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Will · 04-15-2012, 12:31 PM

I guess I should have made it clear that my statement was in reference to the question of preventing "botting" in MUDs. I agree that there are MUSH concepts that can be incorporated in MUDs, but I don't think turning MUDs into MUSHs is the answer. My point has nothing to do with "bashing" being a necessity, however. "Advancement" can mean a lot of things and you can handle it any way you want, but no matter which route you go, if you want your game to have any kind of durability, achievement is going to require time and it is going to eventually get repetitive.

So, on topic: In my opinion, you (rhetorical) will never be able to prevent unattended scripting in MUDs, but I do think you can minimize the desire to do it by making the act of advancement rewarding and fun.

I think we agree. Quoting myself: The cool thing about persistent realities is that when you get tired of bashing stuff, you don't have to leave the game. You can go and do something else until you're ready to reenter the fray. There will always be players uninterested in anything but advancing, and there is no way to design around that, but as long as a game offers goals independent of more levels, more loot and more skill, who cares?

Interesting. There's a huge difference between avoiding/ignoring someone and using/killing him off. I can imagine telling someone who spends all his time out hacking and slashing to get lost when a plotline gets really cool and he suddenly wants to insert himself into the middle of it. I'd likely call the law to extract the unruly citizen from my business, if it came to that. But I dunno about forcing characters to do stuff or removing them from the game. I'm sincerely curious how this works. Do folks who role-play their way to power gain mechanical skill and force uber-skilled but socio-politically inept characters to do what they want, or beat them into permadeath, or whatever, or do they just role-play it and get a uber-skilled NPC or the hand of a god into whose favor they have role-played their way to do it for them?

04-15-2012, 12:31 PM	#11
Will Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 90	Re: Botting - why? I guess I should have made it clear that my statement was in reference to the question of preventing "botting" in MUDs. I agree that there are MUSH concepts that can be incorporated in MUDs, but I don't think turning MUDs into MUSHs is the answer. My point has nothing to do with "bashing" being a necessity, however. "Advancement" can mean a lot of things and you can handle it any way you want, but no matter which route you go, if you want your game to have any kind of durability, achievement is going to require time and it is going to eventually get repetitive. So, on topic: In my opinion, you (rhetorical) will never be able to prevent unattended scripting in MUDs, but I do think you can minimize the desire to do it by making the act of advancement rewarding and fun. I think we agree. Quoting myself: The cool thing about persistent realities is that when you get tired of bashing stuff, you don't have to leave the game. You can go and do something else until you're ready to reenter the fray. There will always be players uninterested in anything but advancing, and there is no way to design around that, but as long as a game offers goals independent of more levels, more loot and more skill, who cares? Interesting. There's a huge difference between avoiding/ignoring someone and using/killing him off. I can imagine telling someone who spends all his time out hacking and slashing to get lost when a plotline gets really cool and he suddenly wants to insert himself into the middle of it. I'd likely call the law to extract the unruly citizen from my business, if it came to that. But I dunno about forcing characters to do stuff or removing them from the game. I'm sincerely curious how this works. Do folks who role-play their way to power gain mechanical skill and force uber-skilled but socio-politically inept characters to do what they want, or beat them into permadeath, or whatever, or do they just role-play it and get a uber-skilled NPC or the hand of a god into whose favor they have role-played their way to do it for them?