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6051: [MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

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From: J C Lawrence <claw@under.engr.sgi.com>
Newsgroups: nu.kanga.list.mud-dev
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:26:43 -0700
References: [1]
Organization: Kanga.Nu
On Tue, 23 Jun 1998 10:25:46 -0700 
Mike Sellers<mike@bignetwork.com> wrote:

> No you see -- that's precisely my point.  We will never have
> "perfect code" like this.  Nor will a game be enjoyable for long if
> it's up to the GMs/sysops/etc to zap people from on high.  This is
> why I called it *social* engineering.  We can't create code to make
> sure that no one annoys anyone else, but we *can* create code to
> make sure that the players can create their own social mechanisms to
> deal with such situations.  We can't provide technological or
> central-business-oriented solutions to what are inherently
> distributed social issues.

Back in the early days of this list one of my more connon chants was,
"That's a social problem, not a technical problem!"  Attempting to
aolve social problems by technical solutions is damn near a recipe for 
disaster.  Providing technical tools for solving social problems by
social means is much more promising.

Not that this adds anything new to what you said.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw@null.net
(Contractor)                               Internet: coder@ibm.net
---------(*)                     Internet: claw@under.engr.sgi.com
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...