[MUD-Dev] The Relationship between pkers and monster AI?

[Adam Wiggins]

On Fri, 10 Sep 1999, Matthew Mihaly wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Sep 1999, Adam Wiggins wrote:
> > For what it's worth, Arctic MUD (mud.arctic.org 2700) has a pretty excellent
> > justice system.  Basically it's like this: if you commit some sort of
> > PvP action in town, the authorities come after you.  You usually have
> > to pay a hefty fine and sit in jail for some (rather large) amount of
> > time.  If the crime is serious enough, they will simply execute you outrig
> 
> Is there any way to escape from the authorities?

Yes.  They are not all-powerful, just very powerful.  It varies from town
to town, but generally it consists of a number of mobiles including
run-of-the-mill warrior guards, rangers who track you down,
hiding/sneaking/invisible mages that paralyze you and wait for their buddies
to come arrest you, and so forth.  You can walk into the town, but you
generally won't be there for more than 30 seconds without being accosted,
and all but the most powerful player are not going to be able to resist
arrest for very long.

> ahh, right, cool. That's sort of what we do too, with some variations. All
> cities that you can become an enemy of are player-run (reasonable
> elaborate system of governmental ministries, etc). The Ministry of
> Security is responsible for internal security, which includes declaring
> people official enemies of the city, and paying for and maintaining city
> defences. Examples of city defences are archers on the rooftops taht will
> shoot at you, and telepaths which will attack you anywhere in the city. It
> IS still possible to walk into a hostile city and take someone out
> quickly, but you run a large risk doing it, as the damage from
> archers+telepaths (archers only hit you outdoors, and only if you do not
> have a magical shield up, which gets broken when you move or attack).

Sounds good.  And of course, this even introduces new gameplay as fugatives
who need into the town for some reason or other try to circumvent the
defenses.

> > Of course, Arctic is the perfect antithesis to all the anti-PK talk on this
> > thread.  They've had basically unrestricted PK/psteal/whatever there
> > and have managed to remain extremely popular for the six years or so
> > they've been running.  The justice system was only implemented about three
> > years ago, and I would hardly say it was sorely needed, just a nice add-on.
> 
> Excellent. We've had the same experience. We have many players who aren't
> interested in PK, and who occassionally get caught in the crossfire, but
> that's just life. They deal with it fine, 99% of the time, as long as it
> doesn't get overboard.

Exactly.  When I first played Arctic I was still green to mudding, and I
was used to no-PK-whatsoever muds.  I did not choose to participate in
PvP activities for some years, and although I saw it go on around me all the
time, I never had much of a problem with avoiding it.  (I think I was
explicitly attacked twice, and in both cases I simply ran away with no
ill effects to my character.)  There were certainly differences - you
don't just lay down and go to sleep on the road, because you're sure to
get pickpocketed by the first thief that walks by - but otherwise, all it
did was keep me on my toes a bit.  Only later did I start to appreciate the
depth of gameplay and social interaction that the PvP activities on that
mud allow, and I realized that the game I had been playing before was only
a pale shadow of the 'true' Arctic.

Adam





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