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

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Sun, 12 Sep 1999, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:

> On 04:21 PM 9/10/1999 -0700, I personally witnessed Adam Wiggins jumping up
> to say:
> 
> I've always considered "PvP" to mean players competing with other players.
> This would be not only direct PK, but also "race" situations like acquiring
> unique items before others do, "vanity" situations like trying to break the
> record at the in-game gambling casino, or "territorial" situations like
> claiming choice areas on the MUD. You could also include theft,
> trap-laying, destruction of property, and rumormongering. "PvP" has never,
> ever, ever meant the same as "PK" to me. 

Absolutely right.

> 
> "PvP" does, however, hold a certain implication when I see it mentioned. It
> indicates, to my mind, that little if any non-PvP activity is provided.
> What little may be provided is probably rather inferior. 

Hmm, not to my mind at all, unless you are saying "mainly PvP". PvP could
be used to just describe certain aspects of a game.

> One of the questions this raises in my mind is what people expect their
> games to be. If you expect your game to be an occasional pastime, one of
> many that your players indulge in, then you'll have a different attitude
> toward your game's "job" than you might if you thought your game would be
> the one and only game people played. Do people here think of their own MUDs
> as being one in a sea of many, or as the next be-all and end-all of gaming
> that the rest of the gaming world imitates or duplicates until no other
> games survive?

Arrogant or not, I see mine as the only MUD (not game) that my players
play. I'd say for 90% of them, this is true. They all hate stock muds,
which leaves them with not a lot of variety anyway. It seems to me though
that this isn't a rare situation. I know that I've only ever played one
MUD at a time, unless I was a mortal on one, and a God on another.

> 
> Semi-topical: what's the list's reaction to the acquisition of WOTC by
> Hasbro? Many hobby shop owners were concerned that WOTC was destroying
> smaller game companies. Is that relaxed by Hasbro's defocused market
> position (they make pretty much everything), or intensified by Hasbro's new
> place in the lead of yet another market segment?

Um, what's this got to do with MUDs?
--matt




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