[MUD-Dev] MMORPG/MMOG P2P design

[Crosbie Fitch]

From: Travis Nixon

> what basically amounts to a popularity and/or seniority contest
> seems just a little bit ludicrous to me.

You don't think referring to government and lawyers is a seniority
contest?

> Maybe something can be worked out that suffices for games, but
> you're not going to solve the trust problem in a completely
> distributed system.  It's inherently unsolvable, because anybody
> who decides to start breaking the rules has pretty much by
> definition been following the rules up until that point.

Trust isn't about ensuring you never trust someone who can break
that trust, it's about recognising and rewarding trustworthy
behaviour and detecting and penalising untrustworthy behaviour.

> And just accept the fact that the traditional RPG achievement
> mechanic probably cannot be a significant game mechanic in a
> distributed system.  If having lots of godly characters walking
> around breaks the game for everybody, then the game is guaranteed
> to fail.

I think the idea of 'RPG achievement' is mainly there because it has
to be artificial, because there isn't any real achievement
possible. Perhaps that's too harsh. How about: it's a case of
exaggerating achievement through artificial means in order to reward
achievement with artifically increased power (often with externally
recognisable tokens).

The fewer items of power and power-ups there are, including any
object attributes that confer supernatural power, the better. It
should be possible to create a game where power comes from your
relationships, your situation, your buildings, your experience and
knowledge, etc. Power from the otherwise inert, power from
collections of objects that are only powerful in aggregate or
construction.


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