[MUD-Dev] Something in the water

[Marc Bowden]

--On Wednesday, July 25, 2001 8:38 PM -0700 J C Lawrence 
<claw at 2wire.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Jul 2001 10:51:34 -0400
> Marc Bowden <ryumo at merit.edu> wrote:

>> Doesn't this scheme, on the face of it, lend itself to Kerr loops
>> and other nastiness?

> I'm familiar with Kerr loops for magnetic hysteresis measurement,
> but its not clear how that applies here.  Clarify?  

Just like the particle trail loops back on itself, a circular
automated exploit mechanism taking advantage while adjustments to
the reward system lag behind the latest way of hacking it was my
line of thought.*

Most of the peerage remembers Harry the Affectionate. Ever see two
of them in the same room at once? That's the effect I'm imagining; a
script kid or two figures out what to do, and their triggers collide
in a neverending circle of what the game mechanism assumes is
role-playing but is actually two copues of zMud wristing off at the
speed of idiocy.

The fundamental problem is that any non-human-supervised reward
mechanism - and this isn't limited to role-playing rewards - can be
turned against us by a 12-year-old with an AOL account who's bored
enough, and has enough time. This isn't an indication of poor
planning or faulty design, it's simply a reality of the
industry. Some sort of a human factor in judgement *can't* be
eliminated in this instance, despite the desire of some developers
to do so. At this stage in the evolution of expert systems, they're
just not up to the job, and may never be.

--
Marc Bowden - Soulsinger         Dreamshadow:The Legacy of the Three
  ryumo at merit.edu                                 206.246.120.2 3333

*I have a better illustration of this called the "infinite-fairy 
problem". Ask me privately.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev