[MUD-Dev] Supporting articles found for UOL play style

[J C Lawrence]

The following paint a fascinating overview of the cultural effect that 
UOL is engendering.  Note that this is from an Australian-centric site:

  <URL:http://uoc.newsninja.com>

Clippings from the above URL below.  Anybody want to argue the
feasability of team play in MUDs?

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Guardians of Virtue & Honor are recruiting again! - rgds KHIRON sent me
this, 

The Guardians of Virtue and Honor are recruiting again, located on
the Pacific Shard this guild is a miliataristic Guild for Role Players of
good notoriety.  I am the only Aussie so far and have been with the
guild for a month rising to assistant command of my company. 

Rank and dicipline is important in our Guild, and promotion is
achieved using a point scoring system (documented on the site) where
each member is awarded points for guild activities. 

We generally have two quests a week, Saturday and Sunday Midday
(Australian Time - great timing eh) for around 3 hours.  In our
dungeon quests we gate to a dungeon and rid the foul depths of such
noxious beasts as we find, and appropriate their ill-gotten goods. 
During patrols we travel in companies and keep the Kings Highways
free of the miscreants and cutpurses that plague our land. 

During the week we have smaller quests and events, where you can
always find a brother knight willing to march shoulder to should with
you into the nastiest of regions.  The next event is on Tuesday 9pm
(EST) (Wednesday 10am AEST) when there will be a march of the
guild in Brittain. 

Look we're not Notoriety Player Killers, but take care to warn PK'ers
during our patrols that their talents are misdirected and would be
better applied to usefull ends.  However warnings ignored result in
chastisements being applied, quite liberally.  We're big enough and
Bad enough that it would take a dedicated team of PK'ers to hurt us. 

Our address is http://gvh.netmegs.com/, we also have a guild member
mailing list, and use ICQ to communicate.  Applicants who wish to
build on a combat skill at 60+ and have unblemised notoriety with a
desire to meet true evil across flashing blades, with brothers at your
back are invited to apply using the automated facilities of our site. 

rgds KHIRON 
Assistant Commander 
Avatars Guard Company 
Guardians of Virtue and Honour 

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Listen to us. We the players who spend our nights and days making this
game an inhabited world of intresting people. We the players who
trudge across your world looking for reagents and adventure until that
one distant day when we might use magic to make the same journey.  We
the players who play honest and true and want such and beg for
such. We the players who turned away from Diablo looking for honesty
and fair play. We the players who make the game what it is.  Listen to
us. Please, I'll beg. I'll beg for every soul who has loged on and run
north to adventure and the screen went black. Who was he?  And then
for the noble with his blades and area effect weapons and the screen
went black. I'll beg for these people that you listen and do more then
listen but act.  Listen to us. A politicians dance and song; I don't
want to get along. I don't mind to die. I'll spend that hour waiting
to try, to try and find the healer, to try and restart. To get new
armor. To try and find another magic sword. Just so you can try to
kill a spider.  and the screen went black. Try again poor soul. I hate
dying myself. I hate dying at the hands of someone I never saw and
never had a chance to escape from. I've walked for hours and miles and
days across a landscape without color, dead alone and disgusted. And
they didn't take much; just everything I had. It wasn't much.

     I can't solve all the problems but if you try and listen to every
voice and do your best to answer our complaints then you have done
what is needed. But you must act.

      Hiding. This skill used to keep me alive. I complained because I
would punch a monster that ran nearby and turn visible and die. So
what did you do? You took hiding away. I can appreciate that it was a
tactic used by Player Killers but you know what? Hiding was my only
way of getting away from them. I have a slow server, I can't outrun a
P200 with a P133. So I die.

      Black clothing. People want it. It would be nice to let it
in. IMHO you're saving the colors for special reasons, for nobles and
lords. I don't mind. I never died, nor was I ever killed by Black
die. Houses. I want a house. Soon I hope to have one. It is an
important issue that you solve but I'm sure you will.

