[MUD-Dev] Affordances and social method (Was: Re: Wired Magazine...)

[Till Eulenspiegel]

Greetings to the list.
Thank you raph for pointing it out to me.

I am 'Death' archwizard on EotL (mud.stanford.edu 2010)
And an avid player and kibitzer of online rpgs of all sorts.

Some of you may know me as Nox, from IRC or from UO circles.

- -----Original Message-----
From: Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl>
To: 'mud-dev at kanga.nu' <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Friday, 03 July, 1998 13:57
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun
[deleted]

>If I understand you correctly then I have to disagree still.  Combat can
>not be a justification to allow combat in a game. There may be other and
>valid reasons to include combat, but conflict solving can not be one for
>the same reason it is not allowed outside games either.


I presume you mean conflict is not justification for combat.
My observations on this subject are that the venue of the fantasy worlds
that I create are medieval, heroic and violent.  I expect players to be
able to settle their affairs with words, gestures and violence if need be.
Now, there is a broad line between violence and brutality.  This is where
the argument should revolve in my opinion
  ... how to prevent brutality, not violence.


>
>I know and agree that it can not be ignored, but it does not need to be
>justified either. Combat, and especially players fighting others is the
>problem, not part of the solution. The discussion is how to separate it
>from the in-game role combat can play.
>

Violence does not need to hinder the enjoyment of other players.
It's my opinion that opposing players can provide a more interesting
threat than I can with AI monsters.  My challenge is to tune the balances
so that the antisocial behaviour isn't the most rewarding behaviour.
This as we all know is one of the greatest challenges.

>The strange thing then is that so few people, on this list only Dr.Cat
>that I know of, attempt to create a safer game environment, at the ex-
>pense of some freedom of the players. Or am I being overly pessimistic
>now?
>

Dr. Cat does the extreme.  The rest of us probably have our head in our
hands when it comes to this issue if they have had the same success/
lack of success we have had in controlling 'problem' behaviour.
The perservering abusive player always seems to find a new and
annoying way to disrupt the game for other players through cheating,
'pkilling', abusive interpersonal behaviour etc.
In our statistics a remarkably small percentage of players accounts for
a gross majority of problems.  We've seen more success from banning
problem people.  This option works for us however because we are not
a pay-for system and have no implied service level guarantee.
Not a scalable solution, IMO.

[deleted]

>I dearly would like to discuss this topic as well,  preferably under an-
>other subject and concentrating on possible solutions rather than on the
>problem which has over the time been beaten to death  (if you forgive me
>the very poor pun).

I strongly believe that the antisocial behaviour is the symptom.  The cause
is the game system that has the affordances for this behaviour.
Yes please lets talk about game systems and controlling antisocial
behaviour through balance and integrated restraints.
This is something I am keenly interested in.

Who here is familiar with the solution that "Legends of Kesmai" adopted?
I'd like to see some commentary on that.

>What mechanisms in reality control the rampaging warbands? I don't think
>fear of punishment is an effective deterrent  as (would be) criminals do
>not rationaly compare risks and rewards.

I think we would agree after analyzing the behaviour of most online
hooligans that they are doing whatever behaviour causes them 
an adrenal flood.
This definitely precludes weighing any larger or longer considerations.

>Instead the simply believe they
>will not get caught. So what social, ethical, economical and other mech-
>anisms keep the vast majority of people from taking what they please and
>eliminate all who oppose them.
> And can similar mechanism be brought over
>to the mud environment with its unique characteristics?


It's all in the social mechanism, in my opinion.

I've got examples of working and nonworking systems, but I won'd belabor
the point unless someone else picks it up.

>
>Marian
>--
>

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