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<H1>[MUD-Dev] FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers have more fun</H1>
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<LI><em>To</em>: "'<A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A>'" <<A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A>></LI>
<LI><em>Subject</em>: [MUD-Dev] FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers have more fun</LI>
<LI><em>From</em>: "Koster, Raph" <<A HREF="mailto:rkoster#origin,ea.com">rkoster#origin,ea.com</A>></LI>
<LI><em>Date</em>: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 17:36:29 -0500</LI>
<LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
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<PRE>
Dr. Cat sent this to me accidentally when he meant to send it to the
whole list. Sorry about the extra level of attribution on everything!
-Raph
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cat#bga,com [<A HREF="mailto:cat#bga,com">mailto:cat#bga,com</A>]
> Sent: Friday, August 14, 1998 3:59 PM
> To: rkoster#origin,ea.com
> Subject: Re: UBE/high: [MUD-Dev] Re: W IRED: Kilers have more fun
>
>
> Ok, the list's been spamming me with these "message-like objects" for
> the last month. In fact, I think they''re actual messages, though I
> haven't
> consulted with the local university's messageologist to be certain.
> Anyway
> I'm going to take "revenge" by spamming the list back for a
> little bit.
>
> Raph Koster wrote:
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Marian Griffith [<A HREF="mailto:gryphon#iaehv,nl">mailto:gryphon#iaehv,nl</A>]
> > They'll only realize it if the cost of paying for the cop
> is covered by
> > the money saved by not having those people quit. Which is
> an equation
> > that is as yet very very fuzzy. You might save fifty
> people, but the cop
> > cost you 100 people's subscriptions worth.
>
> The tacit assumption here is that the cops are paid. This is not a
> requirement, but an option. Using carefully selected player
> volunteers
> has potential drawbacks, mainly that you can't necessarily count on
> the same level of quality and reliability of performance.
> But the cost
> equation is a lot more favorable. (They're not 100% free, because of
> whatever cost their is in paid staff's time spent managing them.)
>
> I was told by some kid from Furcadia that he was an Ultima Online GM,
> that he wasn't in Austin and wasn't paid any money, that players were
> just chosen from the game to do that. I didn't have any way to verify
> whether he was telling the truth or not, though. He also
> bragged to me
> about his non-GM character who he claimed was a highly powerful
> playerkiller, which seemed a little ironic to me. :X)
>
> > Absolutely. Massive quantities of them. And as I have
> stated before, I
> > have a LOT of respect for Dr Cat and his work, and think
> his comments on
> > overdesign, and on attention as currency, are dead on. In
> fact, I feel
> > somewhat uncomfortable feeling put in opposition to him, as
> this thread
> > seems to have done...
>
> Well it's a clear case of "oppose the ideas, and not the
> person", and I
> hope
> you don't take it personally. I do admire some of the design
> goals that
> you
> are pursuing and I'm not, and think that someone ought to be pursuing
> them.
> I just think that some of the elements of your approach
> aren't going to
> work
> out the way you hope, because of factors you're not viewing
> from the same
> perspective I am. Anyway you're still near the top of my
> list of people
> I'd like
> to go out to lunch with since I got back to town, if I weren't so
> distracted
> trying to find some way to earn two nickels to rub together
> these days. :
> X)
>
> > If we are working towards virtual realities, as I think we
> are, then I
> > think that there's a problem set there to solve. And we can
> reduce it by
> > going with a smaller design, sure--one tailored to that
> vast group of
> > people who would rather not deal with certain aspects it is
> possible to
> > simulate, such as violence. As Dr Cat said, we can choose
> not to add in
> > combat.
> >
> > But *somebody* is gonna add combat. And since I was (and still am,
> > though my interest is shifting) interested in tackling many of the
> > problems that arise with an environment that includes as many of the
> > experiences life offers as can be made interesting, I regard it as
> > "leaving it out." That's not intended to be derogatory
> towards those who
> > leave it out; they are not trying to address the same
> problem set, is
> > all. I want to tackle the problem set of the day when we have a MUD
> > (read: spatial, multi-user) interface to the entire
> Internet, which I
> > don't think is that far away.
