[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

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Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 11:44:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: s001gmu at nova.wright.edu    
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun
On Thu, 23 Jul 1998, J C Lawrence wrote:

> I have intensely disliked reputation systems for a long while now as
> being both excessively simplistic and presenting a too easily
> trivialised model for players to manipulate for something I see as
> very multi-dimensional.  Your text above gives an idea however.
> 
> Instead of having a single alignment or reputation value, or even a
> pair of such values, presumed perpendicular as UOL is doing, instead
> just keep simple counts.  "Good" actions would add to the character's
> "good" statics, evil to his "evil" stat, etc, and the discrete
> counting stats are kept seperately.  

I posted my reputation system recently in r.g.m.admin but it seems
to have been lost in the noise of that thread. It is simplistic but
its not easy to manipulate.

Basically, players may have one, two or many reputations associated 
with them based on their actions. Each reputation consists of three 
parts - a reputation type, a location and a fame rating. 

The type reflects what kind of actions lead to the reputation - e.g.
"thief", "orc_killer", "bandit", or plain "murderer". The location
records
what general area the actions occurred in. The fame rating reflects
how well known and widespread the reputation has become.

Generally you can take actions to deliberately increase a reputation
but once gained, it's very difficult to shake off. The fame rating
of a reputation will decrease slowly over time, but it'll take a
long time for a big reputation to go away.

For example, killing a citizen of Bubbatown might result in a 
reputation "murderer" for location "bubbatown" with a low fame
rating, maybe 1 or 2. Keep killing citizens and your fame would
rise rapidly. The higher the fame rating, the more likely that
locals to Bubbatown will have heard of you and react - by attacking
perhaps, summoning the watch or running away. As the fame rating
gets higher, even people outside the city will have heard of
you...

Since you can have many reputations, each tied to a location, they
reflect your actions in a way that you can't arrange to cancel
out. You can be known as a pillar of the community in Boffoville
whilst killed on sight if you even approach Bubbatown. Good deeds
may give you a good reputation in that area, but they won't cancel
out any bad reputation you have - be it there or anywhere else.

Also, different places may react to reputations in different ways.
Killing city guards in Bubbatown may give you a reputation as a
cop-killer there and make the town respond to you as a famous
villain. But in Boffoville which is at war with Bubbatown, a
reputation for killing guards in an enemy city may result in
you getting a hero's welcome.

As to what is the point of the system, well it provides a few
key things. It allows a way for npcs to determine their reaction
to a player based on that player's past behaviour in their
neighbourhood - or in the case of deities, that players behaviour
anywhere in the world. ;) Coupled with a system of rumours, it
gives an in-character, in-theme method for players to determine
how they should react to other players and who is "good" or
"evil" compared to them (religion will also play a part in
this).

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