[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Matt Mihaly]

On Sat, 23 Jun 2001, Ola Fosheim [iso-8859-1] Gr=F8stad wrote:
> Matt Mihaly wrote:

>> No. As has already been established, a MUD does not have control
>> over a character. I can play Lancelot on any MUD that advertises
>> permadeath, and there isn't a damn thing they can do to kill the
>> character of Lancelot. They could kill the avatar, but never
>> irreversibly, which is why "permadeath" or "absolute death" seems
>> fuzzy to me. They rely on being 100% certain of the intentions of
>> every designer who will ever contribute to the world in the
>> future.

> Still there is also the purely psychological effect that comes
> with the formalised character deletion, the feeling of being
> rejected. Then the ritual of creating a new character, symbolising
> the struggle to get back in...?

This paragraph reminds me that I'm coming from a different
background design-wise than most of the people on this list, which
may partially account for the differences of opinion on this
issue. It's been at least 7 years since I've played a MUD in which
going out and bashing monsters to get xp and levels was the
goal. The MUDs I'm interested in reward you, the person, for being
competent, not you, the avatar, for having high numbers in some data
fields. So, re-creating an avatar means significantly less loss, as
you carry over all that knowledge that is the core of the gaming
part of the world.=20

I agree that there is a psychological effect, but I don't think that
a game feature that is defined by ascertaining how the players feel
is very well defined.

--matt

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