>
> If you're trying to explore a larger, more complex and
> interesting problem
> space and/or solution space, I think there's a point that's
> very easy to
> miss
> here. Which is that there are things you can add to a system that
> increase
> its diversity, and things that can DECREASE the diversity if
> you add them.
> If you operate Joe's online service, or a real-world shopping
> mall for
> that
> matter, and you add in a place for stamp collectors, you've
> increased the
> diversity a little, and probably without adding any problems.
> People that
> don't like stamp collecting will most likely ignore it rather
> than being
> bothered by it.
>
> But try adding something labelled "free sex, free beer, and
> free money!"
> If the initial flood of people into there discovers that you're not
> kidding and
> you actually provide those things, you will see usage decline
> in the other
> areas. Both because some people will prefer that so much
> they won't go
> to the other places any more, and also because other people will be so
> offended they'll just leave entirely. Some of the places and
> activities
> that
> used to draw steady amounts of usage will dry up and vanish. World
> building is not a game where you can only "add" by putting
> new things in.
> You can add or subtract, or in some cases do some amount of both.
>
> The "free sex" thing is an imperfect analogy to combat in a
> virtual world,
> though. The people who insist upon being offended have to choose to
> let it affect their life, by going and looking at it and being upset
> about it.
> They could go to the stamp collector's place and hang out
> there all the
> time, and not worry about it. Introducing combat, though,
> leaves you no
> such choice, at least when done in the relatively
> unrestricted fashion it'
> s
> seen in Ultima Online. If some of the stamp collectors have
> a fair amount
> of money, or if someone even thinks that they might, then the
> activity of
> fighting to the death will be brought to them and imposed upon them.
>
> Putting universally available combat capabilities into a game has the
> potential to drown out many, many non-combat activities. If
> this happens,
> you're not making your environment more diverse. You're not covering
> more of the problems and challenges of making a sophisticated online
> world. You're covering less of them. Because you put in one
> thing that
> wiped out a hundred other things, all in the name of "leaving nothing
> out".
>
> I still don't think anyone really understands Marian's classic Tailor
> Problem.
> Except maybe Marian. (Hi again, Marian!)
>
> Consider some more that MUD interface to the entire net that you
> postulate.
> Imagine that I'm walking through Virtual Walmart with my nice
> Doom style
> interface displayed in my VR helmet. (Or imagine I'm typing
> "go west, go
> north", for you text MUD purists.) I have a desire to purchase lawn
> furniture. Walmart has a desire to receive some of my hard
> earned cash.
> We clearly have a basis for a meaningful relationship here,
> even if we're
> being a bit emotionally shallow about it. Hey, it's
> consensual, don't
> pick
> on us!
>
> So anyway, let's say Boffo leaps out from between the
> sporting goods and
> the hardware section. He's wearing football pads and a hockey mask,
> brandishing a rake, and to his sides and back he's got
> strapped a nail
> gun,
> two hockey sticks, a chainsaw, and a ballpeen hammer. He
> yells "Kreegah!"
> and viciously attacks me. I'm dead.
>
> Now, quite apart from how I might feel about this, Walmart is clearly
> going
> to be upset at the slight reduction in the odds that I will
> spend money on
> their lawn furniture because of this. What's their solution?
> Is it one
> of the
> kinds of answers people have popped up with in reply to
> Marian? Will the
> players - er, I'm sorry, "users", many net users won't be
> interested in
> gaming
> as such... Will the users form posses to lynch the sporting
> goods bandit?
> Will Walmart give 5% discounts to people who patrol their virtual
> corridors
> at least N hours per week, attacking and slaying any know thieves and
> murderers they encounter? Will this graphic violence hurt
> sales in the
> food aisle?
>
> Or will Virtual Walmart be programmed from day one in such a
> manner that
> it simply isn't possible for one person to attack or kill
> another person,
> ever?
> This is a no-brainer for me. They'll probably be in a
> virtual mall where
> you
> can't attack and kill someone the moment they take one step
> outside the
> Walmart doors, either. You'll probably have to head for some kind of
> Virtual
> Arcade or Castle or whatever where combat is enabled, because most
> Internet users are not really going to want to be able to kill or be
> killed.
