[MUD-Dev] Fallen Age (was Shameless Plug)

[Brian 'Psychochild' Green]

SavantKnowsAll at cs.com wrote:

> In a message dated 2/18/01 8:42:48 PM Pacific Standard Time,
> claw at kanga.nu writes:

>>  What about all the ways of indirect PK?  (The normal examples are
>>  leading a band of newbies up against Tiamat, or charming an aggro
>>  NPC and releasing him in a newbie area/town, but the permutations
>>  are near infinite)
 
> You cannot "train" as monster's aggro a bit differently.  We've
> tried to make "griefing" a difficult task in our game.  Hopefully,
> Beta will prove we've done a decent job.

I believe it was Rich Vogel that's stated that you cannot truly catch
all the bugs your game until months after launch.  Betas help, but you
can't catch everything then.

Soft PK is a huge problem, don't underestimate it.  If you've managed
to solve that problem, then you are a better designer than I.

> Triggers in a text mud and macros in our game are two different
> things.

"Where there is a will, there is a way."

Write that down.  After launch, you'll be chanting that
continuously. Probably in rhythm with beating your head against the
wall.
 
> Sure it is.  There's nothing more that your King can do than *own*
> up to 30% of your production.  You *can* fight your way to
> independance.

So, the strong get stronger.  Actually, the conquered contribute to
the power of their conquerer.  So, if I ramp up production to fight
off my King, he gets more power to fight me off.  Sounds like a losing
situation.

Never underestimate your player's willingness to start over to get out
of a bad situation.

Plus, you need to watch out for loops in your system.  If A is
conquered by B, B can get up to 30% of A's production.  What if C
conquers B? Does C get 30% of B's resources, including 30% of the 30%
B got from A? If so, what's to stop me from making a bunch of
characters and having them conquer each other in order, thus having a
guy at the end of the line that takes a bit of all my other mules'
pies.  Also, what if A conquers C above?  Does A's new 30% from C add
to his production, altering what B gets from A, etc, etc, etc?

If the percentage doesn't carry over to the conquerer, then what's to
stop me from making a bunch of mules, having my "main" character
conquer them, then go out and terrorize people?  Since I'm gaining so
much production from the mules, anyone who tries to conquer me will
only get part of my (probably negligible) base production.  Most of my
production (from my mules) will be safe; I'll be practically
invincible.

A bit of food for thought, no?  And that's just 5 minutes of me
considering the situation.  Consider the thousands of people that will
dedicate hours of their time trying to find the exploits in your
system.
 
> You're tellin' me. :) Hopefully I've cleared some things up, and I
> anxiously await round two of "Finding The Flaw."

Hope this gives you something to consider.  Let me know when the check
is in the mail for my design work. ;)

--
"And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...."  -"Defender", Manowar
     Brian Green, brian at psychochild.org  aka  Psychochild
       |\      _,,,---,,_      *=* Morpheus, my kitten, says "Hi!" *=*
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   "They're not bugs, they're 'place-
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'    holders for code that works.'"
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)         - Andrew Kirmse, Meridian 59 creator
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