[MUD-Dev] Re: Marian's Tailor vs. Psychopaths

[quzah]

From: Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl> on Sunday, October 04, 1998 at 12:44 PM
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: Marian's Tailor vs. Psychopaths


>On Sat 03 Oct, apocalypse at pipeline.com wrote:


[Snip a lot of discussion.]

>> Require groups? Isnt that a little bit far? what about late night
>> when there are consistently 2-4 people on who cant log on during
>> the "normal" crowded hours?
>
>A game that requires groups to play may not be a general solution as
>far as gameplay is concerned,  but it does help strengthening social
>awareness in players.  If you need other players to play a game, you
>are going to be a lot more interested in their well being.  Which is
>the basis for all social skills.


Also there is the soloist player, who perhaps doesn't like grouping,
but as a whole, just ignores everyone; required groups make it hard
for said individual to advance. Now naturally, a skill based, non-
combat game, the soloist would have a better chance doing the group
required tasks, if they didn't have to worry about a massive mob
that only a group could take out; but if they needed the help of a
lot of skills to pull off the job...

I agree with the above, in that if you have to make sure your chums
stay alive to help you complete a task; and help you get your own
butt back to town, then you'll be more likely to help them/ensure
their safety.


>> Should a game, operative word game, try to solve someones RL problems?
>
>I think not. You could perhaps have a try and establish an social en-
>vironment that encourages desirable behaviour,  but even that is very
>difficult.  I also think that something like this is inevitable for a
>truly large scale game.  Bad (or rather: destructive)  players have a
>disproportional effect on a game.


Personally, I can envision a non-combat-based world, where the key is
to live. (ie: Make your living, explore if you like -- I guess it would
be sort of like the goal of sim-(blank), only on a individual scale.
Players would hopefully deside a living that they wanted to do, and fit
into the world as a whole, doing whatever it is they wish to do. If
they wanted to stake off a large plot of land and call it their own,
then hire people to plant crops on it, or whatever... You get the idea.
The soloist could fit in by taking a few skills/abilities that would
solve their shelter/hunger needs. (Hunting, if you want to add killing,
otherwise, farming/herbalism/berry-picking/whatever, basic shelter,
and so on.

For the combat oriented player, we could solve that problem of their
not being interested; If indeed you wanted them to be in your world:

The first "arena" battle I ever partook in was on a mud called "Death
wish", and having been a previous random-pk-er (kill at random), I
found it very fun. It was a controlled enviornment, I could enter with
a load of people who would slaughter me, or that I could possibly beat,
and we'd run around and try and "kill" eachother until one was left.

How does this fit with the above world? Think "professional sports",
if you like the term. Perhaps 'roman gladiator' fits better. If you
have players who want to slaughter eachother, add in a colliseum,
make the fights non-fatal, just like the arena on Deathwish (when
you were 'killed' you were booted out of the arena). All in all, it
was a lot more fun than just killing people for the heck of it,
which I found near the end of my mudding time to be really boring.

On top of that, people like the tailor, if they ever felt like it,
could go into the event, and play fight with someone, just to see
how it was, without ever having to risk their character. Sort of
like entering a boxing exhabition.

>> Marian Griffith:
>> >As long as people continue to ignore
>> >the fact that there are real people with real feelings behind the
>> >characters and that to others it may -not- be 'just a game' to be
>> >attacked the problem of virtual sociopaths is going to exist.


True enough. When I first ever pk'd, many many years ago, I couldn't
see how people would get mad at me. To me it was just a game, and I
couldn't see why someone would get so mad that I killed them in a game.
I'm not sure why I didn't grasp the concept then, younger and stupider
I suppose; as I personally hate playing games as a whole, and really
dislike losing ;) so I should have made the connection: You kill them,
they consider it a loss, wake up!

>> I thought the point of a game, was kind of like therapy. To escape,
>> and deal with outside issues, by doing things that you cant do
>> in everyday life. What about the healing process of releasing angst
>> through gameplay? Humans have done that since the dawn of time.


But if we're escaping the outside issues, as said, who would want to
enter the game world where the outside issue of being thrashed happens
to you all the time in the game? Then their point of escaping just
adds to the frustration of rl.

>Personally I play a game for entirely different reasons. I guess that
>proves that  the more players you have  the more different things you
>must allow, and the better you must ensure that those conflicting in-
>terests do not adversely affect each other?
>
>Marian


I play to get to the end of the game/finish it/beat it/explore it all,
whatever. I really dislike games as a whole, (perhaps because I am no
good at them as a whole - action/platfromer/etc) but prefer rpg/strategy.
I dislike real-time, and enjoy turnbased (I hate fighting games, my
gf slaughters me to the point where I never play them again ;) But then
she does that with EVERY game we play :P Ah well, it's a bit off topic,
but I thought I'd toss it in in regards to the above pharagraph.
-Q-