How to Discourage Staff, in One Easy Step

[Sanvean]

I'd like to open something up for discussion, because from the staff side of things, it's really discouraging, and I'm curious how it's perceived from the player side as well as if there are any suggestions how to prevent it.

Here's the scenario:
Staffer A puts time, energy, and love into a new area for the game. Maybe it's only a few rooms, but with something in it that they consider very neat. At some point down the line, they find out that a player or players are using it as a source of loot: every time the game reboots the PC runs to the area in order to kill all the NPCs and take any items they can find.

Examples:
- a camp with a unique item intended to be part of that tribe's culture, which a PC takes in order to sell, to the point where the uniqueness is destroyed.
- a city area intended to be atmospheric, which a PC runs through on a regular basis, murdering everyone in sight.

If you've done this or something similar in the past - what's going through your head when you do it? Presumably you have a different version of the actions in your head - what's that version look like?

Aside from making sure that NPCs are clanned correctly and are buff enough to defend themselves - is there any way staff can avoid this other than not putting things into the game in the first place? What signals can we provide as builders that an area is not intended as the equivalent of the Smurf Village?

[John]

Well I've never done something like this, but if it's the SAME player doing this every reboot, then I think that's highly unrealistic. After all, he would of killed the tribe off by now  :roll:

Also, if it's suppose to be a unique item, perhaps make it so that when it is stolen, it doesn't repop and a flag is waved to the staff. That way they can make a small mini-plot about people getting the item back

[SailorMars]

What signals can we provide as builders that an area is not intended as the equivalent of the Smurf Village?

I don't do what is described, but I'm guessing most often players who really want to H&S do it, or, rarely, the psychotic character. Of course, Zalanthas is a harsh place, where you can fight for a scrap of food or a sip of water, so maybe killing anyone you can and taking their shit is not all that psychotic, rather it's survival? I'm playing Devil's Advocate on that last part, because it sounds like the people doing it are obviously camping the zone in a cheesy way.

Anyway, my suggestion is: Code the zone mobs into groups. If one member of the group is attacked, everyone in the room helps out. Make it so NPCs can witness an attack one room away, and those also come to help out. The motivation for the group tactics can be anything from a village protecting its own, to "Oh, there's a fight? I'll join in and loot that dead guy who started the fight." Hey, if the PCs are psycho, the NPCs might be too, right? Heh, if people keep coming to steal their artifacts they might be especially testy. Or simply use justice, where VNPC guards come destroy the agitator.

Unfortunately, in any gaming environment, you get the losers that follow the letter of the law and not the spirit, i.e. "If the rules allow it, I will do it, even if it's obviously cheesy." Gotta make consequences that don't involve the imms catching them in the act everytime, because that's just not realistic.

There's my 2 'sids.

[YellowCactus]

Armageddon has been my first and only Mudd.  The learning curve for emoting and using commands was tough and took a month to really get proficient.  The Virtual Rp is the real challenge to any stranger to Armageddon.  It's taken me well over a year to adjust my actions from 'what my character can do' to 'what my character should do'.  I don't believe my long list of Armageddon sins fall exactly into Sanvean's scenario of mundane abuse.  But it seems like direct contact with the offending player/s would be most effective.  It's always been an effective way of handling my miss-moves.  "Hey You!  What do you think your doing!"  That's all the feedback I can give you.  Be patient...... :wink:
And take your frustrations out with a heavy handed templar!

[Angela Christine]

Bummer.

Aside from making sure that NPCs are clanned correctly and are buff enough to defend themselves - is there any way staff can avoid this other than not putting things into the game in the first place? What signals can we provide as builders that an area is not intended as the equivalent of the Smurf Village?

Remove the reward.

Someone is exibiting an undesireable behavior.  What is their motivation, what do they gain?  

Take the case of a unique cultural item.  It isn't meant to drift into the economy, so set the value really low.  Merchants outside that group just don't care for the item, they don't like the materials or the workmanship.  For whatever reason they don't want to buy it, or they don't want to spend more than a couple 'sid on it, because there just isn't a market for it.  If the item isn't meant to be highly portable, increase the weight.  Lots of people will leave gith gear on the sands because it is heavy and practically worthless, so it isn't worth hauling back to town.  Most people are happy to avoid gith, because there is little incentive to "hunt" them.  Making the loot worth less is kind of cheating, but it is easier than the alternative.


Increase the risk.  

