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

[Peter]

	I was talking with Adam (adam at treyarch.com) on his server and wanted to 
 post the log of it. I've replaced the "[character]/you OOC" with just 
"Peter/Adam:" for readability- all other typos and such are preserved 
except where I made one edit (it's noted in the text).
	It's not just about the wimping/wiping issue, but a problem I've seen 
on mud-dev in my admittedly short time. This is mostly just me ranting 
because, dammit, I have strong feelings about this issue- but please 
take it as such, I'm not trying to personally attack or hurt anyone.

Peter: 'Thanks for the release of the tasks code... I'm going to be  
playing with it a bit.'
Adam: 'nods, let me know how it works out for you'
Peter: 'Probably poorly, I'm new to server code <g>'
Adam: 'egad'
Adam: 'well it's pretty simple in concept, but it is a rather large 
mindset shift from the typical taskless system'
Peter: 'Well, it beats being one of the mud-dev's who have shown (on 
this wiping issue) that they have no idea what it is to play muds...'
Peter: 'What was that? A paradigm shift? <g>'
Adam: 'er, if you will'
Adam: 'what do you mean about the wiping?'
Peter: 'How many admins were shocked and appalled that it happened. It's 
like the people with no street smarts who area amazed that they just got 
muds [I meant "mugged"]- it's like this amazing blind spot of knowledge. 
I want to grab them and shake them and say,' 
Peter: 'Don't you play any games? Haven't you ever? Don't you know the 
mystery of them, the fun, their greatnesses and tradgedies?'
Adam: 'hehe'
Peter: 'It's like the most they've ever played was testing the servers 
they've coded...' 
Adam: 'yeah, i do wish we had more hardcore players on the list'
Adam: 'i've tried to convince a few friends, but they are too busy 
mudding :)' 
[I've here clipped me flaming someone and Adam's response. I was 
not-nice and this added nothing.]
Adam: 'i may have suffered from a bit of that when i joined the list'
Adam: 'although hopefully i didn't make quite the fool out of myself 
that he ccurrently is...' 
Peter: 'I've been trying to think of a nice way to say, "Well, fucking 
duh, go out and play! Get out of your ivory tower! We play games down 
here and you should join us here in the real world!" But so far words 
have failed me.'
Adam: 'nod, they'll tell you that they are too busy coding to play'
Adam: 'it's an easy trap to fall into'
Peter: 'Ugh, how can you code if you don't know what's fun?'
Adam: 'I develop games both as my job and as my hobby, and I know how 
easy it is to get caught up in your own stuff all the time and never sit 
down to play games' 
Peter: 'I mean, these guys build huge political systems which, yes, are 
nifty. But their games aren't fun to play. The servers run by people who 
run them for love of the game will put in code to actually play with the 
world and other people and it just works.'
Adam: 'the other thing I have long argued on the list is that the best 
muds are the ones where the admin have player characters that they play 
and actually enjoy' 
Adam: 'nod'
Adam: 'well, I take it as a lesson...try to keep in touch with why we're 
making these things in the first place'
Peter: 'And I'll choose the mud with no general dircetion or vision 
that's actually fun to play because the admins know what it is to play 
every time over the grand concept mud that leaves in the stock code for 
wearing eq and getting around.'
Adam: 'yep'
Adam: 'well, hopefully there is a balance there'
Adam: 'you have a grand concept which makes your game different and 
unique, but also the player's-eye view that allows you to work on stuff 
that truly adds to the gameplay'
[I drop and re-connect]
Peter: 'Shit, my client just died horribly. Are you logging this? I'd 
like to post this to the list.' 
Peter: 'Adam?'
Adam: 'er yeah, i can paste it into another buffer' 
Peter: 'Mail it to me and I'll clean it up and post it- I'll leave your 
name off if you like, but I think that's the best I've done of stating 
what I feel. It's not quite right, but it's as good as it's going to 
get.'

	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.






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