[MUD-Dev] Re: (fwd) Re: POLL: Games ruined by bad players (Playe

[Richard Woolcock <KaVir#dial,pipex.com>]

J C Lawrence wrote:
> 
> Do you have another solution than expensive mass human supervision to
> to UOL's reputed problem of K3wlD00dz, or must the game scale as a
> series of smaller independant games where each, due to its smaller
> size, can be "managed" effectively without gaping holes?

Well as I see it, there are two ways you could go about dealing with
the 'd00dz'; the first is admin policing - which is currently being 
disputed - the second is leaving law enforcement in the hands of the 
players - which most people are not happy with.  Perhaps UO could look 
into ways to making playing-policing more viable/enforcable?

The problem with anything like this is, of course, cost.  However, what 
IF - and this is a BIG 'if' (because I don't know how well it would work) - 
you allowed outside coders to implement designs for this (and maybe other)
systems.  Instead of offering financial benefits, you could have some 
extensive credits list for non-UO helpers (after all, many coders would
want to do it for the fame - I know I'D want my name in there ;).

Of course I imagine UO get a constant stream of junk-mail ideas, but if
the ideas were written by professional coders/softies, and fulfilled
specific UO requirements, the chances are something useful would turn up
sooner or later.

The real problem is that in order to do this properly, there would need
to be some sort of codebase for people to work on (it could be purely
text-based, or perhaps a trimmed-down old Ultima game - as long as the
objects/structs were fairly compatible), otherwise you'd get nothing more 
than general ideas in a pseudo-code format.

Just a comment from someone who would like to go to an interview at a
games company and say "well, actually I wrote some code for UO..."

KaVir.

-- 
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.