You can only make characters so strong before it becomes absurd, but you can increase the number of coded NPCs in the area.  Even something like a wimpy snake can kill you if 10 of them attack at once.  If a given area is supposed to have a couple thousand residents, but there are only a dozen coded NPCs, then an insane PC or two can "clear" the area even though they couldn't possibley deal with all the people that are there virtually.  Writing NPCs isn't something that seems to be really popular, but more NPCs that can assist eachother increases the risk to attackers.  Most places, whether decrepit slums or isolated tribal encampments are pretty crowded, because it is a hostile world so people huddle together.  Having a few NPCs in every single room is not unrealistic, and it makes it much more difficult for a crazed mass murderer to survive.  I think the number of "people" NPCs could be increased ten-fold throughout the game without being in the least unrealistic.  Anyplace there is an intelligent NPC now, put 10 intelligent NPCs.  Instead of a tribal camp having 10 NPCs, give them 50 or 100 NPCs and that still won't represent all the people living there.  Instead of a clan compound having 6 coded NPCs hanging around, have 60, that will still only be a fraction of the virtual employees and residents but it will make the situation more realistic for would-be miscreants.  Many of those NPCs would be children, old people, slaves not trained in combat, and other non-buff people, but even weak people will band together and fight back rather than waiting to be slaughtered one by one.  The wilderness should be lonely, but the settled areas should be bustling.  Many settled areas seem almost deserted, because you have to carefully read the room descriptions and fill in all the VNPCs with your imagination.

Unfortuantely writing hundreds or thousands of new NPCs is a daunting task.  So . . . I don't know.


AC

[ShaLeah]

Be warned, this may be too harsh, but... no one's ever accused me of being delicate, so here goes:

Make each and every area within a city, a city within itself, make any attack within that area have the PC be hunted by every PC in that area -and- the city that place is in, kind of like a lynching.  
For example, if I attack someone in Freil's Rest, I'd be wanted in Freil's -and- Tuluk -and- the Circle. Residents of Freil's along with legionnaires would attack me on sight. If I run to the Circle to escape, they'd attack me too.
Same thing with Allanak, if someone is attacked within the noble/templar/rinth/elementalist quarters, NPC's would jump to the attack.

I'm not saying make -all- NPC's attacking, but a good majority of them. Breaking up the cities into sections within the city and "clanning" them both areas would make it doubly difficult to get away with murder.  Yes, even the labyrinth since I have heard that that is THE place to buff your character up and twink backstab.  I can only assume one or two templar's have been greased to ensure Guild relations be discreetly ignored.
Save for noble estates/holdings, merchant house estate/holdings and private residences of more than one room.  One room houses off the road should be clanned city since more than likely someone walking by heard -something-.

Milder suggestions?

1- Make it really hard to get into.
2- Make anyone with a special item near impossible to kill.
3- Change the locations of special, unique items every so often so that potential abusers can't count on their location.
4- Make unique places like Private Rooms, where you have to ask the guard manning it to enter and pay. Wanna see all that crystal? Pay me X amount. Is that one harsh?

[jhunter (notlogged)]

If the item is an important cultural item, then wouldn't it be well-guarded?
Make it protected well-enough that only one very skilled or a group working together could possibly obtain it.
Also, as someone else said, if it is taken...wouldn't there be a planned effort to regain the item?
Hell, even if they were being cheesy in taking it...it'd be alot of fun to see what happens when those it was taken from go to get it back. :twisted:

[Narlac is no longer staff]

If the item is an important cultural item, then wouldn't it be well-guarded?
Make it protected well-enough that only one very skilled or a group working together could possibly obtain it.
Also, as someone else said, if it is taken...wouldn't there be a planned effort to regain the item?

This exact scenario happened with a project of mine back before I retired.  I had created a whole mythology around an object.  That object was set to be available in a location to represent the rest of the clan's population making a new one available.  The object was two rooms deep into an area with a carefully worded room title so as to discourage people from entering.  What happened?  Someone entered the area, spammed north twice, grabbed the object, then ran out.  They did this over and over ad nauseum.  They also sold the item to other players.  Now, what should have been done about this?  The people stolen from would have chased the person who did this down and slaughtered them without question.  Instead a discussion was had and the player stopped this activity.  

A good rule of thumb is to imagine how the chain of events you are planning out would go differently if one of those npcs you are about to victimize was a player.

[Gabriel]

"signalling intent" is synonymous with "relying on the player's self-restraint", and if you could do that then the issue wouldn't have come up in the first place. You have two options, or rather only one option with two styles of implementation: Change the risk/reward ratio for that area, either by upping the risk or lowering the reward.

Upping the risk can be handled as an IC issue (code more or tougher opponents, make escape more difficult, etc) or as an OOC issue (contact the offender, remove karma, terminate account). Reducing the reward can be accomplished by reducing either the cash value or the portability of the ph@t l3wt.

