[MUD-Dev] Striving for originality

[Matt Chatterley]

On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, Fred Clift wrote:
> On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, Matt Chatterley wrote:

>> The options which I've always favoured in the past have been
>> disallowing attacks on a player within a few days of their
>> creation (or a certain quantity of online time, or where
>> appropriate, a certain level), or having safe newbie areas where
>> they cannot be reached, much less attacked.

> By 'disallow' do you mean the world prevents people from doing
> harmful things to newbies?  or do you mean you have a rule against
> it with admnistrative punishment for violation?  or something
> else?

Sorry, I wasn't very clear there. By 'disallow' I mean that the game
would actually prevent such an action from occuring. Using methods
such as this is slightly distasteful to me in some ways, but, if the
end result is beneficial, they can be worth using.

> The problem with preventing harmful actions (e.g. "You can't bring
> yourself to harm such a pathetic weakling!") is that then griefers
> make new characters to harass others in a variety of ways using
> untouchable characters.  The oldbies that are playing have the
> right defend themselves.

Aye. Which potentially launches us off into another 'How do you
prevent "illegal" alts?' thread. ;)

Your second point is even more valid. If a new player (or old
players new character) is deliberately winding up a bigger, older
character, then that older character probably should be able to
shred them. ;)

> We (blackmud) log all agressive actions and then have a game
> policy about not attacking newbies in any way, except when
> provoked... (ie self-defense - does not include preemptive attacks
> etc...).  So if punk-kid-newbie wanders into the room and kills
> your dog, or steals from you, or attacks you, etc, you have every
> right to 'defend' yourself.  It works ok, but is administratively
> expensive.  When disputes arise, it takes someone to go read the
> logs and make decisions about the issue.  This is mitigated by the
> harsh penaltys and all but the most annoying kids are usually
> deterred by the threat of punishment.  For those who aren't, a
> temporary new-character-from-your-IP ban (ie 24 hours) and a 24
> hour petrification usually do the trick.

Nod. I've seen and used similar methods in the past, and they seem
to work well enough. I'm hoping to generate some sort of socially
based system where there will be relatively few problems, which
would then be dealt with via an admin system (the old fashioned,
manual way). :) Logging is useful, though.


--Matt

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