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

[Damion Schubert]

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael.Willey at abnamro.com <Michael.Willey at abnamro.com>
>>  1) Players are not connected 24/7 and so don't have available
>>the constant social feedback that defines a social context as
>>well as "the word on the street".  Tracking and publishing
>>this sort of data doesn't solve this problem, but does lessen
>>aspects of it.
>
>That's only partially true - Joe Player is not connected 24/7,
>but, given a large enough playerbase, *players* are.  The
>social feedback from the playerbase is not as omnipresent as
>in RL, but it does exist.  Tracking and publishing *data* may
>increase it's effects, but creating *opinion* from data should
>be the job of the player, not the computer.  This seems to me
>to be the primary failing of "reputation", "alignment", or
>other behavior tracking systems.


This only works if a player has to spend some time inter-
acting with other players before engaging in illegal/illicit
activities.  If I can create a character and immediately 
attack other players (or do so without getting to know 
someone), there is little opportunity for any reputation,
good or bad, to flourish.  By the time my reputation is bad,
I've created a new character.

< deletia >

>  Exactly!  Consider Bubba and Buffy, the Duo-Bombers.  They
>randomly kill people and destroy property to advance some
>political movement.  By any conventional measure of morals,
>they're dangerous felons.  If their identities are well-known,
>then their reputation will reflect that.  But if Buffy checks
>the reputation of Bubba, why would she see him as dangerous?
>To her he's a hero struggling for 'the cause'.  Boffo supports
>their movement, but thinks that bombings aren't the way to
>achieve their goals.  In Boffo's view, they're merely misguided.
>Biff lost a family member to one of these bombs.  He doesn't
>care about politics, but he thinks Bubba and Buffy are evil
>incarnate.


Hmmmmm, I believe that reputation systems should be in 
place primarily so that the young and the gullible know not 
to take candy from certain strangers.  How you wrap this system
in a simple, quick to identify system so that your newbies don't
get duped by a mad bomber, get killed, and log off in 
disgust is something that would interest me very much.

>I think, however, that the only filter complex enough to
>adequately process all these factors into an opinion exists
>inside a player's head.  I would say that the solution lies
>in assisting that filter by providing it with better data,
>not in creating a new filter.


True enough.  Problem is (and this is certainly true of both
Meridian 59 and UO) that you have about 5 seconds, after
seeing someone, to choose to run away or not.  If you can't
parse data in 5 seconds, then your first response is to run
away at the sight of anyone you don't know.  This may seem
silly, but my first two weeks of UO were entirely me walking 
up to people and saying "Hi!" only to watch them bolt away
as if I were Satan incarnate.

--damion