[MUD-Dev] Interpersonal Relationships

[Matt Mihaly]

On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Marian Griffith wrote:
> In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Wed 20 Jun, Ronan Farrell wrote:
 
>> Our basic problem is that obnoxious players are common and are so
>> powerful that if we were to re-introduce pkilling then these
>> would probably go on a killing spree.  Again immortal and code
>> restrictions could help that.
 
>> I am wondering if anyone here has had experience in dealing with
>> a self-sustaining group of obnoxious people on the mud.  Their
>> behaviour has infected the general behaviour with a degree of
>> anti-social behaviour that's anathema to a primarily social mud.

> Step one.  Be very vocal about that obnoxious behaviour is not
> tolerated and can be punished in any way the imm on duty sees fit.
> Step two.  Remind the offending players that an imm has more ways
> to pu- nish them than they can escape.

Quite right. And never ever give them a list of "Offence X will lead
to punishment Y." If they know for sure what their punishment will
be, they may decide it is worth it.
 
> Step three.  Ban them.  They come back.  Keep banning them until
> either they get bored of the game of outwitting you, or until you
> need to go to even more drastic measures.

Pretty tough to find more drastic measures than that. Banning also
doesn't work if you don't require some sort of identification
(credit card, etc) and if they are using AOL. I'm not willing to ban
all of AOL for instance.

 
> Your aim is to disrupt the obnoxious players until they no longer
> can be seen as a coherent group.  Never at any cost allow them to
> drag you into a match of rules lawyering. They will win that, and
> it is a waste of ti- me for you.  Instead be as unreasonable as
> you have to be to drive them off the mud.  Make it clear to the
> players that obnoxious behaviour will not be tolerated (and be
> certain to do some snooping between hearing a complaint and
> stepping in so that you know who is the guilty party, so that you
> can ignore all pleas and arguments).

Whenever my players start trying to quote help files at me in an
effort to find little legalistic loopsholes that justify their
behavior, I just point out that this isn't a court room, and I don't
have to prove anything. If we think you're guilty, then you're
guilty, end of story (which is really how the physical world justice
systems work, but they obfuscate it with many rules and systems
designed to give the impression that something besides human
judgement is at work.) And there is no getting off on
technicalities.


> People are obnoxious because it entertains them, or because it is
> profi- table to them.  As an imm your task is to make it
> unentertaining and not rewarding. Freezing, muting, banning are
> all proven ways to make the mud not fun to play.  The typical
> "reward" people get out of obnoxious beha- viour is attention.
> Making it impossible for a player to interact with another is
> generally a suitable way to put a stop to that. It may requi- re
> some coding though, you will want to lock them away from things
> like bulletin boards and direct links to imms as well.  This also
> serves to prevent them from turning the conflict with you into a
> verbal war that might annoy, affect or otherwise bother the
> regular players.

The problem here is that they can just create more characters unless
your MUD requires some sort of identification that someone is going
to have a limited number of (credit cards for instance). And it's
not wise to separate newbies from the various communities in the
world, as getting them involved in a community is the best way to
hook them.

> Once obnoxious behaviour is seen as an exception rather than as a
> rule, you no longer need to be so heavy handed and only lightly
> moderate the game so you know when a player is toeing the line, so
> to speak, and deal with him before he becomes a problem. At that
> stage talking is likely to be more effective than virtual
> violence.

In Achaea, obnoxious behavior is the exception rather than the rule,
and we still often end up having to take very heavy-handed action
sometimes. Some players are not socialized, and do not care what the
culture of the world around them dictates. I suppose in a free MUD,
you could just nuke them at the first sign of trouble, but in a
commercial one, particularly one with Achaea's business model,
banning someone who has shown signs of becoming a large customer is
a bad idea. 80% of our revenue from 20% of our customers and all
that. As a result, we end up kind of having to let some players go
until they become an intolerable problem and have to be shrubbed
(turned into a shrub). Very rarely we've later unshrubbed people who
sincerely seem to have reformed their behavior, but that is very
rare.

--matt
 


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