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

[Damion Schubert]

-----Original Message-----
From: Koster, Raph <rkoster at origin.ea.com>

[deletia - Raph going postal =) ]
>Quite beyond that, I have serious doubts about the commercial
>feasibility of a server that's completely safe. Not because of the lack
>of interest, but because of the amount of cops you have to pay to keep
>it safe. I use as my rule of thumb whether or not we're willing to pay
>enough cops to keep us safe in the real world, where the stakes are a
>lot higher. :( Yeah, we can code Toontown laws of physics, and people
>will still find ways to screw each other over. Because fundamentally,
>that's what a safe environment is promising: nobody will screw you over.
>And I can't currently design a way around that. I doubt I will ever be
>able to. You can reduce the problem set, but the problem doesn't go
>away... what's worse, the safer you say you are, the more of a target
>you paint on your chest. A nasty dilemma.

A general rule of thumb is that once two people can interact in a game, 
one can screw over another.

Put in chat?  You introduce spamming, profanity and mudrapes. 

Put in items you can trade?  You put in the most classic of newbie 
abuses "Oh, your sword is broken, give it to me and I'll fix it. (logoff)"

Oh, most muds have some checks to prevent these abuses 
(profanity filters, secure trading windows, ignore commands), 
but newbies never know them.  They're usually still trying to grok
how to move around!

Take a look at Quake.  Fundamentally, there are almost no rules.  You
can spawn, get weapons, kill other people, and die.  Even with this 
limited ruleset, players have found a way to 'cheat', merely by 
'camping' at the spawn points, killing unarmed and unarmored players 
as soon as they either log on or respawn after death.  A player can 
rack up quite a score, often gaining one of the top three spots, 
merely by camping someplace with lots of spawn points within
sight.  Entire websites are up, dedicated to what to do about
the problem.  It's almost amusing that, in a game dedicated to 
killing each other as violently as possible, any action could cause
such a violent reaction as 'wrong' from other players.

The most ticked off I ever got was playing Total Annihilation against
someone at work.  This is a typical Real-time strategy game, where
you build up an army, and then throw it at your opponent, hoping
you do it before they do.  I spent 45 minutes building up an army,
and threw myself at my enemy only to find -- nothing was there.  
Just his commander, a couple of guns, a few power silos, a barracks.
Turns out he decided just to leave work and leave his machine 
running, just to tick me off because he knows how much I hate
wasted time =)

>As an aside, I'd also like to whap everyone who said that the designers
>of UO ignored the history of the online game development field upside
>the head, please. ;)


LOL, I know how you feel.  After working extensively with MUDs
(mostly dikus) before going to Meridian 59, I can't tell you how 
hard I tried to follow the lessons of those before me.  But a few
things were going against us.  One was simply budget - small 
startups rarely have the cash, time,or personnel to 'do things 
right'.  Another was the vast difference it makes when something
is (a) commercial and (b) graphical (I had close to no experience
with graphic muds before).  It makes a lot of difference when:

* You have to start from scratch.
* You have to have a picture for everything you want to add to 
the game.
* You have to have lots of pictures (or a well-defined 3d mesh) 
which works well with all the other pictures, for clothing and items
that go on a player avatar.
* If your product isn't fully functional and fun, the day it's released,
it loses its marketing momentum, never to fully recover.
* Your lawyers actually worry about server crashes and database 
corruption.
* You lie awake at night, hoping PCGamer will like your game, so you
can make another one.
* You can only really trust people to GameMaster your game if
you pay them.  And you can't pay enough for 100% server coverage,
24 hours a day.  And then, it turns out you can't always trust them.
* You are expected to visually compete with Quake/Unreal/Whatever,
despite the fact that they spent 3 years making an engine, and 
never had to worry about that social community backstory MUD grot.
* Your status in the industry provokes additional hack attempts
on your server, your web server, etc.
* You have to change major game design elements based on the
pricing model.
* People in high positions, such as your head of marketing or,
god forbid, your CEO, has "some great ideas" for game content.
Sometimes, these ideas involve advertising. =)
* Newbies that log off in disgust really, really matter
* People who are laid off from other projects, who don't give a
rat's ass about your game, who have never worked on any 'net
property before, who have never even thought about the 
concept of game balance in MUDs, who think that your fanbase
is fundamentally a bunch of whiners, and who are still bitter about
the death of their own project, are suddenly assigned to your
programming team.
* You are pressured to be impartial to such a degree that some 
players frown on you if you have conversations with other players.
* Your audience is young and mainstream, instead of mature and
hobbyist.
* Online mags ignore every content and satisfied guild your 
product has, but gives the dirty laundry of the ticked off ones 
front page status.  Sometimes, these are the ones you kicked off 
for cheating or abuse.
* Management must approve your changes, and QA must approve
your bug fixes.
* There are frequent web board postings about how your product
sucks, and how the next big thing will be the second coming of
god, despite the fact that all anyone's seen of the next big thing
are twelve random screen shots that don't look all that impressive.
* Doing a player stat wipe to fix a game balance issue is 
tantamount to product suicide.
* The people playing your game pay your rent.

In retrospect, it's remarkable that as much is the SAME from my
diku days.  All that being said, let me just say that it's still the best
career I could ever dream of.  It's just... different, now that money
is involved.