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

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

Matt Chatterley <root at mpc.dyn.ml.org> wrote:
>On Mon, 5 Jan 1998, Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad wrote:
>> 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.. is this a purely social construct or a partially artificial
>one? Does the 'separation' of NPCs from PCs (fairly drastic in games such
>as Diku, and very small in role-acting games) or rather level of
>separation, affect this ('this' being the reluctance of players to
>interfere in conflict between players, where player is taken as 'PC')?

Hmm... A real life construct.  A RL person trying to convince the
other players that he is going to commit suicide in RL. (substitute
suicide with tales of pedophile deeds if you want) It becomes a
problem when a lot of people believe that he is refering to RL.

On the other hand.  I made a teenage NPC called Willywig that were
walking recursivly making all kinds of "obscene" statements about
other players. No european players complained (as far as I can
recollect).  Some US did, I changed him after a lot of pressure from a
US friend (removed certain words).  What most people did? Killed him.
Even though killing was against the UN resolution.. forgot the number.


>> 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!
>
>Ah, this is a matter of personal taste. IRC enforces 'nice play' in that
>operators can remove persons from channels (operators being sanctioned
>admins as far as their channels are concerned).

Yeah, but it is local government, disconnected from system
ownership. That is the major difference.

>Enforcing out of character regulations is something purely at the admins
>discretion (personally I enforce a small set of standardish ones - against
>harrassment, and a few other things).

Well, monitoring is not bad if you enforce IC strictly. (because then
it will eventually be very visible and there will be no RL content)
However, if you just say that you enforce it, but don't do it...

(one could make monitoring visible too (red light), but...)

>Some muds attempt to have OOC bodies enforce IC regulations (admin

I think Lambert is on the right track by providing two separate
systems (I guess he means instantly available).  IMO one should make
OOC communication functionality BETTER than IC (for instance by
offering realtime "unix talk" features). Hopefully that will make
people prefer the OOC system for longer OOC talk sessions..

This is a bit weird though. To stimulate strict IC, make OOC most
attractive...

Ola.