[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN/OPERATION] A rant about NPC ops

[cruise]

Thus spake Jeffrey Kesselman...
> Okay, this is a bit of a rant, so excuse me...

'sok - seems to be becoming a popular pastime 'round here currently :P

> <RANT>
> I *despise* ops coming into the game and interacting with the players
> as uber-powerful characters!  The latest examples I've seen being in CoX

Absolutely. Though for different reasons, as I'll cover below.

> (I) It is patently unfair to the players who work so hard over so long
> a period to work their characters up through the game mechanics only
> to have their characters belittled by uber-npcs who the ops can just
> whip up with a command or two.
> 
> Watching the players kao-tao to these no-work creations who are just
> defined with a wave of the hand to be their betters makes me want to
> vomit.  I think players who spend a year to two years getting their
> characters up to maximum levels deserve a LOT more respect then these
> canned-gods or goddesses.

Agreed, mostly. I don't have a problem with a developer of a game having 
a character that is...unique, nor with it not being levelled naturally. 
They earned it by writing the game, to my mind (yes I know they get paid).

But they should follow the same rules as the players - to me it's the 
game equivalent of addressing the audience in a film - you break 
immersion because you're breaking /your own rules/. Ans yes, that 
cheapens the experience. No matter how hard you work, you will never 
match one of these characters one on one.

> (II) I think its cheap ego-boost for the ops at the expense of the
> players (see (I) above)
> John Carmack doesn't hardwire Quake to list himself at the top of
> everyone's high scores.  Why should MMO developers have the moral
> right to do effectively the same thing?

Agreed. It's cheating, plain and simple. Cheating by the developer is a 
really good way to kill player enjoyment.

> (III) I think it warps RP in totally unreasonable ways.  By way of
> example, an op appeared as Ghost Widow at a party a few nights ago in
> Virtue on the streets of Paragon City.as an op and all of a sudden all
> these players are acting uber respectful and kissing her feet when the
> same players would GLADLY take her down in a mission and then crow
> about it to anyone who would listen.

In Paragon, or the Rogue Isles? If actually in Paragon City (for those 
who don't play, that's the hero area, and Ghost Widow is a signature 
villain) then yes, that's just stupid - she should have been attacked by 
heroes and a tonne of NPC's on sight. Again, it's immersion breaking.

> Why do they act differently? Cause she isn't Ghost Widow, shes an op,
> and thus a symbol of authority in game that humans naturally brown
> nose to.  It doesn't help that these self same ops DO have the power
> to bestow ego toys on their best boot-lickers in the form of  special
> titles.  All of this wraps the veracity of the role play experience
> for the sake of letting an Op show off.

Having a villain in a villain zone (or in the neutral dance party) 
requires no inflated powers - they can't be attacked anyway. And 
appearing in the hero zone, but being unattackable/undefeatable simple 
breaks immersion. Either way, the extra power is undesirable.

> Frankly, I'd have a lot more respect for the op if they came in
> without a no-attack flag with the  full intention of letting the
> players beat the crap out of her, and a lot more respect for the
> players if, upon seeing a name villain in the middle of paragon, they
> did just that.
> 
> (III) I think it encourages "cult of personality" to develop around
> the ops.  Further feeding their egos at the expense of those more
> deserving and the RP environment.  Some segment of the players
> automatically responds by brown nosing.  The op, only being human,
> enjoys the attention and responds by bestowing social advantage on the
> brown nosers both through more attention and little op "favors" like
> the aforementioned special titles,  and the whole thing quickly snow
> balls into a clique centering on the op.  This is natural, human, and
> *highly* destructive to the game as a whole.  In the worst cases, the
> game becomes about social engineering the ops, not about playing the
> game.

I don't actually have a problem with socialising like this - these 
titles affect nothing in game, they only last a limited time, and many 
players don't care or wouldn't notice - they're a perfect reward for a 
socialiser for good socialising.

> To me, this almost exactly the same mistake as a PnP GM who uses his
> or her favorite PCs as NPCs.  The game quickly becomes about the NPCs
> and not about the players except in how they relate TO the NPCs.  And
> thats *wrong*.  In any roleplay game that is properly run, the
> *players* are the heroes and the focus of the story, NOT the NPCs.

Agreed - which is why I dislike the excpetional power of these signature 
characters when encountered in game - it creates exactly this problem. 
That's different from the social aspect above, though.