[MUD-Dev] SOC/DGN: Enforcing Socially Acceptable Behavior

[Damion Schubert]

On 8/11/05, Jaycen Rigger <jaycen.rigger at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Sean Howard <squidi at squidi.net> wrote:

>> Developers need to start listening to the silent majority in
>> these games.  Failure to do so is creating negative experiences
>> for gamers and sending them away. There's plenty of "achievers"
>> and "griefers" out there to keep something like World of Warcaft
>> in business, but the Sims Online is certain proof that we need to
>> revise our social models if we want to target, involve, and KEEP
>> a different audience on any scale above a small cliquish group.

{snip]

> I'll probably get the "YOU try making money when you send the
> whiney kids packing" speech again, but whether you're making money
> or not it plays itself out that way every time.  People who are
> not virtual sociopaths (Raph's term, which I like better than
> cyberbullies) will stay, even when the actual game systems aren't
> that great, as long as they aren't motivated to leave by asinine
> players.  That's simply human nature.

I'm really confused as to which experienced developer would disagree
with you.  One of the first things that operating a live game
teaches you is that jerk-like behavior can cost you the
subscriptions of 10 people who hate that kind of behavior.  Even if
it only costs you one subscription of one nice guy, isn't having the
nice guy in your community more valuable than having the jerk?

MMOs very quickly learn how to identify the jerks.  Certainly, some
organizations are more aggressive than others.  I for one greatly
attribute Everquest's initial success to the fact that their
community was run much more like a fascist state than was UO's.
Once UO hired Gordon Walton and began becoming much more aggressive
in their policing, their numbers shot up.

--d
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