[MUD-Dev] banning the sale of items

[Par Winzell]

Matthew Mihaly writes:
 > On Wed, 12 Apr 2000, Ryan Palacio wrote:
 > 
 > > By a large number of people, it is considered unethical and detracting
 > > from the game.  The use of OOC resources to affect in-game experiences
 > > pits people vs people.  Some people do not have the funds to acquire 
 > > objects that others do if this was implemented.  To these same people,
 > > the environment is an RPG, and therefore mutually exclusive of RL.
 > > This leads to the perception that the RPG environment and game _should_
 > > be a level playing field devoid of RL influence.
 > 
 > Unethical, unschmethical. A lot of people consider it unethical to charge
 > for muds. So what. They are a fairly poor customer base, as they're cheap. 
 > 
 > If the RPG environment and game should be a level playing field devoid of
 > RL influence, then why has Verant set up its game so that your success in
 > it is dominated by an RL factor: time. Time is a resource, and it is
 > one that must be spent to play Everquest. However, because of bandwidth
 > concerns, player time has negative value to you. You don't WANT them to
 > spend that resource on EQ if you can help it.

I do not think the purist approach to keeping the RPG experience free of
RL influences necessarily creates a better game. Nor should you shy away
from RL/RPG fund transfers because there are people who feel it unethical.

However, you should be careful with it because as with many ethical points, 
it may be the concentrated, intuitive expression of a complex brew of very
rational and real reasoning. Trying to untangle those reasons does not make
it more or less true, but possibly it might help navigate -- to see when
and where you can sell what with impunity.

Money and time are both RL resources and yes, they are interchangable to
some degree. The difference is that money buys convenience, and there is
something about convenience that is diametrically opposite of epic. There
is a superb article I read recently about how reality is losing gravity;

	http://www.twq.com/winter00/231Borgmann.pdf

(I can recommend the Washington Quarterly in general, a splendid read).

Muds _must_ be inconvenient to be fun, to have any purpose. Being a couch
potato in the 14th century is not much more exciting than being one here
and now. People escape into fantasy realities to find simpler hierarchies
and general power structures -- where with a substantial but surmountable
amount of effort you can climb; gain might and the respect of your peers.

Even while addicted to the bourgeois urge, people crave true values that
cannot be bought -- personal character gained through hardships, perhaps,
or hereditary nobility. This last one, nobility, is interesting because it
is at the same time terribly exclusive but also granted pragmatically when
necessary; perhaps even sold. Values are kept intact here simply by having
the old guard utterly dismissive of the new.

And that may be the line a Mud has to walk... as long as the dilution of
the respect network never exceeds some difficult-to-pin-down amount, you
are safe. In other words, play it by ear as you do now.

But "ethical schmethical" is too dismissive. :-)

Par



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