[MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s

[John Robert Arras]

On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, Matt Mihaly wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, John Robert Arras wrote:
 
>> My problem is giving players institutionalized positions of power.

<snip>
 
> Bad why? It works in gameplay (see Achaea/Aetolia for instance),
> so is the objection a moral/ethical one?

I'm not sure. I will try to explain it like this:

When I think of adding a feature to my game, my thought process
isn't like:

  "How cool would this be if used wisely by the playerbase?"

My thought process is more like:

  "If the biggest a-hole in the game managed to get access to this,
  how much misery could he cause?"

In short: I think like a cheater.

If I plan on putting something into the game, I try to implement it
in a way that I can't figure out how to game the system. I haven't
been able to figure out how to implement positions of power other
than ones with at most superficial power. I don't know if it's
possible.

> And incidentally, you don't just appoint a player as major of a
> city, you let the player-citizens vote him in, and give the mayor
> responsibilities vis a vis the citizenry, so that if he is an
> immature ass, he'll quickly be out of office.

But a large group of of them could cause a lot of pain locally. Even
if it's only one city out of many, I don't like the idea that the
developers set something up where players can restrict access to
parts of the game with the imprimatur of the admin staff.

<snip>

> (They can re-design any shop in their city, for instance, albeit
> it for a fee in gold).

But we both know that this isn't really a power that can hurt other
players. :) Ceremonial positions are fine by me since they don't
give real power over other players.


John

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