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I agree that having a harsh theme is a double-edged sword and edges sword in that it makes people THINK they need to max their skills, however as Jazuela skills AREN'T important in Armageddon. The harshness in Armageddon doesn't limit itself to how hard mobs are to kill. The main harshness is society and how it views certain groups of people and the living conditions.
Sure if you want to go scrab hunting then your going to need to be powerful, but Armageddon provides ways to become powerful in a realistic manner.
I disagree. Sure code can't be the sole thing that makes people roleplay,but it is very important to have code that supports roleplay. An example is the law system. If your code allows people to go into a city and go around killing NPCs and PCs then depending on the type of city it is, it probably isn't realistic. So when you first attack someone then policemen should probably try to stop you. IMO the code should also treat NPCs and PCs exactly the same. The reason is PCs are expected to treat VNPCs and NPCs exactly the same, so therefore the code should.
I agree with most of what's already been said. Another important issue (and sorry if someone has already said it) is having a realistic world. This doesn't mean you can't have magick. What it means is that you create a history for the world,and explain why everything is the way it is. If everyone hates elves, then create a reason for it, don't just create it as some random fact. Does most of the population live in cities? Why do they live in cities? Historically people live in hunter and gatherer cultures. The reason people began to live in cities is because the population levels were becomming to great for the hunter and gathering societies, so they had to learn how to manage their resources better. You don't have to tell your players why everything is the way it is, but it's best to have it even if it's only accessible to staff members, so you can think out the world better and make it more realistic.
Another important issue is having the world treat players realistically. Roleplay is essentially controlling your character in a realistic manner. Having a world that treats players realistically helps encourage players to treat the world realistic.
Another important thing is to limit the amount of people who play the exception to the rule (which can be done by having people submit bios). If you have every player playing the exception to the rule, then the rule becomes the exception and it makes the world become a bit more unrealistic. The reason the world becomes unrealistic is because often people don't provide good reasons for playing the exception.
When Armageddon was a H&S mud people often ignored what the documentation said and always played the exception. When Armageddon became an RPI this was changed. From what I've read it was done by staff members allocating powerful roles to good roleplayers so they could help stop players from doing unrealistic things (such as spam picking a lock).
Another method that was put in place was creating staff-ran clans for the problem areas. An example is Armageddon cannon stipulates that elves see riding animals as a sign of weakness and would never admit to doing such a thing. Well EVERY elf would ride animals, so a staff member created an elven clan and got everyone in the clan to roleplay elves properly. Then when people's characters died and they made elves outside of the clan, they continued to roleplay elves properly, and eventually all elves stopped riding mounts.
IMO one of the most important methods of establishing a roleplaying environment is by stopping player's from gaining OOC knowledge about things their characters wouldn't know. There are a variety of ways to stop this, such as by getting rid of global channels in the game and by stopping people from posting IC knowledge on the message board. While you can't stop people from talking on chat programs and spreading OOC knowledge that way, you can ask them not too.
Armageddon keeps it's roleplaying environment by the staff constantly making changes and helping the players run the world. The staff is _constantly_ updating the documentation,because the world changes either by staff-made changes (such as the introduction of a new race) or player-made changes (such as starting a war). The staff's job is never finished. And by keeping the world dynamic and changing the documentation and code to deal with changes, it keeps the world more realistic and therefore helps encourage roleplay to continue.
Armageddon's player's are also constantly changing. People go away for a break (sometimes permanently) and new people come. The most important method of keeping the roleplay environment IMO is by teaching the newbies about the game and how to roleplay.
One method is to encourage newbies from H&S to join the T'zai Byn which is a mercenary clan. It gives the players an IC reason to spar and fight so they don't become bored, but it also gives them an opportunity to learn about how the world works and lets them see seasoned players roleplay.
Another method is allowing newbies to ask questions easily. This is done on Armageddon by having a section on the discussion board devoted to newbies, as well as having a list of experienced and trusted players that the newbies can e-mail and ask questions about the game.
Everyone else has answered how this is handled on Armageddon. And unless you have your really bad bug-abusers and code-abusers, staff invovlement isn't neccessary. Players just treat them realistically. If someone came up to you in a club and said "Yo dude, want to spar or something dude? I need to get my skills up" what would you think and do? You'd probably think they're insane and ignore them and move away. If they started punching you, then the bouncer would stop them and call the cops. This is what happens in Armageddon. People just roleplay around those unwilling to roleplay and they get sick of it.
If the person is particularly bad and doesn't go away, then the players e-mail the staff with logs and let them know what's going on. But AFAIK this rarely ever happens.
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