@Bandama: I do not understand at all what IC law would have to do with it. I absolute do not understand at all what you are talking about. How could IC law affect what a player believes is intended about a particular feature? There is no link from the IC world into the OOC world. Changing things in the game does not affect the game definition. Or what does it mean that "Bandama is Arborean"? That there may exist a character that has this opinion? Sure. That some of those characters may have created some laws which says that is the case? Sure. That this is the intention from the wizards? That it reflects the truth of that city? No. Not even by a longshot. If players are playing the game it is intended or not, is one thing. What their characters believe is another. Sorry, I think there is a huge mix up between in-game and game definition. But there is no point in debating what characters think OOC (I'm sort of assuming here [and pretty much everywhere else] that our discussion are based on player's views, not what some character may think)..
That soundls like the good old game design discussion, and yes, I personally read most of your posts. This is a MUD, the players make most of the story, the depth of design, intention and storyline you are assuming in a lot of your posts is not given at all imo. (And, shouldnt that get an own thread?)Nathan wrote:ewelyn wrote:@Bandama: [...] That this is the intention from the wizards? That it reflects the truth of that city? No. Not even by a longshot. If players are playing the game it is intended or not, is one thing. What their characters believe is another. Sorry, I think there is a huge mix up between in-game and game definition. But there is no point in debating what characters think OOC (I'm sort of assuming here [and pretty much everywhere else] that our discussion are based on player's views, not what some character may think)..
Yes, the game design discussion is always relevant - I am glad you have read most of my posts. I also agree that it should have been given its own thread. I first stated as part of the hinterland discussion that Crusaders exert control over Bandama, as part of motivating why city walls would be relevant, as part of motivating how hinterlands should be design. Now, the criticism raised against this was initiated in the same forum thread. I believe that any lengthier break-down of such intermediate claims should have been opened in a new thread, since arguing against this in the same thread risks making the thread itself about one of the details of my argument. But when such arguing occur against my argumentation for the design of hinterland, of course I will defend my stand point in the same thread were the criticism was brought up.
I also agree that this is a MUD and that the players make most of the story. Sadly that is not what is happening. It is not just a MUD, it is also a roleplaying MUD. This means that the game should help people take roleplaying decisions, as opposed to limiting their decisions to hard mechanics. If we assume it is a good thing to learn alchemy, then we can say that this is a desirable goal. Who now benefits most, the person who has no moral restrictions, or the person with some moral restrictions? I hope we agree here that the person without moral restrictions has a mucher freer game. So far, this is simple maths, I hope we can agree on that. So the less you care, the less you bother anyone, the more easier the game you have. This naturally sucks from a RP perspective.
So let's say 90% of the facts in game are created by players and 10% is provided by the game, enforced by code. Why is then the gameplay reduced to aligning the attributes people chose for their characters into perfectly matching that 10% of what happens to be rewarded? The answer is of course min-maxing. And this is the trend.
And yes, the argument comes back again and again. I point to a structural problem, and people say it's Ewelyn RP that is the fault, or some other argument that makes me wonder if they understood what I said at all. The answers are not in any way related to what I am saying, and so I am forced to try to explain the same thing in a different way. The conversation goes something like "min-maxing is a game problem" and the answer is "but it's really nice to have unicorns, just get a unicorn", as if that had anything to do with it. If you read back in the very same thread, you'll see that none of the answers to the things I have stated have anything to do whatsoever with what I am saying. We are having a conversation-problem. The logic now is somewhere around that we can not build city walls in Bandama because alchemists are not supposed to be good or evil.
And then there is this mass of ridiculous claims (wild excuses to motivate min-maxing). Like whether Bandama is controlled by Crusaders. If I then tell you that I know for a 100% fact that Crusaders are meant to exert control in Bandama (as in knowing this on wizard-level knowledge, the exact reasons behind it and the exact thing that was decided upon creation, the exact idea and definition of what is the truth), there are still those who claim (for some reason) that this is not true. If you ask the domain lord of Arborea right now, *he* wouldn't even know it. It's just a total disregard of facts.
And then for your claim that Nathan or that Alchemists are not evil. Can you please provide some evidence (proof is only valid in the science mathematics)? Do you see the point now? So we disagree about this very fundamental fact that Alchemists are letting evil persons brew potions? Or? Or do you mean that it is not remotely evil? I am not sure in what sort of denial world you are living. The latest trend seems to be some sort of extreme art in relativisation we are using to describe things, in order to deny any sort of constructive argumentation. I am not sure if you tried to be funny, but it is sort of insulting.
And it hardly drives the argumentation forward to stick your head in and say "Bandama is not XXX". Care to explain? Care to motivate your claims? Or is your intention solely to troll on the forum? Is it just you or your character's idea now you are referring to? Or is it something real? Maybe you can explain first what you believe are the game's definitions of good and evil, and then we can use that as a base of discussion. Even my point here is that it does not matter what actual definitions we use, but perhaps it helps to have some absolute definitions, for pedagogical purposes.