Posted by Fynn on 07/18
Count the number of game-mechanic posts and appends, and compare them
to what they were a couple years ago. Maybe we have made incredible
progress in game balance so people don't see such anymore. Or,
people simply ceased to care... or ceased to hope that such posts
make any difference.
A lot of mortal control has been coded so that most problems can be
dealt by such code instead of getting to the root of the problem.
Gag and reject probably saves a lot of hassle for admins that otherwise
would have spent additional countless hours (hah) warning
and punishing people. And a lot of hassle is saved for coders since
a lot of pkers will label imbalance as pk skill and not fight chars
they lose to, and if they do fight such unbalanced chars, they simply
acknowledge the fact that they're taking needless chances, hence
little need to make efforts for change. Besides, the posts rarely
brought changes, or so people believe. It simply adds more grief and
invites Jean to post :)
The way I look at legend is quite similar to how i look at my alma mater.
I don't expect to attend my alma mater the way i had used to, and
even when I do, my concerns don't have the same urgency as before.
So what if the campus is less lively and less friendly? I simply cherish
the fact that the graffiti i have left or some records of me are kept
on campus, and that the buildings I lived in are still standing. Yeah, it
would probably rip my heart if i were to hear that a great hangout
of mine is getting demolished to make room for a new lecture hall, or
to hear that grass turf is being turned into a parking lot, but if
it is better for the school...
But what i find alarming is that i'm not the only one that is
this detached. There are times when i believe the majority is as
detached as i am. They all see themselves as having graduated from
this place yet staying simply because... what? memories?
The 'school' no longer functions as a place of learning or a place
that can offer challenges to its 'students.' Rather, it has become
a social gathering where little is to be learned, but a lot of
effort is spent forming clicques, backstabbing, affairs...
Maybe this was what people envisioned the mud to be, more people
concerned with all kinds of interaction as opposed to 'beating the system'
or getting to know the system.
As i am happy RL with a BA, i could care less if the faculty here
don't bother to research and open new classes for prospective MA
and PhD students. But as someone proud of their alma mater, it
would of course make me feel better if it did.
Fynn
From: Ming
Monday, July 16 2001, 09:29AM
Yeah, very accurate IMO... maybe they (the Imms) should change the
name of this place...
LegendMOO
ROLF
as long as they leave in PK...
From: LadyAce
Monday, July 16 2001, 04:47PM
Just a small comment, but...the irony.
One post talking about how imms are not giving enough power to the
players, followed by one which complains about two pieces of code
which give more power to players.
Gag
...it lets people eliminate the nastiness of other people's mouths and
manners, without having to run to the imms all the time.
Sure, it is fewer complaints for the admin staff, but really, the way we
used to deal with these, our best bet was to snoop the victim and hope tha
t the offender persisted so that we could actually catch them. Plus we
had to be online at the time, there would be no records kept unlike with
most other types of rule-breaking. The ultimate result is that there's
a little less work of that type for admins (who can then do other things,
which require greater levels of talent and which benefit more people),
sure. But there's also less of this junk for people to deal with,
particularly at late hours.
PKOK (and friendship, although friendship is less controversial)
There's definitely a level where PKOK was a good way for the imm staff to
stop focusing so much effort on a code feature which was only utilized
by a small percent of the playerbase. But it can also be a tremendously
empowering feature for players to be able to direct the way that the pk
community functions, if it's used in that fashion.
Besides gag/channelgag, pkok/friendship, and self-archival, I would also
argue that we are responsive to many types of player ideas, and more
so than we were in the past. Certainly we have a backlog of big code ideas
that haven't gone in, and that backlog is being whittled away more slowly
than we would all like it to be. But almost every week, we put in a
smaller idea suggested by a player, and our bug & typo fixes from areas
are very heavily player-generated. All in all, I think that this adds up
to a good amount of power for players who want to use it.
