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

[Damion Schubert]

From: Matt Chatterley <matt at mpc.dyn.ml.org>


>On 30-Jun-98 Richard Woolcock wrote:
>> Or make shish kebabbing newbies a very messy, predictable and unrewarding
>> event?  I believe I mentioned my plans to remove all exp gains for
killing,
>> well I've still not gotten around to doing this (still trying to find a
>> replacement method for exp gain - I'll have to work some more on that
plot
>> system).  Imagine my eventual system though... you attack someone who may
>> well beat you (even if they're a newbie), won't have anything of value
(just
>> some clothes, maybe a spare weapon or two) and will result in you loosing
>> some humanity points (which in turn has other disadvantages).  The
result?
>> Hopefully killing will only be done out of necessity or for political
gain.


Interesting datapoint.  On Meridian 59, we experimented with punishing
players
for killing newbies.  The end result was that player killing blew through
the roof.
Seems that the player killers realized that they could start a newbie
character and
attack a high level character.  They would suffer no noticeable loss (it was
a
newbie character - who cares if you lose some stats?) whereas the high level
character faced a quandary.  Die, and lose their stuff, standing, and face,
or kill
the newbie, and eat the 'newbie killing' penalty.  We threw a handful of
checks
in the way(i.e. did the newbie strike first), but the rampaging murderous
newbies managed to skillfully find loopholes or ways to instigate fights.
Eventually, we were forced to go back to the way it was before, in order to
have
a simple and predictable system.

>Ah. But will simply making something unrewarding accomplish this? It'll
almost
>certainly slow the rate via taking out those who are soley after
materialistic
>gains. Not those who are after some sort of thrill from doing so.


Agreed.  I don't think that very many killers actually do it for the stuff
they get.
It's the power you hold over another player.

>Talking in context of a game which is trying to reduce PK (one I play on,
and
>have no administrative ties to, and which will remain nameless) - all
attempts
>are failing. Threats of removal from the game barely had any effect (as I
would
>have expected), and the Player Council (not a concept with which I
personally
>agree, really), is struggling to create sane laws. Hindered greatly by half
of
>them not understanding the concepts of IN and OUT of character actions,
IMHO.


The single biggest improvement we made to Meridian 59 was social stigmatism.
I.e. if you're a murderer, your name (which is always visible over your
head) turns
red.  That way, any time someone saw you, they knew exactly what was up with
you.  In a small community (i.e. 100-200 people at a time),  rednames who
were
not known to the community at large tended to be exterminated frequently, to
the
point where the stat loss made their character useless.

This is not to say that we 'solved' the problem.  Meridian 59 had a huge PK
problem.
But before the red names, it went way beyond huge and into enormous. =)

--damion