[MUD-Dev] curses and grief players

[Greg Miller]

Patrick Dughi  wrote:

> 	I was curious what other tools of encouragment there exist for the
> handling of these grief players, or potential troublemakers - how are they
> handled in other situations?  Is the player-moderated curse/other an
> effective system?  Someone had mentioned death being permanant based on
> the feelings of other players?
> 
> 	I might add that I'm coming from a hobbist standpoint; assuming
> there is an admin staff on 24/7 is unrealistic.  Of course, peak usage is
> probably around 30 players.

That's not the only reason why admin intervention can be problematic. 
All you have to do is read Lum the Mad's site or any of its equivalents 
to see the level of resentment from bothers over nearly every 
significant action taken by admins.

Of course, handing things over to the players won't complete prevent 
this, since players will still complain that it's too easy/hard to 
punish people, etc. I do think, though, that the extra level of 
indirection between the admin staff and players helps. AA's system of 
law bugs me constantly as both a player and a wizard.

Another big tool that seldom gets enough recognition is the "common 
enemy" system. It works great for EmlenMUDs, for example. You see 
occasional mild arguments, but people seldom get mad enough to fight 
each other rather than the enemy.

The trick is finding a way to apply this concept to muds that aren't 
primarily PK based. I think player driven economies are one approach, 
since capitalism tends towards a very high degree of competitiveness 
without too terribly much violence. Of course, this doesn't help if all 
you really want is a Diku-style kill-the-monsters game.
--
http://www.classic-games.com/              http://www.indie-games.com/
Smarter than God? No, but I'm smarter than he was when he was my age.
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