[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Vincent Archer]

According to Matt Mihaly:
> On Fri, 15 Jun 2001, Vincent Archer wrote:
>> To paraphrase someone: "I know permadeath when I see it".
 
> *grrr* When I was studying American constitutional law, there was
> no decision I had more contempt for than the obscenity definitions
> that relied on the principle "I know it when I see it." (for
> instance,

I know, but seeing how hard it was to get a definition of
permadeath, the citation was appropriate to the situation.

>> To me, the accurate definition of having permadeath is when, to
>> bring a character back to the point I want it to be, it takes as
>> long with that character as it would take if I choose to create a
>> new character and played it exclusively for a while.

> This presumes that the only currency that matters or should matter
> in a MUD is time. I strongly disagree with that
> precept. Permadeath

Maybe I should have used the term "effort" instead of time then.
With effort encompassing any combination of time, amount of OOG
email exchanged, cash spent, and so on.

> under the above definition is only possible if a) You assume the
> character only resides in the database and b) That there is _no_
> way to apply skill and experience to become more efficient. For if

For the second point, it is irrelevant. The knowledge I have gained
would apply equally to the newly created character or the "ghost" of
the former one. Note: I said "choose to create a new character". I
did not compare this with what it took me to bring my first
character to that point, only "if I were to create a new character
now" with "how will I bring back from the dead the character".

Same for "twinking". In fact, if you do not have inheritance in an
item-based game (any game where items make a significant
difference), it would probably be even harder to level a "ghost"
than a new character; the ghost would have few equipment, whereas
the new character would at least benefit from me lending equipment
and cash as needed.

For the database aspect, I also studiously avoided defining overmuch
the "point" where my character is. If it includes a set of social
ties, so be it: in my experience, it is as easy to get those ties as
a new character as it would be with a "ghost". If it's a role to
handle in a RP-heavy MUD, that role would probably require as much
effort - unless you specifically used the "ghost" part to establish
you.

In which case, I'd say you drift away from permadeath: if the ghost
gets it easier than a brand new figure on stage, then its not
strictly permadeath.

--
Vincent Archer                                         Email: archer at nevrax.com

Nevrax France.                              Off on the yellow brick road we go!
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