[MUD-Dev] PvP Systems

[the_logos at www.achaea.com]

On Thu, 1 Feb 2001, John Buehler wrote:

> I've heard this argument countless times and it simply doesn't hold
> water.  The word 'role-playing' is only a reference point for us to
> refer to these games.  When we go to a large base of players, most
> people are roleplaying themselves in the virtual world.  The players
> are going adventuring, not roleplaying.  Most people simply don't
> have the energy or skill to be actors.  Roleplaying is supported,
> but hardly compulsory.

God that is so true. I get very tired of trying to explain to the
handful of hardcore roleplayers that we have that roleplaying is not
some holy grail and that, in fact, most people aren't interested in
doing it given that it takes a lot of effort to properly roleplay (ie
going as far as to try and adopt a foreign point of view rather than
just bringing all your real-world cultural inclinations and prejudices
with you).

> For what it's worth, roleplaying will be far more common when the
> NPCs outnumber players 10 to 1 and are far more intelligent and
> interactive than they are today.  That will establish a framework in
> which players will be encouraged to act 'in genre'.

I pine for that day. Even then, however, I don't think we'll see
serious roleplaying. Most people don't even seem capable of
recognizing how much they carry from themselves into the characters
they 'roleplay.' How many times do you see supposedly "medieval"
characters talking about concepts like universal individual rights or
the equality of man and woman. Very silly if you're going to be a
serious roleplayer, but that sort of thing is nearly all-pervasive
even when people make some attempt at roleplaying. I suspect that even
with a super-population of intelligent NPCs, people will still just
play themselves as adventurers mainly. It's a lot less work.
 
> By the way, if you're roleplaying, why are you randomly pounding on
> people?  Because your character loves a good fight?  Strange, it would
> seem that there are LOTS of players who are roleplaying that
> particular role.  Just like in Ultima Online there are lots of people
> who are roleplaying serial killers.

Funny how that goes isn't it. Also funny how those people who are
roleplaying serial killers don't tend to actually exhibit any of the
classic psychological symptoms of serial killers but instead exhibit
classic psychological symptoms of adolescents who were given a little
power. (I'm not bitter, no sir.)
 
>> all the other stuff is pretty clear, but implementing it all (and
>> all the special-cases that will surely pop up during the testing)
>> would consume a lot of resources, i think. is all that work
>> necessary? isn't much more simpler and elegant to let the *player*
>> decide if it is necessary to jail a guy that kills to much without
>> reason?
 
> Which player decides that it's necessary?  Who is known to be
> responsible enough to carry the authority?  The only authority
> figures in the game that are at all really trusted are the
> gamemasters.  One of the goals of this system is to reduce the load
> on gamemasters having to make judgement calls and monitor players
> who are running around killing people.  Antagonistic actions are a
> popular outlet among players, especially the young ones, and neither
> gamemasters nor vigilantes provide a good solution to the problem.
> Gamemasters should be spending their time designing and providing
> the game publisher's entertainment content, and no in-game justice
> system will stop a disgruntled or malicious player.

Yeah. Saying "let the players decide" is a lot like saying "I'm for
the people." As you say, which people? Which players?

> As for implementation and consumption of resources, consider that
> these games are complex to begin with and consume lots of resources.
> In the future, they'll be more complex and consume even more
> resources.  I'm looking for games that are massively more capable
> than current games.  Huge worlds, hundreds of thousands of
> intelligent NPCs, physical simulations, and so on.  I'm not worried
> about the physical technology so much as how the heck we're going to
> get all this to work at all.  That is, assuming that we have the
> bandwidth, processing power and storage capacity, how do you use
> those capabilities to provide new games that are a couple
> generations more advanced than current games?

Darn right. The technology will be there. Engineering the social
control aspects is going to prove _far_ more difficult than
constructing the technology to support it.

--matt

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