[MUD-Dev] Re: How to handle log-outs in a totally dynamic world.

[Dan Shiovitz]

On Mon, 11 May 1998, Ben Greear wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 10 May 1998, John Bertoglio wrote:
[..]
> > particular. Example: Say the character gets certain benefits from and
> > aggressive (nearly abusive) stance with vendors. However, that behavior is
> > also more likely to provoke an assualt from an NPC. Trying to reset the
> > profile to a much nicer stance (to make sure you are alive when you log
> > back in) might be greeted with "Zug's personality can not change Commercial
> > Agressiveness that dramatically in such a short amount of time. Perhaps you
> > would like a PAT (Personality Alteration Training) answer to make this
> > change?"
> 
> I will definately try to not allow wild swings from one 'alignment' to
> another.  At least to the point where an evil pirate can't set his
> alignment to good right before logging off...

I don't think there's any need to prevent the players from changing
their personality. Just remember that if someone's been nasty and
aggressive to you for a long period of time and suddenly starts being
friendly, that's almost always a sign of weakness or stupidity on
their parts*. Then have the NPCs respond appropriately. (This gets
trickier if the NPCs don't remember how players acted in the past .. 
in that case you might want to restrict personality changes, yes).

* And contrariwise, someone who's been nice and non-hostile for a
while is probably bluffing if they suddenly turn aggressive, so why
take their threats seriously? 

> > John Bertoglio
> Ben Greear (greear at cyberhighway.net)  http://www.primenet.com/~greear 
--
(Dan Shiovitz) (dbs at cs.wisc.edu) (look, I have a new e-mail address)
(http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~dbs) (and a new web page also)
(the content, of course, is the same)



--
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.