[MUD-Dev] UO rants

[Dan Merillat]

"John Buehler" writes:
> > Dan Merillat
> > Sent: Friday, August 25, 2000 10:10 PM
> 
> > The OOC argument is moot, though.  Harassment is Harassment, and
> > you'll never
> > have enough staff-hours to investigate every case of it.  POSSIBLY
> > when you're
> > first starting out, but your own success will kill you if you
> > depend on admin
> > sanctions.
> 
> Whoa.  Where did I say anything about managing this stuff through manual
> labor.  The only means of dealing with OOC issues is by eliminating the
> source of the problem: player anonymity.  Until that's solved, I won't go
> near management of one of these games.  I have no intention of playing cat
> and mouse with children that cannot be disciplined.  The cat and mouse only
> contributes to their juvenile delinquency.

Absolutly.  And said delinquency will inspire them to thwart any automated
system you have setup.  Which leaves you with having humans sort it out.
Your staff, or your players.

> More grief playing.  An individual who chooses to cause problems will do
> regardless of any game system that anyone can develop.  In a multiplayer
> world, it is implicit that players will interact.  Therefore, players can
> negatively interact.  My pursuits of justice system are to keep players
> uninterested in criminal acts - not to dissuade grief players.

That's where you're making a fatal error, though.  Your major "Criminal"
acts ARE done by grief players.  Non-grief players don't go around causing
trouble for your other players "just because".  On every game I've played,
and every one I've administered, the only people who lessened my enjoyment
were the ones abusing the system.  Now, perhaps I'm unique in this regard,
but I'm only frustrated by bad things happening that are outside the game...
death to net-lag, having someone on a non-PK mud kill me outside the rules,
or being slain by guards for picking something up off the ground.  (UO Beta)

> There is no such thing as a war only between players that want to war.  War
> requires infrastructure, support and so on.  That involves other people.  Then
> there's the question of where the war is staged.  In a vacuum or near a town
> where uninterested parties are being hassled by the 'war guys going at it
> again'.

War in a vaccuum isn't a war at all.  And, as you said, it requires an
infrastructure.  And if there's no impact on uninterested parties, they
have no reason to participate, leaving it a genital waving passtime of
a few players.  An afterthought.

> The remainder of your post has to do with grief players, so I won't repeat
> that I'm not addressing them.

Your only real criminals are the grief players, though.  It's the grief player
who tends to slaughter random people in PK, steal things they don't need
just to annoy people, kill-steal, drag mobs, etc.  You don't see a lot of
"bad" activity outside of your griefers.

> So just as a virtual game establishes no community and there are no real life
> consequences, this mailing list has no real life consequences such as getting
> you insensed at my apparent naievete.

Does it?  Does it mean you'll no longer be my friend?   Will I no-longer
have someone to have lunch with?  In the end, neither you nor I know
each other at all.  Hardly a "community"  in any definable sense.

> Well, if I have to reread your posts, you have to reread mine.  My players
> wouldn't be feudal lords.  As a matter of fact, I favor a fairly mundane
> world.  Low power levels, less combat, less magic, and so on.  I'm sure THAT
> has been done as well.  But it's definitely not the kind of world that you're
> thinking of.

You missed the point. I'm not saying your game is designed to be
Feudal lords battling each other, I'm saying that your players, sans
RL concequences, are going to act in the same manner as the feudal lords
of old.  Some will respect others, many (most?) will use their untouchable
status to abuse everyone else for personal gain.  That's really an incurable
problem, since you have enforced anonymity, and even if you did find out
who they were, you can't exactly go to their house and beat reason into
them.  Aside from the other reasons, plane fare would get expensive.

--Dan



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