[MUD-Dev] Cheating in the world

[Corey Cauble]

Shannon Sullivan wrote:

> 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?

If you are speaking about a production environment, then shouldn't
these issues have been resolved during testing? We need to stop
delivering beta product to the production world.

If they are valid loopholes and the person described actually
reports the issue without repeated abuse prior to you being notified
then I say the person should be rewarded, with what they found or
created. This will encourage them to report issues quickly and allow
you to address them faster. Before anyone starts twitching, read
what I said again, "without repeated abuse prior to you being
notified". This is the key to reward here, nerf/deny reward
otherwise. This will train those people who push limits to report
issues when they find them instead of trying to hide/exploit them.

Designers/developers need to accept the fact that some people are
going to push the limits ("cheat"), no matter what you do to
them. The key is to turn these people to your favor. Most of the
time they are happy to just have recognition for finding a hole in
the system. If you fight them, they try harder to break it. If you
treat them, they could be your best friend. My advice, next time
invite them to the beta ;)

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Corey Cauble
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