[MUD-Dev] Cheating in the world

[Paul Schwanz]

Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:

> The point I'd like to see contested is the idea that cheating
> isn't possible in a world and that any attempt to get rid of
> cheating will by defintion be detrimental to the unique
> characteristics of virtual worlds.

It seems to me that if cheating isn't possible in a world, then
neither is roleplay.

> The games of MUDs shouldn't be enforced, they should be embedded
> and deduced from the use context by the players. If they are
> enforced and defined out of the world then you no longer have a
> world and therefore it isn't a MUD. If you forbid cheating you get
> a multi user game, but you don't get a multi user world.

Based on this sort of logic, if you allow roleplay, doesn't that
also mean that you are allowing a multi-user game?  People do not
roleplay in worlds, they roleplay in games.  In a world, you simply
are a role, so there is no need to play that you are a role.  Which
perhaps goes to show that while MUDs are not /just/ games, it would
certainly appear that they also are not /just/ worlds.

Having said that, however, I tend to agree with a focus on providing
a richer and deeper context for players to experience in ways that
invlove less direct out-of-world intervention.  But saying that the
developer shouldn't be reaching through the world curtain so much
isn't the same as saying there shouldn't be an active hand working
behind that curtain.  Rules and games are fine so long as they are
appropriately hidden behind convincing virtual world abstractions.

--Paul "Phinehas" Schwanz
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