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

[Derrick Jones]

On Fri, 12 Dec 1997, Matt Chatterley wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Dec 1997 coder at ibm.net wrote:
> > On 09/12/97 at 01:42 AM, Derrick Jones <gunther at online1.magnus1.com> said:
> > >On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, Vadim Tkachenko wrote:
> > 
> > >> I believe that if you wouldn't know WHAT exactly has killed you, it
> > >> would be much easier to go with. In other words, you just can't
> > >> differentiate the monster/NPC from the different player, nothing
> > >> personal will be left.
> > >This is no small task.  
> > Actually it happens as a side effect for me.

Yeah, it would be in your system, as its impossible to track
player-character associations.  Dunno if that's such a positive thing.  If
Bubba asks me a question, I'd personally like to know that Bubba is the
proper person to which the answer should be directed.  How do you deal
with this?  Or do you?  It would add a bunch of interesting possibilities
to the game:

	Bubba asks you 'Want to join forces and stop that horde
	   approaching from the west?
	/* Horde controller takes over Bubba */
	#tell bubba sure, meet up at the west gate and bring every last
	  body you have
...

On a side note, how do you handle spam?  I'd imagine getting output from
10 different bodies in 10 ifferent places(or even _different_ info from
the same place) would make your screen fly by so quickly it would sever
even the strongest connections...not to meantion directing separate input
10 different ways during a battle at the same time.  A slow reader would
be doomed, not to meantion iffy connections.
	

> Yeah. It really depends on how you approach these things. Obviously if
> people can pick player names off the 'who' list, or the game screams 'You
> were PKED!!!!!!!!!!' at you after you die, its going to be obvious (unless
> in the former case, the who list is huge).

The big difference on most muds is the way in which PCs and NPCs behave.
PCs tend to issue more commands than NPCs, and PC actions tend to much
more situation specific.  NPCs are typically named _in_theme_ while many
muds don't demand the same of players.  Heck, a decent percentage of text
muds show NPCs and PCs in different colors(something my current code is
guilty of doing, however I allow a bunch of skills/magics to allow players
to be shown in NPC colors when disguised/polymorphed).  PCs tend to have
mismatched equipment, bits and pieces gathered from distant points in the
game, most of which other PCs recognize on sight.  Pcs tend to time their
attacks better (wait till you remove your weapon, begin a text-edit, ask
you to look something up for them to make sure you're afk...)  Another big
give-away is when PCs are _known_ to be PCs from past conversations.  Its
_very_ difficult to fool a player for extended time.  (which of course
doesn't apply to body-switching games)

> I would like an environment where players care that they were
> assassinated (or died), not if it was a PC or NPC that wrought their death
> (Perhaps I will try to dissociate Player-Killing from being killed by a PC
> - its all character killing?).

Actually, I believe the name comes from (as Marian so correctly pointed
out) who makes the decision to kill.  This is the one aspect of PK that is
unsettling, especially when the PK is an OOC attack.  Some player felt
that their position in the gameworld would be better off if my character
were dead, and because of this, I cannot trust new players that I meet,
especially if death carries serious penalties.
The social structure of a PK mud can become fragmented, with small groups
of people (who normally know each other in RL) shutting out outsiders, and
those entering the mud havnig a difficult time acculterating unless they
too have access to some form of group protection(they are doubly cursed,
being both frequent, easy victims, and are also held in high suspicion by
those who choose not to victimize them).  New PCs are typically viewed as
new prey by predators and new predators by peers.

[Snip rest]

Derrick