[MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens

[Kevin Scott London]

On Tue, 28 Mar 2000, Matthew Mihaly wrote: 
> I really don't see what the controversy is. MMORPGs are a service industry
> combined with the entertainment industry. Your management of it has much
> more in common with the service industry, however. I demand some level of
> responsibility and a certain standard of behavior (admittedly, not as high
> as I'd like to be able to enforce), _exactly_ like, oh, say, a nice
> restaurant or nice hotel would. If some idiot is running around your hotel
> lobby screaming like a madman (or doing something else inimical to the
> culture and feeling you've created at your hotel or restaurant), what do
> you do? Unless it's a major customer (who don't tend to be major problems
> in my experience, bar a couple glaring exceptions I've experienced), you
> don't ask questions, you remove him from the premises and ban him from
> them. You don't waste your company's money by spending administration
> energy on the guy in the hopes that he will come back. It's not worth it.
> All customers are NOT equal, particularly to me, because we are not pay to
> play. We are pay-as-you-want, and we try to go by the old 80/20 rule (ie
> 80% of your income comes from 20% of your customers.) If some newbie, or
> indeed, someone who isn't a good customer, or who hasn't bought anything
> at all, is irritating my major customers enough that they complain, there
> is _no question_ that I would ban them, and I would do so with absolute
> glee, because it is my wish to create a game that certain, well-heeled
> people enjoy. Everyone else is completely welcome to enjoy it too, but
> they better be on good behavior.

I see a couple of problems with this view.  First, if you are talking
banning someone it is usually on the IP level.  Today, going on IP and
even email is not very reliable becuase there are so many free services
and ways to mask your IP, that these give only an indication of who it
really is.  Also, in the process of banning whole IPS you also lose more
players that are not trouble makers.  As for looking at someone who is a
good customer, the only problem I see is things like the good customer
gets mad at someone because he won't do something, then complains and lies
saying that they were bugging him, etc.... 
Just my 2 cents on the matter :)

Kevin London




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