[MUD-Dev] Proposed Law

[Paul Schwanz]

Matt Mihaly wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Oct 2001, John Buehler wrote:

>> Ignoring pure grief actions, which are self-motivating, if you
>> don't get anything from killing somebody else's cow, then you
>> won't do it.  The inability to kill somebody else's livestock is
>> artificial in the same sense that the player attachment to a
>> character is artificial.  The latter requires the former.

> I will find your cow. I will hunt down your cow like the bovine
> villain it is. Your cow will be medieval McDonald's, and after
> that I will hunt down all those tainted by the milk of the foul
> Heifer of the Pit. I will purge your cow from the world, unless
> the possibility of such is removed, for you are there, and I wish
> to hassle you. I am Grief Player, and I am Legion.

Of course you will kill my cow.  You will probably also steal my
kills, but so far, this doesn't seem a good enough reason to abandon
the current monster mash paradigm (although there may be good
reasons for doing so), or to abandon MMORPG design altogether.

We try to design in a way that insulates as much as possible from
the actions of griefers, but I don't think that any system is immune
from them.  Pointing out that various proposed systems will suffer
similarly is helpful for refining the design, but isn't a convincing
reason for abandoning it in my mind.

As for how to handle the possibility of extinction, I think that
particular issue has been addressed previously on this list.  In
general, I would say that the problem of extinction is eminently
solveable.  Much more so that the problem of griefers.


--Phinehas
Cosm Development Team
www.cosmgame.com


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