I've been looking over potential places to play and looking at some of the banners on this website. I went to one game and liked the overall look of the webpage, but then I checked out the discussion board there. I do think discussion boards are neat additions, by the way, it really gives a potential player a chance to get a feel for the players on the game.

That aside I was a bit concerned when I saw the staff allows people to abuse link dead characters. Not only allows, but clearly say they have no sympathy for you if your computer crashes and you get robbed blind because you could not predict that you were getting ready to be link dead and rush to someplace that is quittable in. Is this the new standard on so-called RPI games? I've only been around off and on for about a year or so, but I remember when I started everywhere I went pretty much said linkdead characters should be ignored as they are not really there IG.

How do I explain why I was standing around ignoring everything and anything around me for several IG days because my computer blew up or something. I guess what I am trying to find out is if I should bother checking out a game that appears so open to twinking with staff approval. Opinions? Am I overreacting here? Was I on the odd game out when I played places that said if you were caught abusing LD characters you would be punished? How do I RP such things happening to my character if it does? Help?

The usual and logical reply would be: Look for another MUD or start your own then.

Jeez. How hard is it for a mud to just implement a timer and kick people off if no input has been received for X period of time. Can't send input if you're linkdead.

--matt

Just thought I would point out that the original message about the staff's opinion on link-dead players has been taken rather out of context.

For anyone who might care, here is the original post being referenced:
Nowhere does it say that the staff encourages or even allows twinking out on link-dead PCs.  On the contrary, those who are caught doing so will be punished. Feel free to interpret differently, but it seems straightforward enough.

My experience on most muds is that you are protected in some way while link death and that after a time you will be logged off.

In fact we even have a 'maxidle' option on zeb which will make you LD if you idle for too long - so if you find you are losing your link without going LD you can still get some protection.

I would say that stealing from an obviously ld character is twinking.  The staff post implies anyone who goes ld did it on purpose. Which, in my experience, is not usually the case. More often when something causes me to go ld it is hardware problems or network problems. I cannot control such things. I still do not see how one is expected to RP around such a ruling. If I go ld in the morning and cannot get back on until the evening there is plenty of IG time to pass for someone to claim they did not twink, but went away and just kept coming back. How would one explain that when they tried to report the crime? "Excuse me, but I seem to have just decided to stand in the middle of the square and fall into a coma?" And if I were asked a question and tried to explain what happened with staff they would just tell me ?

What was said eariler, I have chosen not to play there. I just can't agree with the attitudes I've seen staff take on their boards.  I've no skill or wish to start my own game so I will just look for something else. Somewhere that I can play without having to worry about the hardware problems I sometimes have getting my character ruined.

We got a rule like this, doesn't sound like the same MUD though. Anyway, my MUD does pk adrenaline. Basically you're safe if you lose link, unless you were recently fighting. It is a PKing mud so we can't have people dropping link to avoid a death. I suspect the MUD you tried had a system like this, and probably hadn't explained it very well.

I have two takes on the whole linkdead situation. If your ISP drops and you have no control over the situation, obviously, it's not your fault, and I would look at any altercation differently.

If you are involved in a fight, or stealing, or whatnot, and being chased, and *gasp* amazingly and coincidentally you go linkdead with 8 people on your heels, and they attack you soon afterwards, I have very little, if any pity.

If I caught someone doing something like stealing from a blatantly linkdead, it would not be pretty, but using going linkdead as a shield from having anything happen to you I have no patience for.

On a similar tangent is the AFK command. People would repeatedly throw up their AFK flag while being chased, not move, and then cry like small children when they were beaten into a paste. This is why our AFK command now gives a warning to a player saying that under no circumstances are they safe due to having AFK up...


Terl

The key to this is consistency.

For instance have 'steal' skill flagged as an aggressive skill so that combat rules automatically apply when it is attempted.

Once that is in place you can fiddle with your linkdeath/combat rules till you find the right balance without
continually having to change a load of code.

Naturally this is all in place on Zeb - but then we have always allowed PK so getting this right is crucial.

A time limit before linkdead-induced invulnerability seems to be the best compromise between deliberate and accidental linkdeath repurcussions. And of course with that, you can tweak it - if you find lots of people going linkdead on purpose, just increase the time limit.

Seems link-dead in most of these muds has no direct concequence, beyond letting you get attacked, which is imho 180 degrees the opposite of safe guarding those who suffer it by accident. The mud I play on is more H&S than RP, but it does have optional PK and bounties. Also, equipment doesn't save on the player. What this means is that:

If you go link dead and expect it to be the same as loging off, you are going to lose eq.

If you go link dead in a battle, you better hope that someone else kills what you where fighting before you get back it will not only still be unhappy with you, but unlike you 'it' will have been ticking and getting stronger and you return in the same room you left.

If you try to avoid people hunting you, then they know where you will reappear.

If it is a bounty hunt, then it isn't going to go away just because you dropped the link.

If you go link dead intentionally while being questioned about a crime.... You may as well go looking for another mud to play on, since if it is serious you will simply be nuked. If it isn't serious then odds are you will end up with a much bigger bounty and a recent rule change means that the bountied player pays a fine that the bounty hall uses to pay off the person that claims the bounty. Since the players account is allowed to go into negatives to pay that fine....

All in all, this makes more sense to me than the 'hmm.. he seems to be standing there staring blankly at nothing and not reacting to anything' effect you get with muds that 'realistically' leave the player in the room when their link falls. Merely idle players though don't have an excuse.