[MUD-Dev] (no subject)

[John Buehler]

> Marian Griffith writes:

> My argument was  that a paladin class must have restrictions placed on
> them in some way.  This may be quite straightforward,  or  it might be
> subtle as in the above example,  and it might even be  just the social
> mores of a group of players. T he determining factor is how much trust
> you can (will) put into the players, and how much effort you are will-
> ing to put into the coding.

  I agree that the restrictions should be in place, but that's a general
problem for these games: a certain genre or experience is the goal of the
game.  It is my current belief that the NPCs offer a way to provide feedback
to guide players in staying within the genre.  The paladin example has come
up, but the issue of 'how to behave in genre' covers every single player
character in the game.

  If a member of a certain guild is supposed to be honorable, being caught
stealing by another member of the guild means that the thief is out of the
guild.  Name any intended behavior for the game genre (local or universal)
and the NPCs can provide a way to get that behavior enforced.  Note that
this is only possible if the NPCs have a significant role in the world.  If
NPCs are just window dressing, then who cares if the NPCs like or dislike
you.  But if the NPCs govern the world, control most of the resources,
transportation and other infrastructure, then annoying the NPCs has grave
consequences.

  All of this is very much contrary to the legions of players who would like
the entire world's operation to be player-run.  I'm very down on the idea of
such a thing because it encourages players to spend maximum time in the game
world in order to keep player-run services available as much as possible.
Consider the allegiance hierarchy in Asheron's Call.  Most of the monarchs
there spend massive amounts of time keeping their underlings happy, and then
they spend even more time online so that they can do their own thing.

  I'll stop there as I'm getting off-topic.

JB


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev