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

[Matt Chatterley]

On Thu, 11 Dec 1997, Chris Gray wrote:

> [Matt C:]
> 
> :Phenomenally annoying, and a reasonable solution, I suppose. Nothing to
> :theoretically stop this happening on my game, except shops do not use such
> :lists of inventory. Perhaps one problem would be when a player is in an
> :'edit mode' such as the newsreader, though, hence I think I will remove
> :players from IC concerns when they are doing this (completely remove them
> :from the game).
> 
> If such activities can be explainable in character, then why not leave
> the player in the game? I thought about that a bit in my system, since
> the user can be off in an editor, composing a letter/bulletin or perhaps
> writing code. While doing that, they can flip back to the main text and
> graphics windows with the touch of function key. I view both as in-character
> activities that lessen the character's ability to pay attention to the
> world. A wizard composing a spell while standing in the middle of a
> battlefield deserves to get sliced and diced.

They can't really be explained that well in character given the theme.
There are exceptions of course.

If a player is using our newsreader to browse tv.b5, or
guild.rogue.nighthawk, or somesuch, they should probably be removed from
the game, since these groups are OOC by nature. The same with sending
mail. If it were a wizard using the spell composition front end (this is
not written yet, but is planned), he should be at risk in-game, but should
also be able to see what is going on!
 
> If, however, the user interface doesn't allow flipping back to the normal
> interaction mode, then yes, some kind of protection sounds good.

Yup.

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	ICQ: 5580107
"I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world." -Einstein