[MUD-Dev] Ethical behavior ... a hijacking.

[Jeff Cole]

> From: John Buehler

> People have been pondering rules of ethical behavior for thousands
> of years and there is a good body of knowledge on it.  The
> U.S. Constitution is a pretty darned good stab at distilling those
> into a practical set of rules.

I am *very* curious as to which ways you think the Constitution sets
forth a practical set of ethical rules.  For whom do you think it
sets forth such rules?  Perhaps one might be able to stretch the
definition of "ethics" so far as to argue that the Constitution is a
set of ethical rules for the government ... but, wow, that would be
quite a stretch.

I imagine that about all you have retained from your high school (or
college) civics/government class is some vague notion that the
Constitution contains a "Bill of Rights" and you seek to borrow
legitimacy from the concept and apply it to your argument for player
rights.

>  Unfortunately, figuring out how to > apply those rules to
>  entertainment is something that many consider > to be a fairly
>  subjective thing because notions like 'the pursuit of >
>  happiness' are pretty vague.

Case on point.  You just got done telling us that the Constitution
did a "pretty darned good [job] at distilling [rules of ethical
behavior] into a practical set of rules" yet most of the
Constitution is "pretty vague."  By and large, the "bite" of the
Constitution comes not from the "rules" it sets forth but rather the
judicial interpretation of legislative action in the light of the
Constitution.  Further, such interpretation has not been consistent
and, many times, has been unethical by any standard.  The Fourteenth
Amendment's (due process, equal protection) ratification was hardly
ethical-- quite possibly, it's ratification was unconstitutional
though it is unimaginable it would not withstand a constitutional
challenge.

> In truth, the rights of players don't ever change because they
> remain the rights of people in a community.  Our rights don't need
> to be restated, only understood in light of the anonymous,
> multiplayer environment.

Surely, you are not espousing some idea of "inalienable human
rights" applied to games?  Ack!

You have the greatest right of all: the right not to play.  To the
extent that you play, you are subject to the rights that the
designers/developers afford you.

> Your document did have its catchy treatment of the problem area,
> however, and that got people to look at it.  And that's a good
> thing.

Man, why you would patronize the best support (Raph's) you got it
astounds me.  From those posts of yours that I have read and those
threads in which we have both particpated, you have yet to pony up
beyond vague assertions.  See below.

> The follow-on to that is that the blurring of the boundary between
> the people who play the games and the characters in the games is a
> problem.  We don't retain the pattern of people playing a game.

Huh?  Who is "We?"  Would love to understand what you are trying to
say, here.

> Instead, our only identity in the game context is that of our
> characters.  I consider this to be a mistake.  The starting point
> for all games should be to first acknowledge the people playing
> the game and to secondarily acknowledge the game itself.

You just got done talking about rights "understood in light of the
anonymous, multiplayer environment."  In an anonymous environment,
what besides the character can you acknowledge?  Especially as a
designer who cannot possibly have personal interaction with every
player.

Furthermore why is the distinction important?

> Inverting that relationship erodes the rights of the people and
> starts to invent rights for the characters.

How are they not inextricably linked?  How do the player's rights
erode?  What rights can a character have that are not also enjoyed
by the player?

> This is reinforced in things like the use of 'you' when the game
> tells the player of something that has happened to the character
> being played.  Or the omenclature of 'in-character' versus
> 'out-of-character'.  References to the character should be in
> third person.  Conversations between players should be between
> players, and conversations between characters should be between
> characters.

I cannot understand the distinction you are drawing, here.  When is
a player talking as a player and not a character?

> For anyone not picking up on it, I consider immersion to be bad
> when the duration of the immersion is under the control of the
> player.  Limited immersion is one thing.  Hours and hours of it is
> not reasonable.

huh?  What do you think player's look for in these games?  It's
certainly some amount of immersion.

So am I correct in inferring that one of the rights for players
should *not* be the right to be immersed?  How do you measure
immersion and more importantly, how do you determine an acceptable
limit and enforce it?  By telling the player, "Hey, I know when a
player has been immersed too long ... and you, buddy, have been
immersed too long ..."  Seems like the antithesis of what you were
arguing for above.

> So write a document that does one thing and one thing only:
> reinforce the standing of the individuals playing the game and
> stop focusing on the characters in the game.

It's called the EULA.

> It will very quickly indicate that the viable community of a game
> is that of the players, not of the characters.  

Godammit, I *know* my Ogre warrior is hitting the strip joints in
Ogguk while I am logged out ... I log in, hungover and broke, and
all the NPC's wink at me ...

Yrs Affcty,
Jeff Cole

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