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

[Marian Griffith]

In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Sat 11 Jul, Adam Wiggins wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Jul 1998, Marian Griffith wrote:

I am sorry. I am not usually in the habit of quoting my own remarks in their
entirety but I could not think of a way to summarise this without losing its
meaning.

> > I have been thinking about this a bit and came up with the following idea.
> > I do not know how well it would work on a larger scale but suppose that a
> > player must purchase  (through registration, if not necessarily involving
> > money) a limited number of characters. Death is not permanent, as on most
> > muds, but to reincarnate a character some bodypart is needed,  and a kind
> > of community ritual.  With those conditions a player has an infinite num-
> > ber of lifes  and should not need to invoke the additional characters her
> > registration entitles her to. If a player ostracises himself from society
> > however then death is a potentially permanent, and those players may very
> > quickly run out of characters,  forcing them  to contact the staff again.
> > And possibly having to explain  how they managed to run out of characters
> > so quickly. The staff can then grant a new registration or delay that for
> > any amount of time, or downright deny it.  In any case the players have a
> > little social control over other players without having to resort to vio-
> > lence, simply through denial of service.  If you add into the mix  that a
> > character needs food, clothing, shelter to survive then you also have the
> > basis of an economy which further strengthens the player society.

> Yes, I agree that this would be an ideal solution; however, we are once
> again faced with the Fluidity of Identity Problem (FAQ canidate?).  Email
> registration is now the next thing to pointless with so many free email
> providers.

I guess so, but even if you can not entirely prevent people returning under
another name it at least becomes something of a hassle. The idea is to make
it harder for trouble players to fit in the social fabric of the mud and at
the same time  making being part of that fabric essential  for advancing in
the game.

> Credit cards aren't bad if you're a commercial venture; but
> are you going to tell me that most people don't have more than one credit
> card?

To be very honest, by requiring a credit card you would lock out most people
outside the usa.  Credit cards  are not nearly so common  in the rest of the
world. I do not personally know anybody who has a credit card.

> Ha.  IMO the best screening is that performed by story-based muds;
> since you have to spend a lot of time crafting a character and then
> getting approved by the staff, you're not going to like just throwing them
> away on a whim to annoy some people.  Of course, this will never work for
> any sort of even semi-mass-market venture; by doing this, a mud is
> restricting themselves to a very specific (elite?) group of players.  Of
> course, that's the desired effect, unless you're trying to make money.

I hope that the knowledge that a lost character can not -that- easily be
replaced would make most players more cautious  and more inclined to be-
have with at least a minimum of civility. No don't laugh. I can at least
hope can't I?

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey