[MUD-Dev] Character Restraint & Capture.

[Jester]

Damion Schubert wrote

> I couldn't disagree more with 'murder' being the most
> psychologically impacting crime.  Video games have trained people
> that death is cheap, and as such, players logging in reasonably
> expect that they'll bite it occasionally.

This is only true for existing games and only because the way such
games are structured in handling death, I accept that in most games
life is cheap because there is no lasting impact from death and
therefore minimal loss, but this may not be true for the future
(although I sit firmly on the fence on the issue of perma-death) if
death did mean the obliteration of your characters persona then it
would be the most ' psychologically impacting crime' without a
doubt.

As I am designing the bounty hunting concept to be as implementation
neutral as possible I leave it up to those who might want to use it,
to determine what impact death has in their system, and balance the
use of bounty hunting accordingly.

> True 'crimes' are social disruptions, such as mudrape, slander,
> betrayal, infiltrating a guild with an alternate character, etc,
> etc.

As I have repeatedly stated in previous post my bounty hunting
concept is NOT a comprehensive justice system, so the 'crimes'
mentioned above will have to be addressed through other mechanisms.

> Game designers try to include killing other people as a game
> mechanic, either for (a) game interest sake

Then perhaps it is time for a change, and to limit the designers
scope of what types of killing are acceptable. IMHO in the past
designers have caused a fair degree of their own problems in the way
they have structured PvP play.

>  or (b) as a possible RESPONSE to antisocial behaviour.

By simply allowing revenge killings the designer is perpetuating the
cycle of violence and almost saying that killing characters is OK as
long as you feel justified in doing so, my view is that this is
simply ducking the problem and passing the buck on to the players.

>   If you think that murder is the worst of all > possible, by all
>   means turn it off or make player killing > consensual.

I'm not sure how far back you have read in this thread, but the core
concept is to move away from artificial PvP 'inhibitors' towards
something that is based more around consequences.

The concept 'to date' is kept on a webpage (due to its size) at:

  http://www.futuremmorpg.org/capture.asp

and is updated fairly regularly.

Thanks for your input.

Jester
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