[MUD-Dev] Life

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <3.0.32.19970529113029.00683f00 at mail.tenetwork.com>, on 05/29/97 
   at 07:48 PM, Jeff Kesselman <jeffk at tenetwork.com> said:

>At 09:31 PM 5/28/97 PST8PDT, you wrote:

>>Part of the player-value in PK is the awareness that the killer caused
>>a real and direct effect on another human. 

>Thsi si true for a PK MUD, but this is nto intended to be. Thsii s
>ratehr intended to be a fairly close analogy to the way reasonably
>mature people play AD&D.

>Reasonably mature players generally DON'T want to hurt the other
>player... this is not exactly a socially positive action, and killign
>off someone elses charatcer that they have time and emotionasl
>investment in definately counts as hurtign the toher player. 
>Paritcuaklrly when, as you suggest, this iws in fact the GOAL, to
>hurt someone else personally.

>I guess I see no "value" in providing a place for people to hurt each
>other on a personal level. Let me do it on the streets, but not in my
>game.

You are assuming that PK == desire to hurt others.  This is not an
automatic or factual equation.  Most of the early PK MUDs (eg Shades,
SX MUD, MUD2, MirrorWorld, Gods, LaserWorld, etc) as well as many of
the current "pure" PK mUDs (Tron et al) demonstrate this very clearly.

"A real and direct effect" is not equal to "hurt".  Even one player
killing another in a Doom challenge has created a "real and direct
effect" on the other player, but I'd have a hard time viewing that as
"hurt".  In that case the very fact of death is implicit in the game,
and in their player's approach to the game.  There is no requirement
for MUDs not to do this.

Equally I'd argue that the ability for PK'ers to so dominate and
"ruin" a game is proof positive of a glaring design flaw in the game
design.  If you are going to do PK, you need to do it right, and that
requires it to be balanced both on its in-game effects and its
inter-player effects.  It can be done.  It has been done.  

--
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...