majority
> of muds, it's true).  

It would certainly add flavour if as well as being able to vote people in to
positions of power, that you could also fight to get yourself in.  A nice
evil empire/good rebels kind of thing I'd imagine would be a very popular
story line *8).

Maddy