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If I understand correctly the problem is how to create a system that ranks players that cannot be abused. Well I have thought about it and this is my thoughts on it.
Firstly, I think it would work best if it was invisible to players. If players don't know about it you can be sure it won't be abused all that much. This obviosuly means you cannot have a ranking system where players award points of such. Instead I have come up with a vague idea that would work better.
Here's the idea. You have a command called "invite". You invite a player and you can invite them to roleplay with you, or hunt with you or whatever. The game measures how often someone is invited. This way you can see who people would most like to roleplay with/hunt with. It's not perfect but I think it would work to some extent at least.
For a way of telling how much players trust each other you could use a slightly different method. Players assign other players a certain amount of trust, but this allows that player to do certain things. So for example if you set your trust level with someone to a high value then you cannot attack them (without first lowering your trust). If you trust a player then any attacks theyhave like back stab or such are harder for you to defend against (you don't see it coming). Of course this trust level could be controlled automatically to some extent, for example if the plaeyr attacked you then your trust for them goes down automatically. Your trust level for someone could also allow them to see more details about your character, so for example they your guild might not show up to most players examining you, but shows up to people you trust. Also you could set your trust level to strangers. This would mean players could roleplay paranoid characters. The incentive to trust people is that they would be able to see how much you trusted them, so by trusting people they in turn might trust you. This would be abusable, players could trust their friends so that their ranking would go up, but at the same time by trusting someone you are risking things, because for example if you trust someone you are less likely to notice if they try and steal from you, or they are able to see where you are (although on many MUDs that is possible anyway).
The problem with this system is that it is complicated. I think trust can work, but like any system for it to work well you ahve to spend a long time working on it. Anyway, I think my main point is that the only way to measure trust is to give people a chance to really trust someone, and see what they do.
Do you think that is any good? Or would it just not work in practice?
-Maraz-
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