See also the classic "d00d essay": "Try considering d00ds as a genetic algorithm with the express purpose of solving the problem of finding bugs."

[X-D]

Me, I'm a fan of guardians and sleepers.

Guardian, this would be a very special npc that responds to an item's "curse" I've used them on a few muds, Basicly the item gets taken by somebody not of the item's clan and the guardian is activated, the guardian need not track the thief since it is tied to the item.


Sleepers are for areas, another fun deal, these are npc's that do not seem much of a threat,  loads of fun.
Like that old scarred one armed man, he might be a retired byn commander, maybe old, but has forgotten more tricks with the sword then other people will ever learn. That dirty hag in the ragged hood, attack her and find out she is some psycho berzerker carrying two plague-ridden daggers, that smirking dark-haired youth wandering down the road is really Tek slumming, that fat old dwarf who's folds of neck fat cover the gem that would have let you know he is a krathi of power. That guy in a blue robe and pointy hat carrying a stabbity knife.

Make them protective of other npc's in the area and let them see a room away.

Nice thing about it is, this means you don't need to put in tons of npcs or buff up each and every one

[naatok]

A long time ago in a university town far away....

I used to be one of these cheez whizzes.  It was over a decade ago when my pc of that day would kill a guard in old Tuluk over and over again in order to get the fella's metal hauberk...which was worth ALOT of 'sid just about anywhere.

My only saving grace for that piece of shit activity was that I came from a Diku called 'SillyMud' to Arm and it took me a while to grasp the significance of realistic roleplaying environments.  That and the fact that I'm not even remotely doing things like that anymore.

That said, I understand why people do this sort of thing.  The reason they do it is because they honestly do not consider the impact their pc has on the game world.....when consideration of that impact is a detriment to what the player wants to do, thinks is 'cool' or what would make the pc rich and powerful.  Oh, sure...so long as it typifies Supa /_337 stats, skills, powerplay then the impact of their pc is just groovy.  Just not when the consequences/effects of the activity are 'inconvenient' or 'a bummer'.

Having come from that at one point, I have to say that now....I HATE that attitude!  I've seen such play ruin so many awesome plots/environments in this game world over the years.  it SUCKS!

What I think can, and should be done about it are a few things....first, exactly what we ARE doing right here.  Talking about it.  Sanvean opening this topic up for discussion is probably the single most effective way of dealing with it and cutting down on its occurrence.  I'm not naive enough to believe it will stop completely.  There are just too many freakin' idiots in the real world.

I like the idea of making special items in such environments _limited_.  If one person in the game has one, then another such item will never be loaded.  I've seen this sort of thing on other muds back in the day.  Doesn't Arm's code allow for staff to do this, even if the item is saved in a player file and the player isn't logged in with the item?

As for PCs invading an area and stealing such things, again, there HAS to be some test for realism.  If 1-4 PCs go into an area and manage to slaughter every NPC in it, then something is wrong.  Certainly with the idiot players running said PCs, but also with how the area is coded or set up.

Personally, I LIKE the idea that PCs can find new areas through dangerous discovery and get something cool out of it.  If unique items can't be prevented from repopping once taken by a PC in code, then perhaps something could be set up that email's the mud account when the item is taken...or when a PC logs off with the item in their inventory (I like the first option, myself).
That way the staff can formulate a realistic and adequate response to the discovery of the new area, the death of any npcs therein, and the theft of any items from them or their environs.

I guess the most important question is....'Is it possible to set this up, codewise?'  The second most important question is....'Is it worth the time and effort staff have to put into it in order to have these unique areas/people/creatures/items in the game?

I honestly don't see how we can hope to curtail/prevent the discussed abuse if both these questions can't be answered with a 'Yes'.

As much as I really, really REALLY hate to say it....if not....then I wouldn't want staff to waste their time making these awesome additions to Zalanthas.  

[amish overlord]

Some ideas
1)(This I don't see and think would take way too much of imms time) Have animate or create a group of npcs's to track the guy down to kill him, have them show up in taverns and stuff asking about the guy.
2) Have a single npc going around and offering a bounty on the guy. A decen sized bounty, since the item is supposinbly atleast valuable to the tribe. Posibly post on the IC boards and have mudmail address of the imm in it ooc so they can animate an npc from whatever group to reward whoever gets the guy.

Just two of my own ideas. Think the one of making it worth almost nothing is a good one two, who would want a tribes skull totem or other wierd thing?

[Callisto]

If you want to send a message to players, adding more NPCs or buffing them up to absurd levels isn't going to do it, that will just force twinks to think up new tactics and find new holes to exploit. It is just like copy protection and the people who break them, the more you challenge, the more they pour themselves into 'winning.'

