[MUD-Dev] Introduction System

[J C Lawrence]

On Fri, 14 Jul 2000 09:53:31 -0700 
Bruce  <bruce at puremagic.com> wrote:

> If the player does something to change their identity, why would
> the objref necessarily remain the same?  

It does for me, but that's due more to the fact that changing
ObjectIDs is potentially an extremely expensive operation that I
work aggressively to minimise.

Further, the case of:

  Bubba knows Boffo.
  Boffo dons a disguise (and gets a new ObjectID).
  Boffo doffs his disguise (and gets a new ObjectID)
  Does Bubba now know Boffo or not?

and the reverse:

  Boffo dons a disguise.
  Bubba knows Boffo (in disguise).
  Boffo removes his disguise.
  Later, Boffo puts his disguise back on.
  Does Bubba now know Boffo or not?

> I'd been considered the concept "real userid" with "effective
> userid" as well tied in.  If you don a disguise, why should
> anything within the game (AI, etc) have any advantage over
> recognizing you that a player doesn't get?  (More so if you make
> it so that AI is just Yet Another Client.)

For me this comes down to the question of what a disguise is, and
what it attempt to hide or misrepresent.  If I put on a silly hat, a
fake rubber nose, and talk with an odd voice, am I really
sufficiently disguised for any practical purpose?  If not, exactly
where is the boundary, is that boundary subjective, and if it is
subjective, what are the critical factors in that subjectivity?

> I've seen situations involving a justice system where something
> like this is a problem and players wearing disguises are still
> recognized by the system and prosecuted for their heinous deeds.

One could attempt to explain it away with genetic markers or
similarly non-removable tattoos, or, on a different cant (and this
one affects my model), the karmic/spiritual identity of an
individual which is also unique to them.

> I think that if the idea of user-customizable client-local data is
> taken further than just providing a namespace for renaming users,
> it could do interesting things.  I haven't seen yet how they add
> to game play, but who knows.

Yeah, there is that.  I have a weakness for being a fan of things I
find "interesting" without necessarily being able to define why they
are interesting.

--
J C Lawrence                                 Home: claw at kanga.nu
---------(*)                               Other: coder at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga/nu/~claw/        Keys etc: finger claw at kanga.nu
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--


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