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

[Damion Schubert]

S. Patrick Gallaty wrote:
>You know, I've wondered why UO doesn't do something like just that.
>(And now that I think of it, the opposite too)
>They could make new servers with altered code :
>
>1) Haven
>    Players have to apply to create characters here.  Their characters
>    are only accepted if the reviewer likes the name and role-play
>    character that the biography suggests.  If players complain about
>    other players on this shard, the players risk being suspended
>    pending review - and role playing is enforced.
>
>And for the conflict seeking set :
>
>2) The Toilet
>    A server with no guards or guard zones.  Lots of treasure.   PK
>    war hell.


On Meridian 59, we decided to try a bold experiment, which
we called 'Sacred Haven'.  We launched one server which
would be a safe land only, and let players who wanted to start
accounts on that server.   This little experiment went live last
September.

Meridian had several no-PK switches and areas which extended
easily to the rest of the world.  The entire conversion took me three
days - two days of coding, and one day of debugging.  

Of course, the problem was that Meridian was designed with 
player-vs-player scenarios in mind, and in a world that was 
completely safe, these scenarios became hopelessly broken.
As an example, the primary scenario in Meridian is guild halls,
which players can raid and conquer.  Well, if you can't kill 
invaders, this can obviously get very old.  Thus, the guild halls
are simply given away on a first-come, first-serve basis.

A lot of other minor things were broken.  For example, some
spells in Meridian can only target other players.  These all had
to be removed from the advancement math, as well as the 
game as a whole.  And quite a handful of text messages don't
make sense if you're not playing in a world where you can kill
other people.  However, my design principle behind this 
conversion was 'one codebase'.  I didn't want my code tree to fork 
enough to dramatically increase QA cycles and maintenance load.

My co-designers were skeptical that we should take this
tactic.  They were worried primarily that the product would
appear unprofessional.    However, the unfinished, unprofessional
nature of the server probably contributed to its success.  Players
were aware from the beginning that this was an experiment 
launched from player demand, and asked surprisingly little. 
They were aware that our number one priority was the support
of the 'real' servers

We didn't use invitations or validate accounts.  Unfortunately,
validating those accounts would be prohibitively expensive.  
However, we didn't really need to.  Most PKers stayed on
the 'real' servers, having high-powered characters there and 
loathe to start all over on a place where they didn't know of
any loopholes or exploits.  I doubt we would have been so
successful if we had launched Sacred Haven at the same 
time we initially launched the game.  As it was, Sacred 
Haven was a pretty tidy little success.

We toyed with the idea of a Meridian server 
which was similar to your 'Toilet' concept.  Our idea was to 
leave the code base exactly the same as our 'real' servers, 
but to play up the PK attitude.  "Think you're tough?  Come
and play with REAL PKers!"  A nice side effect is that it gives
roleplayers additional vitriole against PKers.  "Sure you can
kill us tailors and blacksmiths!  But you're not MAN enough
to go to Meridian: PKLand!"  Of course, many killers care
more about making defenseless players squirm than
proving themselves on an equal field of battle, but if you can 
get even a mid-sized hunk of them off the battlefield..... 
unfortunately, the idea sort of fell to the wayside and then
I left the project, so I doubt it'll ever happen.

--damion