[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

[Mike Sellers <mike#bignetwork,com>]

At 11:11 PM 6/22/98 -0700, John Bertoglio wrote:
>>No real analogue or reward for being lawful or investing in a larger
community
>>exists.  I know some long-time UO players who finally gave up in disgust
>>just recently, as all their effort to build their own small community was
>>easily thwarted by a few "destroyer-players" whom they were powerless to
>>stop (e.g., building a forge right in front of one of their houses,
>>blocking entrance to it).
>
>Here it gets interesting. "Perfect code" would not allow such a thing to
>happen. Even if the code is perfect (that is, does not allow anything goofy
>and unrealistic within a give game universe to happen), inventive players
>will still find ways to spoil others fun. On the other hand, what if the
>above example was caused by a player who placed his forge badly out of
>ignorance and not malice? GMs nuking the offending house would be out of

>line and would create another unhappy player.

No you see -- that's precisely my point.  We will never have "perfect code"
like this.  Nor will a game be enjoyable for long if it's up to the
GMs/sysops/etc to zap people from on high.  This is why I called it
*social* engineering.  We can't create code to make sure that no one annoys
anyone else, but we *can* create code to make sure that the players can
create their own social mechanisms to deal with such situations.  We can't
provide technological or central-business-oriented solutions to what are
inherently distributed social issues.  


--

Mike Sellers       Chief Creative Officer       The Big Network
mike#bignetwork,com                  
<http://www.bignetwork.com/>http://www.bignetwork.com

                       Fun   Is   Good