[MUD-Dev] Life

[Adam Wiggins]

[Jeff K:]
> [Adam W:]
> >1) The scope, purpose, and limitations of the game are made clear from the
> >outset
> >2) All character behave within this scope
> >
> >Then there's no reason anyone should ever be 'upset'.  (I'm considering
> >'upset' to be really disturbed, as opposed to just disapointed or slightly
> >perturbed.)
> >
> >We are very clear in the help files that our world is dangerous; there
> >are a lot of racial hatreds, religious conflicts, magical conflicts,
> >dangerous creatures roaming the lands, strange magical forces at work
> 
> Marian's summation is something i agree with strongly and why I keep
> harping on "define your game".  But in the above exampel you HAVENT defined
> your game. You've only defined your agme world.  The game a bunch of adult

And that is the game.  Period.  There's nothing else.  This is identical
to everything that Chris Lawrence has been saying.  The game world IS
the game.

> roleplayers will PLAY in that world is totally different and has totally
> different ASSUMED RULES (important concept, the "social contract") then the

Sorry, there are no rules, any more than there are 'rules' in RL.

> one a bunch of serious Pkillers wil play.  You need to define not what the
> players can expect of your world setting (though that is helpful for
> Roleplayers to undertsnad what kinds of characters fit) but what your GAME
> EXPECTS OF THE PLAYERS.

Nothing.  Zero.  Zip.  You can do, or not do, anything you like.

We do have a 'policy' section which defines, a little more clearly, that
players and mobiles are, as far as the game is concerned, no different.
They use the same commands, are generated (statistics, skills, and so on)
in the same way.  They look the same.  Issathi hate purelves, and vice versa.
This is defined as part of the game world.  In general they attack each other
on sight (although, this is rare, since they don't hang out in the same
places due to their phyiscal characteristics, which I won't get in to).
There are four different configurations here:

1) The issathi is a player and the purelve is a mobile.
2) The issathi is a player and the purelve is a player.
3) The issathi is a mobile and the purelve is a mobile.
4) The issathi is a mobile and the purelve is a player.

As far as the game, and the admin, are concerned, all these situations
are identical.

Now, there is a very obvious difference between players a mobiles - players
are smart, while mobiles simulate a crude intelligence with silly little
scripts and state handling.  It is highly likely that players will treat
people that they know to be other players (due to their actions) differently.

But - there are no rules related to this.

> Without this you have the problems and hurt feelings Marian referenced.

I have my newsreader set up to giv me messages in reverse order, so I
haven't gotten to that yet, but I will address it when I do.

> If you expect it to be a player-kills-player world, you need that upfront.
> if you exptec it to be a cooperative roleplay envrionment, you need to say
> THAT.

I don't expect anything.  There are certain things that I'd *like*;
but I don't 'enforce' these things either in the code or by wagging my finger
at players and telling them to do what I say.  I write a game world which
responds to actions in ways that I think will react in an interesting
way to things that players do.  Other than that, there is nothing.

> Because roleplayers play with respect for each others characters and
> stories and do not intentionally impinge on them or take control away.

I still think our definition of role-playing differs.  I think of
role-playing in the old style; you ARE your character, at least for
that three hour session or whatever.  You think like them, behave like
them, and do what they would do.  As you continue to play that character,
you devlop the role further - you get to know them better, and expand
the 'role' to contain multiple facets of their personality, making them
more than some stereotype out of a TSR handbook.  I find this both fun
and immersive, and I desire it on my mud.

The role-playing you are refering to seems to stem more from either
pen and paper RPGs I haven't played (quite possible, there are certainly
enough of them) or from your time on certain kinds of muds.  This is
roleplaying where you're more of an author for a story, the centerpiece
of which is a character which you've created.  Rather than thinking in
terms of how the character will necessarily behave in a given situation,
you like to take into account the desires of all the other player characters
present and then factor those into your character's actions.  Thus you
end up crafting a group-story for which, as far as you are concerned, your
character is the main persona - but you may actually change what your 
character will do depending on what other people (real people, not NPCs)
will be influenced by your actions, and you certainly wouldn't play a
character that didn't fit in well with a given mud's current storyline/setting.

Is this correct?  The second part anyhow, I know the first is :)

> Pkilling as a regular thing does take control away.  Neither is right or
> wrong, btu they are imcompatable game models.

Yeah, hopefully I've accounted for this in the above - you consider
the 'control' others have over a situation when considering your character's
actions.

