[MUD-Dev] UO rants

[John Buehler]

> Michael Tresca
> Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2000 7:41 AM

> To be more specific, the problem isn't just player anonymity.  Frankly, if I
> as a player didn't have some real level of anonymity, I wouldn't be
> interested in playing the game.  I am, after all, playing a role, and if I
> want to play an evil guy (not necessarily a pker, but not a nice person)
> then I WANT anonymity, especially if I happen to a play a good guy on the
> same game.

Anonymity from other players is not the issue here.  If a player wants to make
a complaint about something that was observed, there is a player character
involved.  As a result, the player can report the character for grief
practices, and the game company can translate that back into a player
identity.

> However, long-term players who suddenly become problematic can be impacted
> in another way.  Long-term players who play consistently have social and
> personal investments in their characters.  When that happens, you can
> probably influence them more through threats to their characters than
> threats to their person.  That is, they won't care if you post their real
> life addresses because they don't fear the consequences, but they do care if
> you post a log of the character's failure, an announcement of their
> stupidity, and otherwise use the social environment as a means of curbing
> their behavior.

I realize that you're trying to tackle this with the current infrastructure.
I choose to stay lazy and wait for the day that player identity is verifiable
at the time that the player obtains an account.  Sanctioning a player is best
done by telling the player that they will be unable to continue playing the
game beyond some limit.  Prior to that limit, the player should be worked with
to resolve what the problem is.

Note that if too many players' problems cannot be resolved and there are too
many instances of grief players, something is seriously wrong with the game.
Either the game attracts grief-minded players or it makes them.  Either way,
the game has a design or marketing problem.

> > Sending a message of cancellation to the owner of the account, along with
> > explanation of the events, might be something worth doing today.  Does
> anyone
> > do that sort of thing?
>
> All the time.  I have tracked ip addresses to high schools and colleges and
> notified the institution.  The results are never pleasant, but that tends to
> be a final solution because you'll usually end up losing all players from
> that school.  It's effective in curbing the behavior, but it usually makes
> innocent players suffer.

I was hoping to directly contact the parents.  Contacting the high school
means that they will simply shut down access, sanction the involved students,
or both.  The parents might actually care about what happens to the kids after
that takes place.

JB





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