[MUD-Dev] Re: Affordances and social method (Was: Re: Wi

[J C Lawrence]

On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 03:46:36 -5 
Jon A Lambert<jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> On 13 Jul 98, Koster, Raph wrote:
>>> From: Todd Lair [SMTP:tlair at mailzone.com]

>>> A squelch command?  A player could squelch another, so that any
>>> text produced by the irritant would not be received by the
>>> squelcher.  Also, the squelchie could not perform any acts on the
>>> squelcher.  One of the drawbacks probably would be that it
>>> certainly would make dieing from PK's obsolete.  Although, with
>>> friendly PK, or duels, this might be viewed as chickening out.
>>> Thus the standing player wins by forfeit.

>> What about indirect means, though? Here's something to
>> consider... say Bubba who is now squelched wanders around telling
>> everyone in the mud that Buffy is a <insert derogatory term of
>> choice>. Word gets back to Buffy. Is this something Buffy should be
>> upset about? Is it something Buffy should have recourse for?Is it
>> something an admin needs to step in for, or is the proper answer to
>> have everyone in the game squelch Bubba too?

> Nod.  The availability of @gag did not prevent the Mr. Bungle
> incident.  Nor would @gag or "squelch" affect third party
> observation of such activity.

A thought:

  Many games have a concept of different volumes of speech, such that
a whisper is only heard by those close by, normal speech has further
propagation, and shouting can be heard over a wide area if not the
whole game.

  The idea is to make gags or squelches a modifier on the above
system.

  As the number of gags increased on a player, the distance
propagation of his speech, or of his proxies speech would be decreased
proportionally.  Ultimately perhaps he would have to shout to be heard
by someone standing immediately beside him.

  Any number of interesting dide effects could occur here, including
corrupting the speech strings as the gag load increased to adding
"positive" gags which _add_ volume/clarity to the subject's speech
rather than supressing it (whispers are heard across the land), or
making the effect of the gags be geographic and (inversely)
proportional to the distance between the gag author and the gag
subject.

--
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...