From: q1x092@rick.cs.ubc.ca (Wilson W Ma)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.diku
Subject: Re: Double Standard on Copper
Date: 22 Jan 1993 08:36:38 -0800
Organization: Computer Science, University of B.C., Vancouver, B.C., Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: gambier.rick.cs.ubc.ca

In article <1993Jan22.011929.1@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu> cvadrgkg@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu writes:
>As has happened before, the previous post has missed the point completely.
>Let me address them one by one:
>I am not ignorant of the nature of harm.  You see to think that I am, simply
>because I repeated what Fleven said on the board.

I have not missed the point.  It is just that you are using a very flimsy
excuse to help weasel yourself out of your predicament.  Most people on MUD
are quite intelligent (after all most of us are in university) but the second
people get into trouble, they plead absolute ignorance.  I am not just
referring to mortals, but quite a few immortals have cheated recently and
also have pleaded ignorance but have since been removed.

>Comparing MUD and the court system is not even close to being valid; one might
>assume that the system of justice on mud is more fair than the court system
>because it is smaller and more intimate.  However, as in the case of copper,
>this system has gone wrong because of the personal feeling of a number
>of people on the "councils," which are the ruling bodies on the mud.
>People from UNC and Poly have been killing quite a few people; in some cases,
>mortal characters of people on the coucil.  This has, in my opinion, biased
>the council against everyone at these schools.

I use the court example only insofar that ignorance is not tolerated as an
excuse for one's actions.  "Justice" is not just for you and you alone.  It
is also there for your victims who were dispatched with because of that bug.
Do you think that a level 10 single class with less than half of your hit
points would ever survive your attack?  Where is the justice in that?  If
you were killing multi-class players within your level restriction then I
would say: nice job.  But picking on MUCH weaker players because of a bug
is just plain mean and if the rules state that you are penalized for using
a bug then I will make sure that all offenders will receive the same fate.
No one has ever killed my mortals, not even the illustrious Lurk, Mon and
Felon and I am considered by many players to be one of the most objective
gods on Copper.  I have never let my personal opinions ever cloud my judgment
about any issue.  But I do take cheating seriously and if you are going to
cheat and break rules then you are going to be penalized.

>We play as a very large  mudding group, usally in the same room.  Because
>we transfer eq quickly between us and without mud spoken words does NOT mean
>we are the multiples that the gods on copper believe us to be.

We all know that there are people who multi-play.  It is unfortunate that
most people give enough evidence to that cheating (such has mistyping a
client program command for switching to other sessions, I have seen such
thinks as "/world az" which is obviously switching in tinyfugue and I have
seen a scout character type: "coper b" to switch to his killer... obviously
he meant to type "copper b" which I know is a common alias in tintin ).
I know that there are a few people who play from UNC and Poly but that still
does not mean people do not cheat.  And remember, you were not caught
transferring equipment but for exploiting a bug which was well known by quite
a few mortal and immortal players.

>Given this environment of prejustice, the councils usually over-react
>to the preceived mis-actions of people from unc or poly.  My previous post
>is an example of that.  A character should know the rules; that is what "help
>laws" is about.  The board is not necessarily the primary medium for
>legislation on mud.  No mention of the bug was put in the laws file, nor
>was it put in the MOTD (startup screen).  Given these factors, having my
>character destroyed without any verbal warning at all is completely uncalled
>for.

First of all, I only looked into the matter because a single class player
complained to me that you had killed them and that they thought the rules
prevented multi-class players from killing single class players, so I looked
into the matter and indeed you were killing single class players.  I don't
know you and I really don't care but if you are going to play copper then
you will have to abide by all of the rules including ones on the board since
bugs crop up constantly in DikuMUD.

Then what is the point of the board?  It isn't there for the convenience of
the players, it is there for the convenience of the implementors to post
information (and is easier to do so than to put into the MOTD or the NEWS of
a MUD because any god can post to a board).  I don't know about you but it
isn't particularly hard for people to level characters on Copper (21/21 in
3 days in not particularly uncommon) so I think continually whining about
losing a character is just plain immature (since almost everyone I know has
at least 3-5 multi level characters).

>And that is the exact point of my previous post; my point about my friend
>who is a god on copper is just a point for reference.  Why his god plays
>little, his two mortals play a lot, practically every day.  And he did
>not know of this rule.  None of my friends locally who play mud knew about
>it either.  This post is about intolerance because of personal prejustice
>on copper; I point to only the most recent example of this.  There are a large
>number of similar, but less serious examples I couse cite.

Well all I can say is that several people have asked me about that bug message
and all of them seem to have understood it before asking me.  This bug has not
been around for very long and I know your friend has not been on much mortal
or immortal so I really wish you would stop using him to hide behind.  You are
only just upset because you lost your fun and games (player killing) because
you got caught cheating.  But don't forget, the rules are setup to protect the
innocent (your victims) from your cheating.  Anyway, I think enough bandwidth
has been wasted on this topic.

Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.diku