      Poison. I have enough troubles getting to dungeons but now I
wonder into a dungeon, run by a snake and promtly keel over dead.
What happened with the Giant Snakes? With them less passive then
before I can not find anything in the way of a good low-level
dungeon. Bad enough I got swarmed or lag-killed, or player killed
coming in or going out but now I get the slow death. Can I get my loot
home before I die? Chances are against it as my health is so low
anything can kill me. Oh yeah and I can't hide. What exactly has been
done to help low level "Good" players?

Macros - I don't know how you feel about macros. I can't imagine you
like them. I hear you've made steps to stop them. Makes sence. You
know what would really work? If a character doesn't move for 15
minutes, jiggle them (move them a few feet) or close their bags. This
would nuke 1/2 the macros. I see a lot of new characters who killed me
darned fast enough. Still I was sharing my account then I bought my
own account and had to restart. I turned to macro's to catch up.

Special Weapons - I would die for a special weapon that I could quest
for and then never loose. My own personal sword. I'd give a lot for
that.  

Quests - I can't stress the importance of giving us something to do.
Something other then player killing. Even the dread lords and Noble
lords complain that they have little else to do then hunt each other
down. How about some arch villians!! (Run by you guys at UO!!!)

And YES get Lord British to do some questing without immortality.
Fame would bring constant death. He wouldn't be able to leave the
castle. He'd get robbed by naked theives who keep raising themselves
and sitting by the bank. Someone would trick him into raising his
criminal flag and he'd be dead two steps out of the castle. Like the
rest of us. Outside of town it would be a lamb in a wolf forest. He'd
be shot at, poisoned, stabbed, blade spirited, fireballed, or he might
pick up the magically trapped box wandering around everywhere with
three or four theives.  You know what I hate the most about this game? 
I saw a noble die. Every player within 20 steps turned and swarmed
around the body. ALL OF THEM. He was looted and naked within
seconds. He had cast an illegal spell and the guards had killed him.
There is no warning about illegal spells. Thanks.

Pretty depresing all but the game is a good one and I appreciate that
your trying to balance it. You want to help, to really help? Give us a
low level spell that protects us from dread lords.

Mark Charke 
(Send any responce to MCharke at AOL.COM)

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Im starting a player run 24 hour city . I will need a lot of help from
allot of player's. For this reason im trying to get the word out as best
as i can . The main thing that is needed at this time to build the city is
money but once the city is built there will be a need for many players
to help in the running of the city from protecting the city from evil to 
creating event's for player's to participate in 24 hour's a day.  So if
you can find it in your hart to help me i would really like it thx for
your time.  

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Pkers arent the problem in UO. the problem is people who dont role
play.but when a pker doesnt role play it gets even worse. pkers who
dont role play kill without a cause, exploit every bug possible to
kill.(poisoning ghosts).  where do they get their fun? its cool to be
evil once in a while but not cheating. a pen and paper role playing
game like ad&d has a GM watching over the game and gives bonus and
penalties to for player's role playing. in UO there is no one there to
force players to role play. i studied other players. only around 10%
of players role play to the maximum. a lot of players use icq while
they play, i think that's cheap. while icq is good to know if youre
friends are online, it can used as a cheat. for example. youre
surrounded by orcs and youre hiding. they wont go away, so you icq a
friend to come and help you. that's what i call cheating.  another
that annoys me is when players complain about pkers. i dont pk. but i
tried it once. i made a character and he was the guardian of the
forest. he killed anyone who harmed an animal of the forest. what's
wrong with that? that's role playing.  another pathetic thing happened
on catskills. i was hunting for orcs when i arrived at the dread lord
shadow clan orcs fort. me and friends killed them all. some other
wandering warrior came up to me and told me not to kill them because
they are role players. he said that they arent pkers, there just
players playing orcs. what irony, i mean.. not kill them because they
role play? im a role player too and as a role player, i hunt orcs.
orcs are evil by nature. i dont care if they player orcs or npc orcs,
there ORCS and they shall die by my sword. i mean, seriously...  well,
that's all i have to say. keep it real.

The Watcher.  

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I found a deadly bug! Bows are not seen as weapons by guards! 
Therefore people can townkill at their own will! OSI is in deep ****
now! Go buy a bow and protect the game! PKs will never triumph!

