[MUD-Dev] New Bartle article

[Dave Rickey]

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard A. Bartle <richard at mud.co.uk>
>On 26th February, 2001, Dave Rickey wrote:

>> That doesn't account, for example, for the Oasis wars in UO (or any
>> of several other "wars" surrounding the death of various
>> player-made towns), where the "bad guys" kept up an offensive for
>> weeks, in spite of fierce opposition and many deaths.

> I don't know enough about this to be sure, but if the bad guys were
> able to get back to the point at which they were killed fairly
> easily, and if they were expecting to die, they wouldn't necessarily
> care. The game would seem to them more like a FPS, where you play,
> you take out a few of the opposition, then you get creamed and have
> to start again. Before long, you're just where you were before.

They tried putting in "Stat Loss", where only characters that were
flagged as murderers (basicly, more than 5 aggressive acts in a set
period) would have their character decay during death.  Didn't help,
even though the "bad guys" were actually losing *more* in death than
they were gaining from killing.

>> So the "bad guy" just has to figure out how to PD by proxy?  That
>> may take him a while, maybe five whole minutes.

> At most. But the bad guy doesn't get any reward for it, especially
> in the "gosh, you're a kick-ass killer dreamboat, can I have your
> babies?"  variety that they crave. It's one thing to take someone on
> in single combat, but another thing entirely to run unarmoured
> through a town pursued by a mob of skeletons who can't catch you but
> can catch people who DO have armour. People may be impressed by your
> ingenuity, but it's not ingenious any more if you already did
> it. Also, it's usually fairly easy to program out "no win" deaths
> once they occur, and reinstate anyone who dies that way (I've done
> it quite a number of times for my MUD over the years).

For some it isn't a means to recognition, it's a calling.  Even so, if
it only makes you the king of the pathetic losers, there's plenty
losers that will look up to you.  And once you start handing get out
of jail free cards out, where do you stop?  There will always be
*someone* who feels they should have gotten their character back, and
didn't.

There's nothing ingenious about being the 34925th person to train a
Giant on someone in EQ, but odds are it's happening right now.

>>>  2) Only allow PD (whether by PKing or not) only to be possible in
>>>  locations that players have to elect to visit.

>> And get the worst of both worlds?

> The best of both worlds. Explain why you think it's the worst?

PD, and all the effects therefrom, including PD by proxy, *and*
effectively immortal characters for anyone who avoids the PD areas.

--Dave Rickey

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