[MUD-Dev] Cheating in the world

[Shannon Sullivan]

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 12:08:22 +0100, Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad
<olag at ifi.uio.no>! wrote:

> So, if I find out that I can buy a sword for 1 gold in the north
> and sell it for 10 gold in the south, then I am supposed to shy
> away from this profit?

Well, that's not really a money-duping bug, is it?

On the other hand, if you bought 10 swords for 10 gold in the north,
said "To hell with taking these down to the south", opened up a
trade window with a friend, pulled the plug on your connection in
the same instant you accepted the trade, logged back on to find that
your friend had the 10 swords and so did you, took the swords from
your friend and opened up a trade of 20 swords, pulled the plug on
your connection...

That is someone actively attempting to do something they flat KNOW
is wrong.  They know it, you know it, and I know it.  It's not a,
"Hey, wait a minute... how did THAT happen?"  They are knowingly and
intentionally breaking your game world.

If people like this believe that they can continue to engage in such
behavior and all you will do is fix the bug (once you find out about
it) and allow them to go on about their merry way, continuing to
break your game world in other ways, how do you plan to ever have a
functional environment with customers that haven't left in disgust?

Remember that most paying customers don't want to think that the
only way they can be on even footing is to cheat.  Furthermore, if
they feel that cheaters are not being duly punished, they will not
continue to play in your game world.  If you were playing Monopoly
and found out the other player was just taking handfuls of money out
of the bank whenever they ran low, would you keep playing the game?


Shannon
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