> And most of those that do aren't going to want it to be a
> possibility 100%
> or the time that they're online. Those that do, much like
> the college
> kids
> that play Assassin games, will probably get some add on
> program to play
> Virtual Assassin whilst running all over in cyberspace.
> Instead of ICQ
> it'll
> be called KillMeToo or something. And elderly shoppers will
> perhaps wave
> an angry fist at the two kids who insist on running through
> the hallways
> of
> Virtual Walmart, knocking over boxes and bumping people aside as they
> insist on playing their rowdy game someplace that wasn't
> meant for it.
> But
> the fist-waving curmudgeon won't be in any danger of having
> their avatar
> virtually disemboweled, I'm pretty confident. And if rowdy
> kids became
> too
> much of a problem, I imagine the store manager would start
> banning them
> from entry to the store any time he caught some.
>
> If you really want to tackle the problem set of the virtual internet,
> then violent
> forms of conflict aren't the big issue. Social and spatial forms of
> harrassment,
> along with hacking, those are your issues. Some kid will program his
> avatar
> to move around in front of you, always hovering in the air
> right in front
> of your
> face, so you never see anything anywhere in cyberspace except for his
> virtual
> belly-button. There has to be some way to deal with that kid.
> Programming in
> a way to lop off his virtual head and send him to the virtual
> temple isn'
> t it. Even
> if grandma who just wants to buy lawn furniture can overcome
> any personal
> reluctance that she has to lopping someone's head off, and
> tries to do it,
> she's
> probably going to lose that fight to the quick, gaming-experienced 16
> year old
> virtual street punk. If granny has to be dependent on 16
> year old Good
> Guy
> street punks to protect her, and has to witness them
> decapitating the Bad
> Guy
> street punks right in front of her virtual eyes, I think
> we've made our
> virtual
> society a step backwards many centuries in terms of the level of
> civilization
> that we've acheived there. Stepping back into the middle
> ages for fun is
> great
> for people that want to play Dungeons and Dragons or join the
> SCA. But do
> we have to require that everyone goes back there, even the
> people that
> just
> want to buy lawn furniture? Is our modern level of progress
> in making
> societies
> where violent attacks are less common something that we don't want to
> replicate in cyberspace, or something we do want but don't
> know how to do
> there?
>
> I think I remember reading a design essay about Ultima
> Online, saying that
> it had roughly recreated the course of social and cultural
> evolution that
> occurred
> in the real world from 500 AD to 1000 AD, over a six month
> period. That'
> s a
> neat thought, and it's certainly a big time savings - a
> thousand to one
> ratio!
> Still, I couldn't help but think, on reading it... Why start
> at 500 AD?
> Don't we
> know enough from having done all that before to be able to
> start a virtual
> society at the point mankind had reached in 1500, 1800, or
> 1900? Maybe
> even 1990? Well, 1990 would be pretty hard - we don't understand how
> 1990 works clearly enough in the real world, and a virtual world is
> likely to
> start further back because it's required to do some things
> differently
> because
> of the different nature of the place. I'd still hope we
> could do better
> than 500 AD
> for a starting point. (Civilization and Age of Empires style games
> notwithstanding.)
>
> > Quite beyond that, I have serious doubts about the commercial
> > feasibility of a server that's completely safe. Not because
> of the lack
> > of interest, but because of the amount of cops you have to
> pay to keep
> > it safe. I use as my rule of thumb whether or not we're
> willing to pay
> > enough cops to keep us safe in the real world, where the
> stakes are a
> > lot higher. :( Yeah, we can code Toontown laws of physics,
> and people
> > will still find ways to screw each other over. Because
> fundamentally,
> > that's what a safe environment is promising: nobody will
> screw you over.
> > And I can't currently design a way around that. I doubt I
> will ever be
> > able to. You can reduce the problem set, but the problem doesn't go
> > away... what's worse, the safer you say you are, the more
> of a target
> > you paint on your chest. A nasty dilemma.
>
> The fact that you can't reduce "possibility of being screwed
> over" to zero
> doesn't make this an insoluble problem. Indeed, if you take measures
> that reduce either the frequency OR the severity of incidents
> of people
> being screwed over, you can reduce the cost of policing enormously.
