[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers

[Jon A. Lambert]

On 17 Aug 98, Dr. Cat wrote:
> Marian Griffith wrote:
> > 
> > On Fri 14 Aug, Koster, Raph wrote:
> > (Actually Dr.Cat did ;)
> > 
> > > > I still don't think anyone really understands Marian's classic Tailor 
> > > > Problem.
> > > > Except maybe Marian.  (Hi again, Marian!)
> > 
> > I tried to explain to the best of my ability  (and thanks for saying it
> > is a classic problem :) I will give it another try if I really was that
> > confusing to you all.
> 
> I think you explained it fine.  It's just like a travelling salesman
> from America who sells TV antennas and sparkplugs going to someplace
> with some tribe that's never encountered TVs or cars, and trying to
> explain what his antennas and sparkplugs are for.  Like Australian
> aborigines or someone.
> 
> Or some vegemite salesman from Australia coming to America and
> saying "No really, back where I come from, some blokes LIKE to eat
> this stuff!"
> 
> If somebody doesn't have the context to understand what you're
> saying, somewhere in their personal experience, they're not going to
> understand you.
> 
> (Actually, I don't think *anyone* can really understand vegemite. 
> Not even the people who do eat it voluntarily.  It's just one of
> life's great mysteries.)
> 

There is a single troubling aspect to this scenario.  There seems to 
be an insistence here that the tailor still be subject to a 
non-consentual PKill and/or PSteal, yet to have it occur as rarely as 
in RL, but not as frequently as in most MUDs.

I daresay, you have not attempted to address the tailor scenario 
either.  What I have read from Marian's scenario is the game allows 
murder and stealing, yet makes available options to deal with it
similar to those in RL societies.    

To say that such games do not exist or are not addressed is to have 
a blindspot to the perhaps 100 or so such games currently running on 
the internet.  

Why is disallowing PKill or PSteal an unsatisfactory solution to this
scenario?   Why is only allowing "consential" PKill or PSteal an 
unsatisfactory solution to this scenario?  

It's been my impression that Mud-dev has a reasonable representation 
of people on both sides of the PK/no-PK issue.  Although you would be 
right in your assessment that the "games which include combat" 
afficianados substantial outnumber the "games without combat" 
advocates.  I think it's important to note that there are substantial 
numbers of current games which include combat but no notion of PK. 

Am I wrong in my assumption that Marian wants to play a tailor
on a mud which includes all the standard fare of Diku-derived muds?
I assume the phrase "the only thing the current games offer" is a 
specific generalization towards Diku-derived mud designs that 
happen to include PK. 

Can one not play a tailor on Tales of Ta'veren, PaxMagica or Ansalon 
Dreams?  PernMush?  How about the fisherman class on Nightmare?
Haven't these games successfully solved the Tailor Dilemma?  

Reposting the tailor scenario, once again:
--cut--
However to summarise the problem.  Suppose I want to play a
tailor, and on the game this is a valid skill and feasible
profession. So I set out to learn the necessary skills with
needle, cloth and dye and eventually I set up a shop where players
can purchase designer clothing.  It earns me enough to make a
living and I get to talk to many players and get to create new
fashions which is what I wanted to do all along. So far this is
fine,  but now comes along some player  who decides that he wants
my money, or he does not like tailors or whatever. In short he
attacks and kills, steals my money and equipment. Obviously
ignoring this player is not going to do me much good.  He may
eventually get bored  but by that time my enjoyment in the game is
thoroughly ruined. Fighting also isn't an option  as I am a tailor
and do not know how to handle anything more dangerous than a
needle.  Further, being a tailor I have no interest at all  in
learning to fight. Assuming there are many players  in the same
situation on that game what can we do? The only thing the current
games offer is attacking and killing the offending player,  simply
because to fight is the only way the game provides to affect other
players.  Under those circumstances you can not expect much of a
society to develop. At least not one that must resemble anything
but a getto disrupted by gang wars.
--cut--

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