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

[Adam Wiggins]

[Marian Griffith:]
> On Tue 09 Dec, Richard Woolcock wrote:
> Ideally perhaps, but many players use pk as a way to hurt other players.

I certainly would imagine so.  I find pk fairly useless as a method
of healing players. :)

> > Interesting...has anyone put in any form of assassin-type mob?  I wonder if
> > this might have a similar affect...imagine a scene like:
> 
> A player can decide to attack you or not to attack. The monster can not
> make that decission.  It is the fact that somebody else decided to harm
> me that makes pk hard to accept. It is personal or I do take it as such

One might translate this to real life:
Getting attacked by a vicious animal for whatever reason is unpleasant
simply because getting attacked is unpleasant.
Getting attacked by another human being is unpleasant far over and above
the attack itself, because the person on the other end is capable of
making moral judgements and considering the other's person's point of
view.

A 'monster' (appropriately named) attack and a PC attack are, I believe,
more or less identical within the context of the game.

> > I believe this would have a similar affect to PK, for the following 
> > reasons:
> 
> > 1) You were surprised and unprepared for the attack.
> > 2) You were busy talking, and not really interesting in fighting.

Richard brings up an interesting point here.  Players are very used
to deciding when to do what, to the point that they find it extremelly
disturbing to have situations forced upon them at times that they
aren't prepared.
As I think we've already discussed, I'm attempting to do away with this.
I think it's one of the main reasons the world comes across as so static -
the living, purportedly sentient creatures which inhabit it don't do
anything active!  End result is somewhat like moving through a wax
musseum, pressing the button to activate each scene.  Of course, this
is a much more relaxed style of gaming, but IMO it takes away every
last drop of excitement or intensity to the experience.

> > 3) You were killed by an opponent you couldn't ever hope to beat.
> > Basically, its just not fair.  Like many instances of PK.
> 
> I'm seeing evidence of another subject that should not for the moment
> be resurrected. But no, you focus on the act of combat and not on the
> intentions. 

Agreed.  In addition I think that discussions about what is 'fair'
are pretty well pointless.  Game balance is probably more what we're
interested here - a similar set of principles, but a very different
approach.  An unbalanced (read unfair, if you like) game world comes
across as unbelievable.  How can an unbalanced system stay in homeostasis?
The best muds (IMO, of course) have admin that consider game balance
paramount and constantly work to make everything fit together in a
reasonable way.  The worst muds throw in new places, people, and abilities
without a second thought for how they will actually interact with the
existing world.  The entire thing comes off like a petri-dish experiment
by a drunken ten-year-old.