[MUD-Dev] Griefing

[Arnau Josep Rosselló Castelló]

El dj 24 de 11 del 2005 a les 18:23 -0500, en/na Lachek Butalek va
escriure:

> Camping someone's corpse, for example, is the result of having a
> non-permanent death system involving running back to your corpse
> to reincarnate. Kill stealing is the result of having a system
> that depends on killing monsters to reach a higher level of
> proficiency. Ninja looting is the result of a system which
> promotes killing monsters and looting their corpses as an
> excellent way to get valuable items. Trash talk on public channels
> only exist because there is a method of universal, instant
> communication with no real option for retaliation. What these
> things have in common is that their physics is artificial - there
> is often not even an explanation for why things work work that way
> in the game world, and when there is it is usually a bad excuse
> bolted on after the physics was already decided upon.

I disagree, while the physics can facilitate griefing, the direct
cause of it is that you can easily create a new identity in many
games, and that the maximum punishment that you can inflict on
someone is banning one of these easily substitutable identities. If
real life was like this, many people would try to rob a bank "just
to see if they are up to it" or maybe they would start killing cops
as they pass by and collect their cars in an alley(I know I enjoyed
it in the original GTA).

You also can't block griefing merely trough mechanics because every
kind of interaction between players has some possibility of being
played to create grief.

> A realistic MMO builds its physics engine around its setting
> rather than the other way around. If a griefer is only able to act
> out his griefing "in character", the whole concept of griefing
> disappears - it morphs into integral part of an inherently hostile
> game world. To give examples:

These are good for people who like competitive games like EVE, but
they're a relatively small group compared to roleplayers, people who
like to solo, people who like to group in PvE or people who like PvP
but in ritualised, "chivalrous" ways only.

The solution i can think off the top of mi head is to somehow
decrease the ease of changing identity and increase the punishment
you can inflict to a griefer:

  - You can identify people through their CC number. It mostly
  works, but only for paying MUDs

  - You can identify them through SS number, passport, etc... I
  don't know nobody who tried it, and for good reason I think.

  - You can make new characters unable to afect the game world in
  any meaningful way until they have spent some time playing. For
  example RL-MUD(hey rutseg!) They had a "global tell mana bar" that
  filled itself pretty slowly, and it's maximum was determined by
  the play time your char had, that way until you had at least one
  day of play time at most you could shout a word every 5 minutes.
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