View Single Post
Old 09-23-2004, 06:50 PM   #10
The_Disciple
Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 113
The_Disciple is on a distinguished road
The answer to this question really comes down to:

Do you want players on your mud to be killing each other as a matter of course?

If the answer is yes, you want to institute some form of restricted PK. I'll come back to what I mean by that.

If the answer is no, you either want no PK whatsoever, or totally open PK. A mud like Armageddon is a good example of the former... it's very possible for players to kill each other, but due to the way the game is set up, it's not a matter of course either. It would never be typical in a game like that to kill another player every time you logon.

It all depends on what kind of game you want to make, and that's not about RP or no-RP, despite how some would like it to be so. If your game is meant to chiefly be about the conflict of the players vs. their environment, then picking one of the stances that discourages PK makes sense. If your game is chiefly meant to be about the conflict of players vs each other, then picking one of the stances that encourages PK makes sense.

More on the idea of restricted PK: unless you've created a game where all characters are always roughly equal in power, a form of restricted PK that keeps players only fighting other players roughly equivalent in power makes sense. It's easy to scheme up reasons why this isn't pure RP stupidity if you're of a mind to when worldbuilding... perhaps the gods themselves decree that this is the way things simply work for those born under the proper auspices to grow to be heroes.

One option that's never particularly made much sense to me is the 'willingly flag yourself PKable or not' version. I imagine the PK in such games must be very difficult to balance -- what if I'm flagged PKable so I can hunt, but my five best friends are flagged unPKable and follow me around healing me, scouting my enemies for me, and passing me gear when I need it? How do you make such a thing fair and competitive?
The_Disciple is offline   Reply With Quote