[MUD-Dev] Declaration of the Rights of Avatars

[sverre at munthe.net]

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Original message: http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/2000Q2/msg00281.php

After the last player banning in EQ (a player getting banned for writing a
revolting in-game story and posting it to a 3rd party web site) I got a bit
upset to put it mildly.

During my private little investigation of the case I came across Raph Kosters
Declaration of Rights.

After reading it and the comments made to it I have one comment: 

Why can't the game designers understand what they are doing? You are giving
people the oportunity to engange themselves in a virtual world and you deny them
the simplest of rights. People get attached to these characters, and more so the
better the graphics gets. If anyone screws around with these characters people
will get mad. Evetualy people will get so mad that they quit the game. They
might even get so mad that they never buy a product from the same company again
(at least not an online product).

I wonder how many people would actualy buy UO2, specialy compared to how many
would have bought it if Origin had treated them better.

Even more do I wonder how many will buy EQ2, because Verant has treated their
customers much worse than Origin ever did.

I suggest you people think carefully about what you are doing. Because sooner or
later there will be a law governing the virtual worlds. You see, you are playing
with peoples minds, not with bits and bytes.

Regards
Sverre Munthe
Norway



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