[MUD-Dev] PvP Systems

[the_logos at www.achaea.com]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2001, John Buehler wrote:

> Matt Mihaly writes:
 
>> You might consider it screwy but players generally do not, and I
>> feel very secure in saying that. Our playerbases read a lot of pulp
>> fantasy/sci-fi/horror/whatever, and in many of those books, there
>> are many examples of those with power killing or severely punishing
>> those who insult them.

> I'm really not that enthusiastic about current playerbases and would
> not work to cater to their desires.  They have a lot of strange
> ideas about what is entertaining.  'Strange' from my standpoint.
> From their standpoint, mine are strange, of course.

Fair enough.

>> Yes, the king is a player. I wonder, have you ever played a game
>> with a real political system? Some of what you say makes me think
>> you haven't.
 
> Never played a game with a political system.  Politics is pure PvP
> and I'm not interested in it.  Some people can't get enough conflict
> in their lives.  I've had enough to last me a lifetime, thanks.

Yep, it definitely is pure PvP.

>> I've spent the last 6 years heavily involved in playing,
>> administering, and creating virtual worlds like that, and no MUD
>> that doesn't involve those has so far been able to entertain me for
>> any significant length of time.

> As with another current thread, are you representative of current
> players, and are you representative of a possible future playerbase
> - that mythical 'casual' player?  I'm quite sure that there are
> scads of people out there who enjoy the challenge and intrigue of
> political systems.  If there are also scads of people out there who
> like to pick and choose - as I do - then I would have a game system
> that might work for them.

Touche.

>> That's not a good analogy. A political system doesn't allow the
>> park attendees to decide what is built in the park. That's up to
>> the administration. Meta-issues such as new areas, new systems etc
>> are inherently outside the scope of players as players (ignoring
>> players as administrators).
 
> You're applying the analogy too literally.  What happens when the
> king player decides that every firstborn player needs to be
> executed?  He has the power and he can do it.  I consider this
> equivalent of one park attendee deciding to close a ride.
> Regardless of how the analogy is applied, I would hope that you
> understand that I have a problem with inordinate power lying in the
> hands of any player.

Well, I can only really answer for Achaea, and if the leader of a
city-state decided that, he'd not be the leader very long at all. I'd
imagine he'd be out in a matter of a real-life hour or two. The power
ultimately rests at the bottom of the pyramid as all city-states are
democracies. In our 3 and a half years so far, we've never had the
leader of a city-state do anything crazy like that. For the most part,
they actually work really hard to make the cities they lead
better. But, if one of them did go a bit off the deep end, the
populace can simply remove him or her (through their elected
representatives, who choose the leader and who can remove the leader
(titles differ by city)).

>> The above suggestion is ridiculous of course, because it is the
>> risk that makes bashing exciting. It is no different with
>> player-killing. Total consenuality is boring.
 
> Total consentuality is boring to you.  It may be perfectly adequate
> for us pansies, thank you.

Ok, that's fair enough once again. I sometimes let the player in me
speak rather than the designer. The player in me hates pansies and the
designer in me tries to ignore the player as much as possible.

--matt

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