[MUD-Dev] "short" Introductory Message (fwd)

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <3.0.2.32.19970625194819.00b58174 at mail.tenetwork.com>, on 06/25/97 
   at 09:45 PM, Jeff Kesselman <jeffk at tenetwork.com> said:

>At 07:22 PM 6/25/97 PST8PDT,JCL wrote:

>>In <Marcel-1.09-0620202228-0b0Ky&5 at Gryphon.knoware.nl>, on 06/20/97 
>>   at 07:25 PM, Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl> said:

>>>This is a wonderful idea.  Rank gives a player power,  but to use
>>>that power she must employ others to carry that power. If those
>>>others fail this reflects badly on the ranking player,  to the point
>>>that she will lose some of her power (rank).
>>
>>A simple model:
>>
>>  Player characters can award each other "rank points" (RP).
>>
>>  Each player character is given (free) 1RP per day.

>And, at least among my players, the abuser immediately start
>generating massive numebrs of 'drone" characters maintainign them
>just long enough to give their point to their leader, kil lthem off,
>and make another.

Yup, that's a problem.  One solution is to have the number of RP's
awarded to a player character be proportionate to the age and activity
level of that character.  Thus a character that has survived for many
MUD years would get more RP's per day than a new character (who might
not get any at all), and an inactive player would get no RP's at all.

Suggested algorithm:

  # of RP's proportional to age of character minus 1 MUD month.

  1RP earned per (continuous?) RL hour of MUD play by character until
that character's quota of RP's has been earned for that day.

Voila!  Siutation handled.  You could ignore the age factor and still
have it work.  I threw that in as I see it as a game-valuable
side-effect.

>There are segments of my user population whose whole goal is to
>figure out how to subvert and abuse anything systematic in the game.

Abuse?  Nahh, they're just trying to exploit the system as presented,
not as requested.  The real question is whether you are require your
players to play in the manner you expect/request, or whether you
expect them to create their own methods and goals.  (<sigh>  Old topic
I guess)

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...