[MUD-Dev] UO rants

[Dan Merillat]

gmiller at classic-games.com writes:

> The reason this approach has historically been a problem is that most muds lack
> any real weapons for shutting down grief players other than killing them. If
> you've got other good anti-griefer weapons, it's not such a big deal. If you
> don't, then the players have no real solution but to complain loudly, log out,
> and (maybe) come back later.

Standard anti-griefer tactics on one game I was on was to sleep/silence/web/recall
the griefer.   Mind you, that required a high-level character to keep them there
very long, but even a mid-level player could repeatedly squash a newbie like that.

In terms of abuse, it was possible for a griefer to do that to someone, of
course.  It was equally likely that someone would notice the bound newbie,
dispell them and go after the griefer with the same thing.   At that point,
they're playing a very non-interactive game.  Any command they type tells them
either "you can't do that, you're asleep" or "You try to wake up and fail."
No global communications work, either.  Spells persist through logging,
so you have to wait it out.  Time is the only weapon usable against people.

Death dosn't work well if you instantly respawn.  That just makes life
exciting, and thus feeds the griefer.  If death involves a (growing) timeout,
at first it's no big deal but when you get a 15 minute wait between logins, it
starts to be daunting.

--Dan



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