[MUD-Dev] wimping/wiping and the big blind spot

[Tamzen Cannoy]

At 1:20 AM -0500 8/3/00, Peter wrote:
>	For the record, my personal stance on wimping and wiping is fairly
>simple (and enlightened, I guess).
>	Wimping: I'll be a little grumpy if my character gets stuff taken away
>from them, but unless it completely destroys game balance rather than
>help restore it I'll be OK in an hour or so. If another
>guild/clan/whatever gets boosted to help balance things out I may be a
>little jealous- but again, no big deal- I can play another character if
>I want.
>	Wiping: probably not a big deal. If the mud is fun and if the admins
>had a halfway decent reason, I'll come back and play more. Maybe even
>more because I can start from scratch and do-over the stuff I messed 
>up last time.

Well I was appalled by the idea of wiping the players too, and I'm 
not a developer, just a player. But you and most of the list 
sometimes forget there are other types of MUDs than just LP/Diku 
types.

When AmberMush did a major revamp of the rules and server, oh, about 
5 years ago, it was a huge stink. The game had been running for over 
5 years and even with the very slow advancement system they use 
there, it was getting top-heavy with war-pigs. I wasn't all that 
active then and don't know if anyone lost points,but  I think so. 
Stats were definitely capped. How things like sorcery worked were 
massively modified. The powers were rebalanced some since it used the 
DRPG which works on paper with small groups but not so well over time 
for a mush.

Tons of people left in an uproar. Some of them came back eventually. 
5 years later, people still remember it with rancor. The Mush 
foundered after that reset for a year or so until it took off again.

So there are differing expectations. If people know things will reset 
(my mind couldn't imagine the complete reset every 3-4 days that 
someone mentioned) that's one thing, but a major re-alignment like 
what they did would have killed a commercial game. But in a game 
where the players build the world, run the world ICly and where all 
changes are permanent ones... don't dink with the system rashly.
--


Tamzen



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