[MUD-Dev] Responsibility for users (was: Birthday Cake (or Why Large ScaleSometimes Sucks) (long) )

[birgit.schulte#philips,com]

Greetings,

being a lurker here so far just a bit about my background: I'm the ordinary
(ex-)mudder and occasionally dabble in mud-coding.

I am replying to two posts from Matt Mihaley at once here, both from the same day.

On Thu, 8 Jun 2000, Matt Mihaley wrote (in response to Ola Fosheim):

> > I don't think one do justice to the complexity of the psyche by ruling
> > out manipulative strategies that statistically will yield submissive
> > behaviour in a significant portion of a population.
>
> Sorry, not convinced. If it statistically yields submissive behavior in a
> significant portion of a population, then that is a significant portion of
> a population whose problems are their own fault.

So, you are basically saying:
I know there are people out there which do have a certain latent problem, 
I also know that what I provide will let the problem become acute for those people,
but I don't care.

Certainly, you are not meant to hold the hand of everyone out there who might
run into trouble about something which is basically harmless. But where is the harm 
in admitting it that what you provide _can_ become a problem and at least trying to 
ease it where one has the possibility?

You might argue now, if someone would wreck his life because of mudding,
and I lower the incentive to mud for him, he'll find something else. Will often be true,
but always? The personal threshold of disclipine differs, and I'm all for giving those
with lower thresholds a hand.


And in response to  Ian Hess he wrote:

> Yes, indeed, but what I was referring to really was Randy Farmer's ideas
> that we somehow need to tell users that it's BAD for them to stay online
> for umpteen hours at a time. That's the user's decision, not mine. It's
> just ridiculous, to me, to think that you know what is good for your users
> "real" lives.

It's certainly not much of a presumption to say if someone is online 14 hours
a day as a rule, he won't have much of a "real" life anymore. Now if he is
online because he prefers the virtual form of social contact, I'd say, it's his own cup of tea.
If he's online because his desire of achievement is (more or less) met by what
the game provides, and because the game-mechanics require him to stay
online to keep up, I do see responsibility on the side of the game designers.


Regards, Birgit



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