[MUD-Dev] Levels and Goals [was Alright..IF your gonan do

[Jon A. Lambert]

> From: Jeff Kesselman <jeffk at tenetwork.com>
> At 08:58 AM 5/27/97 PST8PDT, you wrote:
> 
> 
> Okay opinion time, but from over a years worth of experiecne struggling to
> build a communtiy around a mid-designed commerical MUD...
> 
> The "Well just build a world for you" approach doiers NOT work with the
> common public. It CAN work but ONLY if you limit your user population.
>
While I have no experience running a high player base muds, I strongly 
suspect this is true.
 
> A few destructive assholes will otherwise quickly define the agme as
> "ruining everyone else's fun" and go around doing just that.  meanwhile,
> everyone else will stand around confused abotu what to do, and the asshoels
> wil lend up 'dfeining" your game for you as asshole-world.  
> 

I have seen this on many a mud I've logged into.  

While this sometimes happens in paper & pencil variety games, the
mud as "your house" analogy breaks down totally.  If you don't like their 
behavior you simply don't invite them back a second time or in the extreme
kick them out of your house.  Generally you know or control who you invite
into a P&P game.  I think anonymity vs FTF has a lot to do with the
level of civility.  Sure I've banned players from FTF games, they 
generally don't show up and attempt to break into my house to rejoin 
the game. :P
And players who do come in blind are extended an invite by someone
already accepted into the game.  I wonder if one might attract quality
role-players via this method.  I tend to think that the "apply for 
a character" method works very well for RP MUSHes.  It might also
work for other styles of games. 

I've been thinking of farming the entire character generation process
into an web applet which would be submitted for approval by email.
While still allowing guests to log in and float about unseen and unheard
in limited areas.  Maybe having a OOC comm channel for Q/A only heard
by those desiring to.


JL