[MUD-Dev] Death and Permadeath and Corpse Retrieval

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

From: Sean Middleditch [mailto:elanthis at awesomeplay.com]

> I think what you are aiming for is to reduce how often evil
> players are asses to other players (killing them for no reason).
> Even the utmost evil doesn't just kill everyone in sight, *because
> of fear of the law*. If killing is a crime, with stiff penalties,
> evil characters can exist, but would need to find more creative
> methods to be evil than simply killing other players.  A system
> that offers rewards for those creative acts, rewards equal to
> those of being good, players will be drawn towards those
> activities.  Otherwise, evil players may well be forced to slay
> the good characters in order to get rewards they couldn't achieve
> while playing in character.

The complexity is in the details though. If you penalize an evil
player for killing people, then the griefer proportion will just
find creative ways to kill people that don't involve them getting
the kill attributed to them.  Perhaps they'll tag a group of
monsters and run them over you mid fight, or heal the monsters etc
etc. There's normally a way they can do it.

> Well, so far as looting, I personally dislike the whole idea. In
> my ideal game, when you die, you are not lootable.  You can be
> resurrected or, after a set amount of time passes (based on your
> strength/level), you respawn with one less life credit.  If you're
> out of credits, your deity does not intervene with your death and,
> thus, you go on to heaven/hell, and are permadead.  This also
> means there is no reward for killing other players. People have
> less reason to be dicks if there isn't a reward for it. If players
> want to kill things for loot, there are NPCs for that. NPCs don't
> get pissed and quit the game because of players with a violent
> streak.  ;-)

For the average griefer, I'm pretty sure perma killing someone is a
great reward!

Dan
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