[MUD-Dev] in-game vs web-based boards (was: Geometric content generation)

[Travis Nixon]

From: <Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com>

> I don't think such strict censorship is necessary, alternative
> approaches which would require custom board software could
> definitely be investigated.  Some ideas that might make things
> work a bit better:

>   a) Limit number of posts someone can make to one a day.

Well, I wholeheartedly abhor this idea, primarily because when I
myself tend to hit messageboards, it's generally in flurries of 10
or 15 messages at a time, and then I tend to relurk for significant
periods of time.  Even my activity here on mud-dev follows a similar
pattern, although its usually bursts of 2 or 3 instead of 10 or
15. :)

And actually, I suspect this behavior is a lot more common than you
might think.

>   b) Limit posting to those who currently have game accounts.

Surprisingly enough, Verant tried this before they entirely shut
down the messageboards, and it made absolutely no noticeable impact
on the amount of bitching going on in the boards.

Go figure. :)

>   c) I was going to suggest a form of peer review whereby the
>   threads have a floatiness (to the top) based on the rank of the
>   posters on the thread. The poster's rank being determined by
>   peer review (both positively and negatively), but it dawned on
>   me that it would just be used as a pvp weapon in
>   personal/class/balance wars. Maybe there is a more effective way
>   to handle this. I want to create a feedback loop so that people
>   are encouraged to make constructive and polite observations by a
>   score of some kind. I've noticed that people who write rudely
>   tend to completely change their tone when they get some
>   developer feedback, so I'm thinking that another scoring
>   mechanism might motivate this without direct contact. In
>   addition, if it worked it would work as a basic filter for the
>   devs to use when scanning the forums for quality. How to not
>   make it gameable I don't know :D

If you ever figure that one out, you just might prove to be an
exception to my "unoriginality of ideas" rant of last week.

How to keep the gamers from gaming....please do let us all know.  :)

Ask John Buehler, and the solution is to just not invite the gamers
to play at all.  Make it too boring for them.  :) That's not a game
I want to play, or even create for that matter, but hey, it might
work.  I'm not so sure though.  I don't think it's the gamers who
are the true griefers.  I personally think that the griefers are the
ones who couldn't care less about the game itself, about whether it
lives or dies.  Those are the ones you really have to watch out for.
Of course, maybe that's giving people in general too much credit,
thinking that maybe they realize the harm that griefing does...

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