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Hail from Atlantic shard,  

Last night at the shrine in Hythloth, my friends and I were attacked
by two brave 12 year old Dread Lords...they then proceeded to poison
our ghosts, attempting to ruin our characters. People...PKing is NOT
part of any role-playing game. It is only the acting out of immature
children in need of supervision. UO is a service we all pay for. Since
we all pay for this service, OU is obligated to ensure we all have
equal access to the game.  Since the killers run unchecked, it has
made it impossible for real players to go to dungeons or access
anywhere the gangs of pre-pubescent, schoolyard bullies choose to hunt
in packs like the fatherless curs they are. I was struck the other day
by the similarities between the book Lord of the Flies and the
behaviour seen daily on UO.  Briefly, the story was about a group of
teenagers stranded on an island. They were alone with no adults or
structure.  Very soon they turned to savagry and murder. By the time
they were 'rescued' there were only a handful left. Here in Britannia
we as players have the opportunity to display our true colors as human
beings. It is more than a 'game' as true RPGers know. The behaviour we
see here is very telling of the type of person we are dealing with. We
have so often heard the childish argument "You can get killed and
robbed in real life" Lets look at that a moment, shall we?  In a real
society there are laws and a justice system.  In such a system, those
who would harm others are outlaws and are put away from the rest of
society.  We have jail and fines and punishment for such
activity. Here on UO there is nothing of the sort. There is true
lawlessness, thus allowing the adolescents with an underdeveloped
conscience and value system to harm others and effectively nullify all
they have worked for. I plan to start a guild on Atlantic and Lake
Superior. A guild for real RPGers...those of us who love this game for
wht it has to offer and are willing to fight UO to make it all it can
be.

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At a small gathering of unhappy citizens, we decided to hold an anti
PK rally at Lord British's castle on Lake Superior shard, on Saturday,
the 11th of April, at Noon.
       
Please show up and gather, add your voice to ours.  I want to surround
Lord British's castle with citizens, acting as one.
       
If you don't have a characther on LS, make one!  
       
Tiernan of Yew  

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Hail all,  

Last night at about 1am on BAJA was the most unbelivble night of my
life on U.O my self and red blade were up at the orc camp behind cove
just minding our own buissness when from out of the blue came hoards
of orcs,ettins and been lead by mages there must have been 50-60 no
joke from all dirrections they came ,single file just like a military
brigade.Well not mention i saw my commrade red blade fall fow to these
creatures,i managed to recall to britt to raise some sort of
retaliation but hay no one came, i returned to meet my own fate as i
was over come by many orcs and ettins unable to recall,all i could do
was watch as i passed over to the neverworld..Anyway we found a
stranger to gate us to britt where we were able to finally get people
to go and fight these masses, we were then to return to reap revenge
but alas we were left with only a few at least 15 warriors and mages
were there killing every thing..

This is one of the biggest spawns i have ever seen and hope to see
more :) here is a snap taken by my fallen commrade after his fate,this
is only at the begining of the spawn..............ZOLTON 

Here is a pic of the Orc Invasion

  <URL:http://uoc.newsninja.com/submit/orc.jpg>

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One not so fine day, I was feeling sh**y because I had just gotten
PKed. I was wandering aimlessly around rinsic when a portal open and a
few grandmaster warriors & wizards walked out saying: "Wow, what a
respawn!" and "Geez, i can't belive i surrvived!"  So I thought what
the hell, i got nothin here.  I walked into the gate, and it was the
biggest battle i had ever seen!  there was not one space on the screen
not covered with either a dead or fighting monster or player!  I walk
up, totally naked, with my war mace and kite shield, and initiated
combat with the nearest zombie and fought and fought and fought, until
i had died about 50 times and had over 4k in my backpack! then a liche
respawn occured. That sucked!  It started to become completely
overpowering and an master wizard opened a portal and said, "LETS GET
THE F**K OUTTA HERE!!!"

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--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                               Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------(*)                     Internet: claw at under.engr.sgi.com
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...

--
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.