[MUD-Dev] SOC: Will company sanctioned cheating hurttheMMOcommunity?

[Morris Cox]

On 5/19/05, Dana V. Baldwin <dbaldwin at playnet.com> wrote:

> Similarly the prejudice that says because a player spends 60 hours
> a week playing to lvl 60 is superior in some way to a player who
> had his buddies power level him is just plain silly. Almost as
> silly as calling someone a cheater if they buy a character in a
> game that has decided that buying characters or items is OK.

The first player is more likely to have made the attempt to try to
figure things out on his/her own. The second player let others do
the thinking for him/her. I agree with that last sentence. However,
if assumes/presumes that the first player didn't get assistance from
others (in whatever form), then I for one would be much more likely
to think more of the first player. Kinda like someone who studied
for a test versus someone who got the answers from friends.

> Granted I don't wholly agree with that policy but in all reality
> it could be designed away very easily so I see it as an explored
> choice and not a very academic issue. Don't want people to ebay
> stuff in your design? That's easy enough to do. But don't call
> John a cheater or villian for working within the design.

That's one question (among others) that I've been pondering. Why
does there seem to be a lack of "best practices" and real decent
material on the subject? Granted that everyone is still feeling
their way and a lot (so it seems) of counter-intuitive things
happen, however, other than here, there is not really many places a
would-be game designer/developer/etc can go and get decent
assistance. You can go to just about any college or university and
find courses on a wide variety of subjects. Good luck finding one
with a Game Design or Game Development major (especially one that'll
do some major good).

--=20
Morris Cox
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