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

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marian Griffith [mailto:gryphon at iaehv.nl]
> Sent: Monday, July 27, 1998 2:09 PM
> To: Mud Dev Mailing list
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun
> 
> 
> On Mon 27 Jul, Damion Schubert wrote:
> 
> [Example snipped of a rather nasty way of indirectly killing a newbie]
> 
> I really have only one question to this. Why did your friend do that?
> And most likely to a player who had done nothing to him, did not know
> what was happening and was justifiably very upset about what was done
> to him?

The simple answer, "because he can."

The longer answer... whew. Because there are less empathic connections
to people you only know over the Internet--you can objectify them more
easily. Because given the chance, most people will be cruel to strangers
(have you heard of the tests whereby they took a random group of
perfectly nice people, and told them, "if you press that button, it
gives an electric shock to a test subject in another room"? An actor
screamed when the button was pressed; they all pressed it A LOT).
Because given the chance, humans will attempt to exercise as much power
over their environment as they can. Because humans tend to seek
standing, and the easiest way to do this is to climb over those of lower
standing. Because the game made it possible to do, thereby giving a
veneer of acceptability to it. Because the perception was that the
victim could escape anytime, and felt nothing because "it was just a
game."

> It is incidentally also the kind of behaviour that I would immediately
> ban a player for were I ever to become an imm on a mud again.

Sadly, I would guess you'd end up banning a significant part of any
playerbase. In a commercial environment, I'd guess as many as 10-25%.
Then of course, there's the issue of catching them.

On Legend we had a vampire who lived in a church in Victorian London.
The entry to the church was locked. The entry to the church was hidden.
The door to the church automatically closed regularly, so that if it was
left open, you wouldn't have good odds of stumbling across it.

When you stepped thru the door, the vampire cackled, slammed it and
locked it shut behind you, flew at you, poisoned you, weakened you,
clumsied you, blinded you, and basically kicked your ass.

A favorite sport was leading newbies from the inn to the door and
saying, "Go on through, I'm right behind you!"

Reprehensible? Sure. Valid? Erm... well, you could be roleplaying a
callous, clever, cynical con man. Lord knows that plenty of players used
this argument. Desirable in your game? That'd depend on the expectations
of the game. On Legend, we warned and eventually banned people for it.
On UO, we tell them it's their lookout and not to be so trusting. If it
happened to me on any Pern MUSH, I'd freak. It comes down to how much
policing you want to do, and how much you dislike the behavior, and how
much you value the ability to play con men, villains, etc.

-Raph