[MUD-Dev] Wild west (was Guilds & Politics)

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl> wrote:
>On Wed 31 Dec, Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad wrote:
>> >> Social interaction, should not be an admin issue.
>
>> >Actually this should very much be an admin issue.  Players who take
>> >their RL conflict into the game must be dealt with before they ruin
>> >the fun for other players.
>
>> Hmmm.  How would this ruin the fun for other players (those not
>> involved) ?
>
>By ruining the atmosphere. In games where cooperation is important by
>splitting up the player base.  Because most players don't want to get
>involved in the fight between other players, not even passively.

Ok, I admit that someone roaming about shouting that he is going to
kill himself might be a problem.  But I think this is less of a
problem in an environment that does not provide global communication
features (shout, channels).

I wonder, if the majority of users are behaving as if they were
insane... Maybe that would be fun?  You would simply assume that
everyone is joking, lying etc.

>> I'm all against administration/support as the main course of
>> balancing a mud.  To me, that is a sign of a somewhat flawed
>> design. At least in large scale systems.
>
>Personally I think it is inevitable, but it should not be the first
>recourse. Some children can't play nicely in the sandbox and require
>somebody to watch over them.

Yeah, well, that is the part that I don't like.  The children/user
analogy.  I think teens and adults should be allowed to play not so
nicely and work out their own problems. (provided the system is
designed for this).  IRC is an example of a very popular system with
autonomous "zones".  Pointers to muds that are providing this type of
self-controlled zones are appreciated!

Ola.