The best and only ways to break players of twinkish habits is plain OOC punishment and relevant options. You can animate that Templar NPC to scare the twink player a little, but that won't last, nor will surprise code. Even if you kill their PC, all you are going to do is piss them off OOCly and provoke them into looking to cut more corners in order to stick it to you.

A few ideas:

1) More notes and feedback - when someone does something wrong, make sure you warn them and offer suggestions on how to correct the problematic habits. If you just dish out harsh and disapproving notes, all it does is breed bad blood - go over the situation and take the time to explain things. Will it take a little more time? Sure, but odds are in the future you won't ever have to deal with that player doing it again.

2) More real punishment - when someone continues to cheat the game by exploiting bugs or holes in the code, take away some karma or issue a 24 hour ban. Short term you aren't going to lose players that wouldn't have left once they realized the coded game is empty, but even if you lose one or two, long term you are going to have players who have a lot more respect for the rules and game as a whole.

3) Staff members with a clan - pay more attention to the people who play in your clan. The big abuse breeder seems to come from, but not limited to, newer players who become bored with clan life. Throw together a quick RPT and scramble your PCs to take care of it. Spawn a drunken mul NPC that has taken a hostage in Kuraci holdings, have a slave NPC run rampant in the Borsail barracks, have an NPC Fale demanding a showing of goods from the Kadian warehouse. When things get dead slow, throw something in to spice it up, even if it doesn't take more then half an hour to solve, its something to break up a slump and keep people from doing stupid things.

4) Options - start a thread or post a call for ideas, like the salt gathering or obsidian mining in Allanak. Create some options for combat characters to earn some money that let's them do some fighting, since by and large most abuse comes from fighters and thieves, in my experience. The Arena in Allanak is ripe for some non-lethal and lethal combat where PCs can earn a little coin entertaining the masses. Setup a gauntlet where players can battle a line of random NPCs, such as first an NPC jozhal, then scrab, then a gith, then a beetle, etc. Have the NPC give rewards based on how the PC made it before having to flee.

Open it up to some PC vs. PC duals with coded support, where one can "challenge <whoever>" and the other person can "accept" or "refuse". Accepting could warp them into the arena (Via "rent me" code) and the two fight it out until one flees or dies, at which point they're given time to emote the victory or defeat before being warped back out and rewarded by NPC Templar for 50 'sid or something. Nothing major, but then PC fighters could earn a little drink and food money.

You could open an Allanaki fighting pit along similar lines, too, maybe below the Gaj.

Preventive options and real punishments would clear up the vast majority of minor to major twinking that goes on, in my opinion.

[mansa]

Give more warnings.  Please.  Tell us you are warning us.  Tell us what we did wrong.  Then tell us again.  Sometimes I don't know that you're really telling me that requesting for that jewelled phallus is really a -bad- idea.

[Forest Junkie]

Give more warnings.  Please.  Tell us you are warning us.  Tell us what we did wrong.  Then tell us again.

Agreed.  

Though, I do understand, I think, why the staff would be so upset over this. It is agravating, I know, and I hope you may find a way to resolve the issue at hand.

In the words of Jerry, "Help me, help you." =P

[Carnage]

Be blunt. If it was me in charge, the first thing I would do is transfer the person to some room I had to speak to problem players.

Then I'd say something along the following: "You're picking this area clean and abusing the code. If you keep doing this, I'm going to be upset. Right now I'm teetering on the edge of banning you for a week but some of the other imms are asking me to give you a second chance. So I'm going to. But the next time I catch you doing this, it'll be an insta-slay and you'll be banned as long as I feel like it."

From what I can tell of reading over the old player-staff meeting logs, it's what (Edit: Azroen, not Arkon) would do. And he looked like an imm I really wouldn't want to piss off.

[EvilRoeSlade]

What happened?  Someone entered the area, spammed north twice, grabbed the object, then ran out.  They did this over and over ad nauseum.  They also sold the item to other players.  Now, what should have been done about this?  The people stolen from would have chased the person who did this down and slaughtered them without question.

I think this is the real problem.  The PC would have died.  Why didn't they?  If you won't enforce IC consequences, then there will always be people who won't pay attention to them.  Wait for them at the reboot and have the entire tribe kick their ass, if that's what you have to do.

Polite reprisals and soft, low-impact punishments are great for keeping players, but bad for getting anybody to do what you want.  Kill their characters if that's what would happen ICly, and then send them an E-mail explaining why they died.  If they leave the game, don't lose any sleep over it.  Because some people are just idiots.  The best thing to do is smarten them up or send them along as soon as possible.

