[MUD-Dev] BIZ: Who owns my sword?

[Matt Mihaly]

On Sun, 21 Sep 2003, Michael Chui wrote:
> --- Matt Mihaly <the_logos at ironrealms.com> wrote:

>> Murder involves killing someone. We call it "killing" when
>> certain changes to a database are made in a game but nothing is
>> being killed and no murder is taking place.

> While talking, one of my friends asked me if I was going to have a
> "genocide-based economy", or something to that effect. After all,
> isn't that what a lot of hack-n-slash MUDs are about? Pick up
> sword, wipe out forest of mobs, wipe out city of mobs, wipe out
> continent full of mobs. Be rewarded with lots of random goodies
> and experience.  Rinse and repeat.

Well, no. What you're really doing is changing a bunch of database
entries. -Nothing- is dying as a result because none of what you're
after was ever alive.

> In a way, murder IS taking place. The common command for
> initiating combat is "kill", the target is typically a sentient
> being, comparable to other humans. And the risk is minimal against
> an AI, because it's too likely to drive our bloodthirsty players
> away with a realistic, but inhuman opponent. Kind of
> like.. looking in the mirror. And beating up a computer isn't
> quite as much fun as beating up an actual person ("I'm so bad, I
> beat down a.. program."), even if they're both represented as text
> on the screen.

Murder is taking place in the fictional context. I'm talking about
reality here and in reality (sophomoric, red herring epistemelogical
arguments aside) murder is not taking place.

--matt
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