[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #163 - 25 msgs

[John Buehler]

Matthew Mihaly
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 9:03 PM

>Speaking as someone who has thought a lot about politics in games, and
>whose game has a variety of political positions inhabited by players, I
>can tell you with complete assurance that it works fine. In fact, I would
>say that the player leaders provide _better_ service and help than admins
>generally do. They are more connected to the experience of being a player
>and are in a better position to help and coddle the younger players.

Aren't you relying on the largesse of players to do a good job, or at
least a better job than your admins/gamemasters?  Do you believe that
such an approach would work in a massive player environment (if you care
about such things)?

I have the same dream as many people: that players can casually hop into
one of these games for an hour whenever they feel like it and get a
chance to have some fun.  What if, for the hour they're in, the judge
is away?  They'd like to be able to get something quickly done and then
get out again.  Sure, having an absent judge is a reasonable problem to
deal with, but is it fun?  And what about when the judge has had a bad
day and decides to do something that works like a spoiler?  Or even has
a good day and does something that the casual player thinks is unfair
or out of character?

My concern remains one of quality of service.  Sure, players can do
as good a job if not better than an admin, but that's because admins
are people too - and there are more players than admins.  But it was
also believed that players would police their own in Ultima Online,
thus keeping the player versus player violence to a minimum.  The
only solution that I see is a game world structured primarily by
the decisions of the gamemasters, carried out by the NPCs and
witnessed or joined in by the player characters.

I remain a skeptic, but will be happy to be proven wrong.




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