[Cuusardo]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with OOC punishment for repeated, blatant OOC code abuse.  The punishment should fit the crime.

[ShaLeah]

Give more warnings.  Please.  Tell us you are warning us.  Tell us what we did wrong.  Then tell us again.  Sometimes I don't know that you're really telling me that requesting for that jewelled phallus is really a -bad- idea.

Agreed. ...
In the words of Jerry, "Help me, help you." =P

Be blunt. If it was me in charge, the first thing I would do is transfer the person to some room I had to speak to problem players.

I think this is imperative. How are we supposed to know we're fucking up if we're not told?  Getting punished for evil deeds done when one doesn't know they are evil deeds kind of sucks.

I agree.

[Carnage]

Exactly. Just as well, I think a conversation with the player is a lot more effective than a simple e-mail.

Yeah i say tell us when we do something you considered fucked up.

No instead you will sit there and deduct karma and just hope we understand what we did wrong. or we have to wait until our account notes become less Ic sensitive..which could take months for me.

Email the player's account. Warn them. Explain why. I thought there was supposed to be more staff-player interactions or some bullshit. Let the play know as soon as possible.

[Sanvean]

Before jumping to conclusions, please be assured that the players responsible in both of the examples I cited have been talked to. I posted because a) I would like to understand better how people justify these actions to themselves and b) suggestions on how to prevent them -before- they happen, rather than having to engage in talking to people after the fact. Thanks.

[da mitey warrior]

Actually, I think Armageddon has done a very good job keeping this sort of behavior in check.  The way that the economy, skills and equipment are set cuts down on 90% of twinkish behavior.  Armageddon as a whole is an excellent example of game design.

People play the game that is set out for them, if we took the same players were had now and set them down in a stock diku mud the game would soon decay into a blood fest as everyone tried to get to level 50 and Thrain's big shiny axe of ultimate destruction first.  

The code needs to encorage people to play the game as it is intended.  People used to go out and kill gith by the hundred because you could get maybe 400 sids each from their equipment.  Players would go out and kill 500 gith captains and end up with hundreds of thousands of sid in the bank.  I'm not saying everyone did, but enough that it it focused the ballance of the game to gith killing.  Once gith gear was made worthless alot of that dried up and players went on to focus on hunting game, which makes more RP sense.  The general harshness of the game for new characters also makes clans more viable, since you can't easily become rich and famous on your own anymore.  It worked very well.

The solution to problem is to make the it harder to be a twink.  It doesn't have to be iron-clad, just something that curbes the worst cases.  I don't care if someone kills a bunch of npcs while I'm not logged on.  I just don't want to see the game treated like midgard.  It's not a solution to have the imms guard everyone better, it has to be a coded solution because you can't watch everything.  And sending more negative messages to trouble makers is just going to piss people off and lead to more negative feelings all around.

The super-secret item worth a pile of money and that reloads every reboot is just asking for trouble.  If even 99% of the player base is well behaved, that 1% is gonna find it sooner or later and abuse the crap out of it.  It should be made worthless, or nailed down or have some sort of "everyone attacks you if you touch it" script.

I've also long held that the rinth needs some sort of basic justic system.  Not jails and templars, but some sort of mob rule that kicks in after a while.  Even something basic like a bodycount which triggers a whole mess of elves coming after you once you kill your 100th rinther that week.

So in summery:  If players are being twinks, changes should be put in place to make twinking less profitable or to make the world more realistic.  It's just good game design, something which the staff does well.

[Sastro]

Make said players not in the clan begin to lose hit points the closer they get to said item, or stun points.  That would sure as hell stop me in my tracks.  :-)  If it's a culturally important item maybe a few stealthy guards or booby-traps may be in order.  Make em get shot by a poisoned dart so they have to hustle out of there before they collapse.

[jhunter]

Narlac is no longer staff wrote:
What happened? Someone entered the area, spammed north twice, grabbed the object, then ran out. They did this over and over ad nauseum. They also sold the item to other players. Now, what should have been done about this? The people stolen from would have chased the person who did this down and slaughtered them without question.

EvilRoeSlade wrote:I think this is the real problem. The PC would have died. Why didn't they? If you won't enforce IC consequences, then there will always be people who won't pay attention to them. Wait for them at the reboot and have the entire tribe kick their ass, if that's what you have to do.


I agree with this completely.

In other cases though, some warning about behavior...but, if it can be handled in a realistic IC way, I think that should always be done first.

Suffer the consequences of your char's actions, big and small.

I know myself, the first time an imm jumped in and showed me IC consequences to my actions it made me start to think more realistically about how I played my characters.

It was more fun to learn that way IMHO.