> This can be done not only by making it harder to screw people over,
> but also by making it less appealing to the tastes of those who love
> to screw people over, and/or by providing other activities
> that tend to
> appeal to that type of person without screwing anyone over
> (or at least,
> not anyone who didn't choose to take such a risk in order to get a
> chance to nail someone themselves.)
>
> As for the stakes, they will continue to grow. I'm sure we'll someday
> have over a billion people online, and at that point the
> value of having
> things like a safe, clean, friendly Disney Online environment will be
> so high that companies like them will throw pretty hefty amount of
> cash at figuring out ways to keep it safe.
>
> I hope they'll throw some of it at me. :X)
>
> I also think that the availability of free or nearly-free
> cops will grow
> as
> the amount of wealth and leisure time that people have continues to
> grow.
>
> > Whew, that was an outpouring. Basically, I cheer on the "safe game"
> > designs. Love to see how you do it. Am openly skeptical
> about how you'll
> > do it. Hope you prove me wrong. And I go about it in a more
> cynical way.
> > ;) UO was intended as just a microcosm, you see. The fact
> that it is as
> > dangerous as it is speaks, IMHO, more to human nature than anything
> > else...
>
> Indeed. I'll conceed I'm not interested solely in catering to human
> nature as
> it exists now, but rather in contributing to its evolution to
> whatever it
> will
> develop into in the next century or two. I do view it as malleable.
> Still,
> there's usually a LOT more money to be made in catering to it
> exactly as
> it stands at any given moment in history... I probably need
> to cater to
> it
> some more and make my fortune before I try to think TOO far ahead.
>
> *-----------------------------------------**------------------
> -----------*
> Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test:
> *-----------------------------------------**
> <A HREF="http://www.bga.com/furcadia">http://www.bga.com/furcadia</A>
> Furcadia - a new graphic mud
> for PCs! || Let your imagination soar!
> *-----------------------------------------**------------------
> -----------*
>
</PRE>
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<li><strong><A NAME="00749" HREF="msg00749.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>
<ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Marian Griffith <gryphon#iaehv,nl></li></ul>
<li><strong><A NAME="00739" HREF="msg00739.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>
<ul compact><li><em>From:</em> "Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com></li></ul>
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<ul><li>Thread context:
<BLOCKQUOTE><UL>
<LI><STRONG>[MUD-Dev] Re: Yet another update on threads and signals</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM>
<ul compact>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00736" HREF="msg00736.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Yet another update on threads and signals</A></strong>,
Chris Gray <a href="mailto:cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA">cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA</a>, Sat 15 Aug 1998, 15:31 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00741" HREF="msg00741.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Yet another update on threads and signals</A></strong>,
Adam J. Thornton <a href="mailto:adam#phoenix,Princeton.EDU">adam#phoenix,Princeton.EDU</a>, Sat 15 Aug 1998, 19:22 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00742" HREF="msg00742.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Yet another update on threads and signals</A></strong>,
Chris Gray <a href="mailto:cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA">cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA</a>, Sat 15 Aug 1998, 20:54 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00745" HREF="msg00745.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Yet another update on threads and signals</A></strong>,
Adam J. Thornton <a href="mailto:adam#phoenix,Princeton.EDU">adam#phoenix,Princeton.EDU</a>, Sun 16 Aug 1998, 16:08 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</ul>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00726" HREF="msg00726.html">[MUD-Dev] FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Koster, Raph <a href="mailto:rkoster#origin,ea.com">rkoster#origin,ea.com</a>, Fri 14 Aug 1998, 22:38 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00739" HREF="msg00739.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Jon A. Lambert <a href="mailto:jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com">jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com</a>, Sat 15 Aug 1998, 18:18 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00793" HREF="msg00793.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Dr. Cat <a href="mailto:cat#bga,com">cat#bga,com</a>, Fri 21 Aug 1998, 04:26 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00749" HREF="msg00749.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Marian Griffith <a href="mailto:gryphon#iaehv,nl">gryphon#iaehv,nl</a>, Sun 16 Aug 1998, 21:21 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00751" HREF="msg00751.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers have more fun</A></strong>,
Dr. Cat <a href="mailto:cat#bga,com">cat#bga,com</a>, Mon 17 Aug 1998, 07:04 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</UL></BLOCKQUOTE>
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