[MUD-Dev] Community Relations

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Fri, 14 Jan 2000, Christopher Allen wrote:

<The below refers to the Simutronics muds>

> Here is the surprising statement -- they said that people who have been
> banned multiple times (i.e. many warnings, a ban, many warning again,
> another ban, etc.) are almost always redeemable. They say in almost all
> cases the person if the person doesn't quit due to the temporary ban, they
> will eventually shape up, and can become a responible gamer.

I've found this is true provided the customer is of a certain age or
maturity level. They also will have your credit information on file, and
simply knowing that the admins know who you are is a disincentive to be a
serious trouble maker. 

 
> Obviously they have an incentive to keep players since they are a pay MUD.
> However, they are quite adamant that anti-social players will turn eventualy
> around. One of the consequences of this is that they never publish the lists
> of the people who are banned, and GMs can be dismissed for revealing that
> someone has been banned to the victim of the incident. This sometimes
> results in complaints from victims asking if the perpetrator was punished or
> not.
> 
> I find that this is opposite of the way most free MUDs work -- when someone
> is banned, they are banned forever. If someone is known for not following
> whatever the rules are in a mud (player killing, cursing, or whatever) they
> are expected that they will never follow the rules.

Can hardly blame the free muds. If I didn't have to worry about losing
customers, I would ban a lot more people than I do now. If my enjoyment in
creating the world was all I cared about, I don't think I'd see any reason
to give a damn if someone is redeemed or not. As it is, I have told major
customers to leave because they irritated me enough. As far as I'm
concerned, that's the perk of being the boss and not answering to the
bottom line of a corporation.

 
> Anyone find their statement about redeemable to be true to their experience?
> Any free MUDs have similar policies? How about commercial games like Ultima
> and Everquest -- are bans permanent there?

We don't actually ban players generally, only domains from libraries, high
schools, etc. If a player becomes a serious problem, we generally remove
his ability to continue doing whatever it was he was doing. If he is using
foul language around people who don't care to hear it, and is being
obviously obnoxious about it, he can kiss his voice goodbye for awhile. If
he's killing too many people without a decent reason, he may find himself
unable to commit offensive acts for a week or so. In the sense that this
is banning (ie it bans a player from doing whatever it is you don't want
him doing), I find that most players reform. There are, of course, a few
(generally of the teenage male variety) who won't accept being punished,
and just leave. Good riddance.
--matt




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev maillist  -  MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev