[MUD-Dev] Reputation & Trust Circles [was UO rants]

[John Buehler]

> Ben
> Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2000 5:16 PM

> The only possible way of making the whole thing work is having a more
> complex system.  Picking up something a monster threw on the ground, would
> not constitute bad. Picking up something someone dropped when they died
> would.  There would have to be a way of distinguishing this.  The action of
> picking something up, would only be bad if certain things were true about
> what was being picked up, and who was doing the picking up.  This would
> require more in-depth programming, but would in the end result in much more
> realism.  But you then make a choice... is something still known to have
> happened, if no one was there to see it???

Ugh.  I just went through an explanation of how I currently see tackling
this over on the Stratics Hero's Journey Developer board.  It involves marking
items as being transferred under duress, with the individual from whom the
item is being transferred controlling whether that flag is set.  The
individual that is accepting the item can see whether the flag is set.  So
if you accept an item that the owner declares is under duress, you are a
thief.  If you accept an item that is marked under duress from the non-owner,
you are an acceptor of stolen goods.

When you drop an item, you can drop it free and clear, or under duress.  The
flag stays with the item.  So the point is that the owner of the item decides
whether or not he wants to separate with the item.  Everyone else is aware of
the consequences of picking up or accepting such an item.

Combine this with the fact that crime events are generated when a duress
item is accepted.  The victim is given the crime event and may take that event
to a member of the justice system to report the crime - or not.  The victim
can also destroy the crime event if, in his opinion, no crime was committed.
Or if recompense for the crime was given.

The traits of this system are that the victim controls whether or not there
really was a crime, the justice system controls the penalty for a crime, and
the criminal can make attempts at recompense to the victim for a crime before
the justice system actually arrests the criminal.

I also want to make it so that player bounty hunters are possible.  This means
that those who break the law are the target of player hunters, not just NPC
hunters.

There are some ugly results that have yet to be tackled:

1. Loans of items must involve some kind of contract system that the game
can enforce.

2. I can hand you an item under contract, then bolt, preventing you from
fulfilling the contract.  Next thing you know, we have arbitrage, with
gamemasters having to fill the job of mediator.

3. It is a crime to assault another person, but not to defend one's self.
This says that my enemies can spend a long, long time preparing for their
assault on me, and I cannot take proactive steps to prevent them from
completing their plans - if my proactive steps involve assaulting them.

4. It is a crime to assault another person, but not to defend one's self.
Can I help defend others?  That involves some additional mechanism to
ensure that at the time of the crime, others can come along and help to
defend a victim from a criminal, but that open season isn't declared on
criminals at arbitrary times after the original assault.  I want to
avoid vigilantism.

5. Player bounty hunters are dangerous.  If there is reward in being a
player bounty hunter, we're right back to Ultima Online, with players
looking to hunting criminals as the way to become rich.

All of these uglies have potential solutions.  The question is, is this
approach to limiting PvP crimes fundamentally and seriously flawed such
that no matter how much time is spent plugging holes, it will always
have more holes?

JB




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