[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)

[Adam Wiggins]

[Miro:]
> Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban at darklock.com> writes:
> > Pray tell, how exactly do you intend to enforce that? I have several dozen 
> > shell accounts, each with an associated e-mail address, and it's trivial 
> > for me to create more. Any hacker worth his salt can have several hundred 
> > with little difficulty.
> 
> The easiest way to ban 12 years old is to introduce a long and
> involved application process that requires sending detailed character
> background and history to some email address. Note that there are
> several 100+ players MUSHes (100+ players connected at the same time,
> during evenings) that enforce this without player loss. In fact, it's
> a good way to gain players - those that do apply have a good way to
> know that the place will be relatively idiot-free.

Plus, character creation is fun.  Personally I like to attract folks that
are interested in putting a lot of thought and creativity into their characters.
Don't forget your 'guest' account, though, so that people can look around
in a non-obtrusive way without having to spend an hour making a character,
or worse yet two weeks for the admin to get around to reviewing their
application.  (Do I sense another thread? 'How to let people see your mud
with a guest account without intruding on the world')

> We reserve the right to choose our player base. My own choice excludes
> 12 years old, on the grounds that IMHO a MUD can't host 12 years olds
> together with a reasonable number of mentally sound 30 years old and I
> choose to favor the latter group. YMMV.

Well, I think most of us prefer an adult (meaning mature) playerbase.  The
players may be any age; all that matters is how they conduct themselves.
(Which is why I've always liked interaction on-line; when I got my first
300 baud modem I was about 12, and I found that if I didn't tell anyone
my age, people just treated me how I acted, instead of making assumptions
about my mentality.)

> > > The easiest way to make sure you can cater
> > > for almost everyone is to get rid of the powergamers
> > 
> > This is just plain offensive. Try replacing 'powergamers' with your 
> > favorite social, ethnic, or religious group. Maybe 'gays', 'blacks', or 
> > 'Jews'. I'm not even going to dignify it with a response.
> 
> I am. Saying that someone is a 'black' says nothing about his or her
> psychology. Saying that someone is a powergamer is a purely
> psychological qualification and therefore very relevant. And since
> powergamers have huge influence on the atmosphere of the game, and
> since they tend to band together to the exclusion of the other player
> types, I see nothing wrong with kicking them off. Again, MUSHes have
> developed very good mechanism of self-regulation to deal with this
> problem.

Agreed, although once again everyone seems to be trying to pigeonhole people
without a second thought.  I know plenty of powergamers that take 'breaks'
from their normal muds to go play a MUSH for a couple of months.  I also
know hard-core RP types (mainly pen-and-paper, but some MUSHers too) who
like to take some time out to play a Diablo.  It's easy to categorize players,
but the truth is that few people play only one kind of game and one kind of
style.  Saying that a powergamer can't roleplay is about as silly as saying
an RP'er can't do math.
I assume, though, that what we're discussing above is people who don't ever
*want* to roleplay, which is something different entirely.