[Part of my MMO Design Folder]
Based on the ATITD Test of the Coalition I thought it might be fun to see how the rest of you feel about the following agendas when it comes to MMOs. I not only invite but encourage you to post your own thoughts on your respective blogs or if it's more convenient, in the comment section below.
Today's Agenda: Rights of the Accused vs. Swift Justice
A guild mate of the guild you lead is accused of stealing from the guild stash. While this person is a little shady in their interactions with you and your friends, a few of your other members are close to him/her. You are unable to prove that this person is taking the stuff, but every day more stuff goes missing. Do you continue investigating until you find proof or do you kick the person, as usually the simplest answer is the right one?
Should be no surprise that I'd be on the side of swift justice here. You could even be diplomatic and say it's temporary until the thief is caught. I wouldn't bother though as the simplest answer IS usually the right one. Furthermore I'd also kick all that person's friends from the guild just to be sure. Guilt by association is something I'm definitely in to.
Which path do you prefer?
Definitely proof for me, though my kind of proof is simple, I don't need to prove it to the world, I just need to prove it to the one doing the kicking, ie. Me, if I'm the guild leader.
ReplyDeleteYour scenario reminded me of my old MUD days when I would literally camp out with a bot and wait for a few bad apples to loot the guild stash. The stash was meant for equipping new guildies and not alts, but a handful of people always seemed to bend the rules to assume their alts were fine. They also thought the bot just logged stuff or was just there for deterrence.
Little did they know their university student guild leader had no damn life and was pretty effectively on 18 hours a day, minus sleep time. I'd log on the actual guild leader just in time to catch them red handed giving the stuff to their alts parked outside the guild entrance and bang, gkick without a word.
Very few of them argued, so they definitely knew they were breaking the law there. After a week or two of this, the guild stash stopped having items mysteriously disappear and be unaccounted for.
LOL! That's awesome Jeromai, what was your bot's name? "The Watcher"? ;P
DeleteAengil! (As in 'angel,' as befitting a Guild of Clerics.)
ReplyDeleteShe was pretty much a hand-me-down character, each guild leader inherited her from the one before and just left her logged in 24/7.
Depending on how obsessive said guild leader was (*coughcough*), it was easy enough in the standard MUD clients we were using at the time to set up text logging or triggers to alert us when certain bits of text scrolled past the screen.
I was bored enough to turn her into a sort of very basic chat bot, reacting to certain words or numbers. "Press 1 for X" "Press 2 for Y" and bored people would whisper her just to see what she would say to them.
That may have helped the veneer of harmlessness along.
All good though, it amused the good guys and lulled the bad guys into a false sense of safety!