> >Yup, that's what I've been saying.  We've found that it's easy enough to
> >make enemies that you tend to be a little careful about what you say, and
> 
> Hmm. Intersting. We've seen the opposite. In a heavy Pk environemnt,
> assholes work hard to "max out" and then use it as a lever to abuse, annoy,
> and "talk -shit" to other players.  Maybe thats a questio nto a degree of
> your combat model.  DSO had a particualrly poor one.

DSO is Dark Sun Online, correct?  Hum, I had one of those ten-free-hours on
TEN CD-ROMs around here somewhere, I ought to borrow someone's PC
one of these days and check it out so that we have a common frame
of reference.

Personally, I have a hard time playing any game which restricts player
interactions, and in fact, I think it's been at least a year and maybe
two since I've played one of these.  (Guess I'm spoiled - I also
can hardly stand to play muds with 'levels'.)
The one I have spent the most time on (since I have played in several
separate periods) is Arctic MUD.  Arctic is like five years old, was
completely unrestricted player killing from day one.  In fact, killing
players is HIGHLY lucrative - they usually have good gear and are worth
a large amount of exp (depending on alignment and your relative levels).
Several of my characters there have been completely untouched by PK of
any sort.  Several others have been hunters whose entire purpose was
to hunt down and kill some specified other players.  Most of them
have been involved in PK or at least had their pockets picked once or
twice during their careers, but usually have spent the vast majority of
their time far from anything involving harming other players.
Some statistics, just for a frame of reference: Arctic has between 60 and
200 people online twenty four hours a day.  It usually has about 11,000
players in the active database.  (Players are purged after about a week of
not logging on, depending on level.)  When I was playing (it's been a
while, so may not be accurate now) there was an average of 60,000 players
hour logged per month, which is ~7 years.  I realize these numbers
might be pitiful compared to what you see on TEN, but I just wanted to
show that it wasn't just me. :)
At any rate, the mud runs just fine.  There are social structures, but
none are imposed by the mud.  I've been a member of various clans (which
translates to 'people you hang out with, and can trust' - there's no
clan code, persay), and also spent plenty of time as a loner.  I've rarely
felt like I'm the victim of a senseless death, and I've vastly enjoyed
the PK I've been involved with there, although it probably constituted
1/100 of a percent of the time I actually spent online.  Of the dozens
or possibly hundreds of PKs I was involved in, I was actually killed
three times.  Yes, I remember all three times, and all of them were quite
memorable - I don't feel bad for having died at all.  (Actually, one was
pretty lame, but the character was also fairly lame so I wasn't too put
out.)
The main thing just involves your player's profile.  There are high-profile
players that are ultra-careful about anywhere they go, knowing full
well that there are many who want them dead.  There are others who don't
have anything of note, don't ever talk shit, and are basically not worth
killing by anyone, thus never have anything to worry about.  There are
those who help out everyone and have a lot of friends.  If they get killed,
you can assure that the killer will be faced with people she may not even
know attacking her wherever she goes, making her character essentially
unplayable.  (No, there's no permanent death - certainly this makes PK
a somewhat different experience.  However, death does rather suck - you
loose a level and quite a few permenant hitpoints.  Making enemies will
ensure that you'll die a lot, making your character basically unplayable
due to lack of hitpoints.)

This works.  The game is fun, and I never really feel 'scared' or like
I'm not in control.  Well, rarely, anyhow.  The upside is that the
world is a dangerous and unpredictable place, with unique social structures
and characters that may or may not have your best intersts at heart.
Most people are not what they seem to be.  (You can't tell level, class,
or anything else from the who list or look desc.  More than one person
has made the mistake of attacking that old man in bedraggled robes with
the spiffy-looking amulet, only to find themselves obliterated with a single
spell.)  None of this was coded, of course.  The physical world exists
as it exists, and players make of it what they will.

> >around who.  This is as opposed to a no-PK whatever where people can
> >stand around in town all day long bragging about this or that item they
> >have, talking shit to various players, and so on, without every worrying.
> 
> I guess I have to ask 'so what??" if your MUD doesnt have a muzzle, I'ld
> never play it unless I was assured that you were doing rigerous control of
> the user population.

I assume by muzzle you mean some sort of admin 'mute' command.  We don't
have any sort of global channels, so it's easy enough to just walk
far away from someone you don't like.  And if all else fails:

A deep male voice you know as Imadork shouts, 'U R A PHUKK1NG L00Z3R!!1!'
> #gag {deep male voice you know as Imadork}
#Okay, {deep male voice you know as Imadork} is now gagged.
> sigh
You sigh in relief.

Problem solved.  Ain't technology great?