[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

[Damion Schubert]

From: Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl>


>On Tue 28 Jul, quzah wrote:
>> From: Damion Schubert <zjiria at texas.net>
>> >From: Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl>
>> >>[Example snipped of a rather nasty way of indirectly killing a newbie]
>> >>I really have only one question to this. Why did your friend do that?
>> >>And most likely to a player who had done nothing to him, did not know
>> >>what was happening and was justifiably very upset about what was done
>> >>to him?


>> >Because mischief is fun.  A lot of fun.  I don't even feel bad
>> >for laughing out loud at watching these events transpire


>> I must agree. I've found it incredibly fun on more than one
>> occasion. I enjoy mainly mage and thieving types of characters,


>I can not agree. As far as I can see you try to justify doing something
>unacceptable to another player. And your only excuse is that it is fun,
>for you.  Apparently you have not given a thought  to how the victim of
>your fun feels. I consider that extremely selfish at the least and more
>likely cruel, if not outright evil. And yes I have hounded down players
>who did this kind of things the few times I became imm on a mud.  Maybe
>I am vindictive, or vindicative, but I do not condone cruelty or tortu-
>re on a mud anymore than I do outside it.


Having been the victims of all sorts of scams in muds, and having been a
newbie in most of the situations, I think that I have given a thought about
how the other person feels.  Truth be known (and I realize I may be far from
the norm here), I generally appreciate cleverness, even if it turns out to
screw me in the back.  Similarly, I've been known to pluck down a couple of
dollars down at 3 card monte, just to watch the conman at work.  Somehow,
it's still entertaining, but not as entertaining as when the *real* yokel
comes along, and plunks down twenties =)

True story.  When UO came out, me and my buddies at 3DO created characters.
We quickly got bored because the dynamic ecology was at the time, slightly
out of whack, so there were no monsters to kill.  So for a couple of hours,
we just found other people and said, "We found a Unicorn!  This way!"  Then
we'd lead them out into the woods and... hide.  Or run off screen.  They'd
always complain that we were full of it (which, of course, we were), but
they'd always follow us.  It was actually quite amusing to watch.  One
person got so ticked off that he called a GM on us, even though we hadn't
done really anything.  That line where mischief ends and 'cruelty and
torture' begins is really, really hard to define, and in a commercial
setting, you really need clearly expressed rules about that line, or you
take an awful amount of flack on the boards.  To Origin's credit, the GM did
let us go, and gave the complainer a short lecture about the proper use of
the 'page GM' command.

--d