-LA
From: Dusk
Tuesday, July 17 2001, 11:30AM
Just a thought, but doesn't the mud need a certain amount
of confrontation? People need to have their emotions flared
every once in awhile to inspire them to act. Of course I
don't mean the type of confrontation that is severly detrimental
to others. People get angry by others actions, so they just
use the code to ignore it. They are ignoring the catalyst
which helps people get up off their ass, and fight/preach
for what they believe. Back in the day, I remember killing
morphine, and looting his string. Well, instead of
everyone just rejecting me, the mercs band together, and
chased me down with enormous groups and got the strings back.
We used to have 5 on 5 pkill battles that would rage on
for weeks! Now if the mere threat of controversy rears
its ugly head, we just reject/gag it before it is allowed
to flare up. With the way things are, we don't NEED leaders.
Leaders are born in times of crisis! Without crisis,
you are never going to have the basic fundamental tools
to create an interesting environment.
I am not saying rip out the code or anything, but
people don't seem to understand why the leaders of the past
existed. Just think about it.
Master Dusk
From: Ganymede
Tuesday, July 17 2001, 04:28PM
I think Dusk is right. I've tried to be a leader of the so-called 'good'
community of Legend, but the fact is, conflicts like that barely exist
anymore. As such it's next to impossible to motivate anyone to follow
such causes. Where is the need?
It's not even just the overdone and cliche 'good vs evil' conflict. There
isn't ANY major conflict left. It's been almost totally sanitized away.
In my opinion, there is a point where we should be willing to accept
some level of danger from other players in order for things to be
exciting. Sadly, many players are so afraid that their feelings might get
hurt, they just don't ever engage anybody.
We've now seen both extremes: total war, conflict and chaos, and total
avoidance of any conflict at all. Now it's time to find something in the
middle.
Ganymede et al.
From: Tempus
Wednesday, July 18 2001, 02:21AM
I agree with both Dusk and Ganymede.
I think by allowing people to reject or accept pk, it made
it into a venture that lack any real risk. Back when someone
joined into pk, you were joining into a world of high risk
and excitment. I enjoyed the risk, the looting, permaing, etc
that people seem to find bad with past pk. I think that
by taking away that ugly aspect of pk you are taking away
the fun of pking. Its like a War but without the
bloodshed and everyone goes home without a scratch.
What fun is that? Why bother even joining in?
I really believe pk isn't as good anymore. There is no
more Clan to Clan battles for ideals. Its all
lets duel and stuff like that.
-Tempus, newbie of legend.
From: Mallory
Wednesday, July 18 2001, 10:26AM
I really think all the opportunities are in the code, people just
don't use them as long as an imm. don't force them to. It really
annoys me to read post after post of complaints about pkok, when
all it takes to have the old pk back is a group of people agreeing
on it and regulating it among themselves. So what if someone wants
to ruin it by rejecting you even though you agreed not to? So reject
him and pk with him again...
Pkok has that option, along with the option to pk when one chooses
as an extention to rp, an option the old system didn't really have.
(oops)
And as for all the fights being duels, well, I don't know about you, but
I keep people accepted once I've accepted them, so there's a potential
element of surprise there..
-Mallory
From: Ganymede
Wednesday, July 18 2001, 12:30PM
Yes Mallory, the opportunities are in the code. But Legend is just like
real life: conflict (and the resulting comraderie) arise out of a need,
not a desire. A few years ago, the clans (all pk clans) were the center
of Legend's social scene. Since we had people who RPed and PKed as
genuinely threatening bad guys and they couldn't be rejected, that created
a need for genuine "good-guy" forces to combat them and keep them in
line.
Nowadays, nobody really does the bad guy thing. And even if they did,
people would just all reject them because they take the game too seriously
and get their feelings hurt too easily. So there's no threat, and hence
no great need for opposing pk clans and no excitement.
You will say that if we really wanted to have that back, we'd just all
agree to accept one another and get it back. But Legend is a community,
and among such a large group of people, it just isn't as easy as saying
"let's do it" to get everyone to obey and adhere to the same rules.
I'm sure even the imms know how hard it is for even a small group of
people to all agree to something.
Just saying we'll do it isn't enough. We need a better way to try to get
that old excitement back within the bounds of pkok. Ideas on how to do
that? I'm thinking.
Ganymede et al.
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