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

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Friday, September 19, 1997 4:43 AM, Miroslav Silovic 
[SMTP:silovic at petra.zesoi.fer.hr] wrote:
> Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban at darklock.com> writes:
>
> On Xyllomer MUD, for example, there is a bard guild, and they do have
> musical instrument skills. The trick is that there is also a songbook
> objects. You spend a few hours writing the actual song, and then
> showing it off to the people in the inns. While spammy, many people
> actually /like/ writing poetry (particularily about the recent events,
> as bards are supposed to do), and many more in fact /like/ listening
> to it.

And where exactly does the game mechanic of your character's skill in 
musical instruments enhance this process? Or to put it more simply, 
couldn't I just as easily do this *without* having a musical instrument 
skill? Just say 'join the Bard's Guild, and you will be automatically 
assumed to have some reasonable measure of skill with a musical 
instrument'? Why should there be a 'lute' or 'lyre' skill that I have to 
spend my time and effort in improving and maintaining?

More specifically, if I have a 98% in my music skill, but in RL I write 
really shitty poetry, am I getting the in-game respect that I would deserve 
as one of the outstanding master bards that my skill obviously reflects? 
And if I have a 5%, but I write really great lyrics, am I still considered 
a crappy wanna-be bard?

> 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.

I think I can say with some authority, having served as staff on several 
WoD MUSHes, that a long and detailed character generation process most 
certainly does NOT weed out the idiots, morons, twelve year olds, or just 
plain buttheads.

> you'd do this exactly like every seasoned player
> would do on any MUD in existance - you'd ask for an admin favor.

Wrong. I never ask for admin favors. Ever. No matter how well I know the 
admin. Because this sort of practice leads to favoritism, is inherently 
unfair, and dammit if you're treating the rest of the players like this 
then that's how *I* ought to be treated. And if I don't like it, I'll 
leave. Asking for admin favors is a form of cheating. It's like sucking up 
to the DM at a tabletop game. Ever had a player mention the ten bucks you 
owe him just before attempting something close to impossible that requires 
a DM ruling? I don't borrow money anymore. Period.

Likewise, any policy which requires selective enforcement in order to 
succeed is inherently flawed and should be reconsidered.

> 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.

IMHO, some of the greatest gamers I have ever met have greater success 
gaming online than in person because of their age. I started gaming at the 
age of six and a half, which made me pretty seasoned at the age of eleven 
-- and completely discounted. It was close to impossible to find a group 
that would take me *and* had a play style I felt comfortable with. It was 
during that period that I started doing the majority of my gaming on the 
computer, from text adventures to BBS systems to PBEM games and eventually 
to MUDs. I eventually hit a point where I was actually taken seriously 
again, and could get back into tabletop... but it took a long time. And 
from day one, I have *detested* age-based policies, long hassling 
registration, and annoying 'waiting periods' for a character. It's a game, 
dammit, and I don't want bureaucracy -- I want to PLAY. If you're just 
going to assume I'm an asshole up front, then the asshole in this room is 
YOU, and I don't want to play a game where the admin is an asshole. I don't 
care how cool your game is, I'm not going to be bullied into letting you 
treat me like crap because it's your ball and you could take it and go 
home.

Also see following.

> 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.

Address this from the religious angle, now. Isn't a person's choice of 
stated religion indicative of their psychology? What makes someone a 
Christian? A Jew? A Moslem? A Satanist? Don't all of these groups have 
their own beliefs? You're trying to tell me that to say "let's get rid of 
group X" across the board is on some level ACCEPTABLE?

> 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.

And since blacks steal televisions and tend to draw welfare...
And since Jews are of bad moral character and tend to be dishonest...
And since gays are promiscuous and tend to carry disease...

I really detest statements of vast generalisation. Try this one:

Since younger players tend to be inexperienced and immature...

Get the picture yet? I'm not just saying "hey, let's all be friends". I'm 
saying policies just like this were used to exclude me from one thing after 
another through the majority of my life, and dammit that really sucked so 
I'll be damned if I'm just going to sit back and do nothing when someone 
wants to do it to someone else. You want to kick me off your game? Wait for 
a reason, at least.

> Again, MUSHes have
> developed very good mechanism of self-regulation to deal with this
> problem.

They have? Not that I've seen. The 'self-regulation' is still much the same 
as on any MUD: go tell the staff. It just happens that on most MUSHes, 
there are fewer players for each staff member. Many MUSHes have over forty 
staff members, with an actual player base somewhere around 500. Total, not 
all online at once. A generic popular MUD, on the other hand, will often 
have about a dozen staff members and somewhere on the order of six thousand 
players. This would be like one person trying to run the above MUSH single 
handed. MUDs don't suffer so much from having a higher proportion of idiots 
as just having more people online to be potential idiots; if only 5% of the 
player base is made up of assholes, the MUSH has 25 and the MUD has 300. 
Identifying and eliminating them on a MUSH is a little easier, much like 
the difference between taking the bad strawberries out of a basket and 
taking the bad strawberries out of a bushel.

This isn't really related to the current subject, though. But I think MUDs 
get blamed for having a lot of idiots when they're really no worse than 
anything else.

> > What if English isn't my native language? What if my vocabulary isn't 
quite
> > as good as yours? How do you handle verbs that have multiple meanings?
>
> What if I am illiterate? What if I am stupid?

There is a difference between knowledge in a different area and knowledge 
on a different level. I feel relatively certain that there are several 
subjects I can bring up about which you would know jack shit. The converse 
is also true, you can probably bring up several things I know nothing 
about. That doesn't make either of us illiterate or stupid. It makes us 
different, and it is this very difference that leads us to game in groups 
in the FIRST place.