[MUD-Dev] Playerkilling Pacifists

[Michael Tresca]

Jeff Freeman posted on Wednesday, August 23, 2000 5:34 PM:

> Is it possible to have a MUD which allows PvP (as in, no PK switch, even)
> and yet doesn't have any?

Sure is.  As I was reading the post I was amused because RetroMUD has
precisely this situation.  Attitude is what you instill in your players.

We have no playerkilling switch.
We have a guild that's meant to police the player populace (but does so
poorly).
We have a playerbase actively interested in protecting and monitoring the
population.

We have rules about PK abuse, but player killing is allowed.  However, the
higher level populace has made this nearly impossible through peer
pressure -- they say everything from, "You'll get nuked if you PK" to "PKing
isn't allowed on this MUD."

But the rules are clearly stated, and new players read them when they enter
the game - you CAN PK somebody.

This just goes to show that the social environment is something that is
formed -- our MUD did not start out this way.  We had a lot of very nasty,
rude, aggressive people, and we had to, in those days, heavily police the
place because it would devolve into a killing zone at a whim.  That was
about five or six years ago.  Enough of the troublemakers left, replaced by
people who shared the perspective we wanted (players who don't believe in
playerkilling at a whim, but want the freedom to fall back on it).  The MUD
continues to grow, and the playerbase polices and maintains itself through
social pressure.

It also means that the coding staff can be held responsible for the attitude
of the game -- I don't buy the "well there's lots of players out there, we
can't help it if they're jerks."  You most certainly can, but if you'd
rather have a million jerks versus 100 quality players, then that's a choice
you made when you started the game.

Although I doubt I'll live to see the day, I'll have a very good laugh when
a playerkiller MUD is populated by a religious movement that insists on
pacifism. I tried precisely this on Ivory Towers (the place where Genociders
used to visit when their MUD was down)...and failed miserably.

Michael "Talien" Tresca
RetroMUD Administrator
http://www.retromud.org
telnet://retromud.org 3000




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