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

[Miroslav Silovic]

J C Lawrence <claw at cp.net> writes:

>   A nice side effect was that for a single quarter (US) or 20p (UK) I
> could play for over 2 hours while being quite thoroughly entertained. 
> I never did make it to a very high level in the game, or even get some
> atrociously high score.  I'd changed the goal.

Your activities remained within the game. How about the local bully
power-cycling game machine while you were playing?

> Where does this fit?  What about Dr Cat's Stamp Collecting Dillemma?
> The player want's to collect stamps and be generally uninvolved in
> combat.  Other players want to PK.  Without pre-defining the game as
> being either a stamp collecting game or a PK game, which is
> "proper"?

You answered that one yourself - if the game isn't -defined- to be
either, neither is improper.

How would you react if couple of us were to start discussing, say,
benefits of psychiatry to the modern society without any reference to
MUDs... on this mailing list? :)

> > I have been subjected to two different disruptive player attacks:
> > a) one character who was a newbie went around trying to screw with
> > people's triggers (he managed to screw with mine which really
> > pissed me off when the gods decided that was okay to do).  b) one
> > or more characters who PK in a quite obviously non-PK area and
> > again the gods refused to intervene.
> 
> Interestingly enough I would considr both the above actions quite
> acceptable.  If you decide to isntall automations ofn your
> character, Caveat Emptor, and I'm generically opposed to artificial
> activity distinctions (such as voice-of-God enforced PK/non-PK
> areas) in game worlds
> 
> Were the game to have support for funny bones, and the same newbie
> ran about striking people on their funny bones causing them to drop
> all they were carrying while chatting in the pub...  Would that be
> an abuse?

Well, again... If the game has support for funny bones, that would be
okay. But what if it didn't? What if funny bones were result of some
obscure bug - just an admin oversight? Frankly, I wouldn't feel like
negotiating with players who would 'punish' me for my coding
oversights. I'd just wipe them out. All of them. :)

If there -are- artifical game activity distinctions (perhaps to
support stamp collectors :) ), and some bug allows players to get
around them and, errr, nail my stamp collectors, they'd have heck of a
lot to answer to me.

> > (In both cases above, the incidents which made me mad enough to
> > cheat were caused by the gods not immediately enforcing the
> > rules.)  
> 
> Who defined and pulicised the rules?  You or the admins?  How were
> they promulgated?

Guess this is the key question. If a non-PK area is defined as such by
the admins, then admins have a -duty- to make it that way for all the
players, on the grounds that not doing so gives admin-advantages to
some players - which is a great reason to be pissed off with the
admins.

--
How to eff the ineffable?



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