From: wayne@eng.umd.edu (Wayne C. McCullough)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games,rec.games.programmer,comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: <None>
Date: 2 Oct 92 18:55:12 GMT
Organization: College of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park

In article <2OCT199206423935@acad3.alaska.edu> fxmlk@acad3.alaska.edu (KIENENBERGER MIKE L) writes:
>It's based somewhat on the ideas of the Omega game adapted to a network
>environment.
>
>I've given a lot of thought to how players will be able to interact
>with one another, but I've still not come up with solutions I like.
>In a multiplayer game, a player's character is always at the mercy of the
>other players.
>
>Consider Player A and Player B.  Player A has been playing for two weeks
>(no more than 8 hours a day, of course :-) and has developed a good character.
>
>Player B comes along and attacks Player A.  There are three likely
>possibilities:
>        1) A and B are "equal" which takes care of itself.
>        2) B has been playing for much longer than A and has no trouble
>           wiping out A's character (which he has spent two weeks developing)
>        3) B has only be playing a few minutes, but is going to "wear down"
>           A by attacking A, dying, generating a new character, attacking A,
>           etc.
>
>I wouldn't mind senario 1 too much.  Senario 3 is solved by making new
>characters appear in a random starting location (it's a VeryBigMap).
>
>Senario 2 (and thieving to a lesser extent) is more difficult to resolve.
>
>Some ideas I've kicked around are:
>        High Level Friends (NPCs) warp in and help A out.
>        B is declared an outlaw (not that the declaration helps A)
>        Players cannot attack each other unless both agree to the fight. (a
>                "safety" mode)
>        A dies.

I thought of a game or modifying a MUD with the following 
concept:

1)  Whenever a new player joins the game, he/she has the option of
giving his/her services to a 'lord'. (a Player Char, for the MUD
interpetation of this, players would accend to lords, not Wizards)

2)  To gain exp, money, etc, the character would have to do tasks
assigned by the lord (steel this, kill him, etc, etc, etc).  The
player char. can gain his own money, exp, etc, but part of that
goes into the lord's posession (so he can pay off for quests,etc.
Lords may not spontaneously generate this stuff, though they may
get an income say from the amount of land he/she controlls)

3)  If a player acts against the lord, he looses exp, etc, and the
lord may choose to disown him, and have him killed.

4)  If a player char gets killed, his current money and a % of exp
goes to the char that did the killing.  So the lord looses a
percentage of his/her exp.  Therefore, a lord will want to seek
revenge on any char that kills anyone in his service, to discourage
any further killings.

This could result in some very interesting politics in the game, and
would discourage habitual killing of pc's.

what you want to discourage is the ability to quickly create new characters.
If I have a grudge against someone, I will try and wear down him by
creating all sorts of new chars, each attacking him, not giving him a
chance to heal, and not leaving him with anyone to seek revenge upon.

If you require a few days to get a new char, and if once a char passes
below a certain # of xp, then they can't be resurected, then that would
eliminate that sort of vendettas.

>Other pressing problems I'm also considering are:
>        The game is not real time, but I want characters to interact and
>                be able to form teams.

if you have a turn based system, make it so that you can only do n
turns in x amout of time.  this will limit the fast typing syndrome.
then allow communication to be done as fast as the char can type, this
will alow for real time comunication.

>        How to deal with a player quitting or becoming disconnected.

require the char to move to an 'adventurers guild' if they want to save
their equipment, otherwise they leave it all behind, and reapear naked
in the guild next time they come in.  Otherwise people will disconect
to get out of bad situations.

W
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games