[MUD-Dev] players who "take away from the game"

[Matthew Mihaly]

On 9 Nov 1999, Miroslav Silovic wrote:

> J C Lawrence <claw at cp.net> writes:
> 
> > Consider the function of a a social predator.  He does "bad things".
> > Yet, conversely, he prompts the development of the society in new
> > and potentially interesting fashions, and can in fact be the
> > catalyst which invokes a society and a sense of group from an
> > otherwise disassociated group of individualists.Yet that social
> > predator does all the things we consider otherise abhorrent.
> 
> You mix conflictive players with people who bother others outside game
> boundaries. A juicy assassin is a bonus to every MUD. On the other
> hand, cheaters, sex abusers and people who use email threats against
> the admins are *not*. Disconnect, toast, siteban. That simple.
> 
> On another issue, from MUD FAQ: playing a MUD is privilege granted by
> admins, not a right. After all, admins pay for the site and the
> connection, keep the server up, build on it, and do all the *work*. I
> think it's their prerogative to decide what sort of players they want
> to have (unless they charge for playing, things get murkier in that
> case) - they shape the society by shaping the playerbase. Players that
> don't like that, don't have to play.

It took me awhile to decide how to deal with disruptive players in a
commercial game (like ours), but finally I decided that the only way I
treat them differently if they are abusive is to turn them into a shrub
rather than delete them, in case they decide that a public apology and a
change of attitude wouldn't be so bad after all. Those players who have
never bought anything (we don't charge for access) just get deleted




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