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

[Adam Wiggins]

[Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad:]
> coder at ibm.net wrote:
> >If I can ever get the bandwidth problems solved, this will also not be=
 an
> >issue for me.  Everything is logged.  This is a function of DB rollbac=
ks.=20
> >A player will be able to select any object and follow it back thru tim=
e
> >and see everything that happened to that object, exactly as it happene=
d,
> >exactly as if he were there at the time, or select a location, and see
> >everything that happened there, no matter how minor, exactly as it
> >happened back then.
>=20
> An effective way of preventing any valuable social interaction. The

How are you defining 'valuable', here?  Valuable like giving directions
to a certain location in the game?  Talking about a sports event
on TV?  Talking about a movie?  Complaining about your spouse?  Mudsex?

> trouble is, some people are likely to forget and will end up saying
> things they want deleted from records...  I can imagine the whining in =
a
> large scale system.  People will start talking in codes.  The funny thi=
ng
> is, teams of foreigners will have an advantage in your system. COOL!  :=
-)

That is pretty amusing.  I actually played a mud which had fairly
limited channels for private communication where a certain group had
devised a limited code for communicating.  I believe someone actually
even programmed a client to translate the codes into readable text.
I have no problem with that - it's no different than PGP, although it's
more like the secret decoder ring from Captain Crunch.  Secret handshakes
and the like.  These are useful for many reasons above and beyond
log-paranoia.

> Anyway, people will find work-arounds.  I would simply fill my history
> with lots of garbarge every once in a while to make it intractible by
> cheer information overload.

The situation we are talking about (see JC's statement at the top of the
message) is not just randomly reading through logs, which sounds
incredibly boring to me.  In fact, the 'logs' aren't even from a certain
character's point of view; they are only a list of events that occured
in the system.  The situation discussed is having someone report a
problem of some sort (could be a bug, purported harassment, or whatever)
and having the admin view a list of those events in some format in order
to see precisely what happened.  In this case your garbage is useless,
unless you're careful to insert it only while harassing people.

> Well, actually, I think I would play your game as a chess only system,
> and use external programs for chatting...  Or, even more likely, move t=
o
> another mud.

I would imagine that many people on this list would find JC's mud
to be incredibly distasteful, or at the very least confusing and not
much fun.  I personally think it will be at least quite interesting,
since it's different from anything I've ever played before, and I'm
always looking for things that are different.  And I will probably also
find it quite fun, since I enjoy intensely strategical games,
especially with fantastic worlds.

> (Good thing only 4 million people speak my language :-)

Hey, maybe more than that.  Lots of good bands from your country -
I've picked up a few words without even trying.