[MUD-Dev] UO rants

[Dan Merillat]

"John Buehler" writes:

> justice.  The question is, can any player be considered trusted when it
> comes to player-player justice?  Especially when the offense is against
> the vigilante?
 
Who's going to provide your justice, though?  Any automated system will
be abused.  Badly.  You will never have the manpower to staff a 
justice system, ever.  Too low a ratio served per player.  10 coders
can serve what?  Half a million users?  How many trials can one person
do in a day?
> he murders the newbie?  The newbie insulting the Lord is very much like
> a PvP encounter.  Why doesn't the Lord consider this as one of those
> scenarios that simply adds to the spice of the game without having to
> resort to murder?  Being on the receiving end of a PvP encounter is never

So it's ok to enforce your style of PvP on someone, but not ok for them
to force theirs on you?  The type of interaction you're talking about
is having a group of morons follow you around heckling your every action.
That "added spice" is ok, but defending your honor against a group
of hoodlums is not?   That's more of a self-centric view then the
PK's themselves have.

> fun, and that's why I don't like PvP worlds.  In the end, only the most
> powerful players are able to enjoy the experience.  And those tend to be
> the hardcore gamers.  Like yourself.

Without player interaction, you have a massively online singleplayer game.
With player interaction, you have PvP.   Even without combat, the players
abuse the system to affect other players.

> I certainly think that those who shoot their mouth off should have some
> form of sanction applied to them.  Do you really believe that any sane
> government would condone execution for foul language?  As I suggested

Murder dosn't exist without death.  Perminant death.  Thus, without permadeath
killing someone for slandering your character is acceptable, even admirable.
They'll just respawn, like the goblin overseer.  And you get a trophy or
two out of it.   And perhaps you'll spark a war, and that'll also be fun.

> The players are the monitors, but not the judge, jury and executioners.

So who fills that role?

> You believe that virtual communities are different than real life
> communities.  What you're missing is that a virtual community is simply

He's correct.  VCs resemble no RL community known to man.  It's a brave
new world.

> a primitive vehicle for a real life community (real people are involved).
> Understanding human nature is required before understanding a virtual
> community of people possessing human nature. The scholars of the past
> 2000 years have a significant leg up on you in understanding human nature.

... have no understanding whatsoever of human nature when exposed to
an environment where actions have no concequences.   In fact, they were
unable to stop rampant abuses by various groups who had no concequences
to speak of.

Feudal lords were "above the law".  Wardens in prisons.  The inquisition,
the slave trade, pick one, there's plenty more...  

So what happens when EVERYONE is a lord, untouchable by anything but the
hand of God itself?  (And God is too busy keeping the universe running to
take an interest in peasant raping or sport hunting of outcasts...)

Add to that a magical sheild that prevents the other lords from harming you
in any fashion.   In fact, the only thing that stops this is having actions
directly have conceqences.

--Dan



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