There is also the consideration that doing so at work could lead to you losing your job. And if you did, frankly I'd have no sympathy. You aren't at work to be playing muds all day long, you're there so the company you work for can make money. That's why many companies have harsh policies about the (mis)use of their corporate networks.

Similar policies may exist in school settings. Punishment may range from revoking your computer privileges to suspending you from school if you're caught. So it just isn't worth the bother in most cases.

What you do at home is your business. If proxying to the mud is how you feel you need to connect, then do it. But mud admins are equally within their rights to ban you for it if they feel the need.

Exactly, if you want to use a proxy to be able to play my mud from your school or work, I certainly won't object, but I also take no responsibility for it at all. If it costs you your job or your computer access at school or whatever, you knew what you were risking far better than I could have known and it was entirely your choice. We'd have been just as happy to see you after you got home from school/work as we were to see you when you chose to connect. If it does cost you because you got caught, the extent of my sympathy is going to be along the lines of "oh, man, I'm really sorry to hear it." (and nothing more than that, should you go into the whole "it was so unfair of them to punish me that way for trying to play here", I'm going to respond with something akin to "Didn't they tell you their computer use policies up front? Didn't you realize when you found you needed a proxy to reach us that they'd probably blocked telnet (or at least port 4000) on their firewall intentionally to prevent you from using their resources (time/equipment/etc) for a reason?")

As for using a proxy from home, if it's what you want to do, no one can stop you. But if you're doing it on my mud and I find out about it (which is pretty likely because, as I said earlier, most folk 'give themselves away' through their play style/actions/speech regularly), unless you're sending me an email with logs or some other specific explaination of the problem (including date/time of at least the most recent incident since all of my staff are always on the "watch list"), I"m going assume that you're using a proxy to hide your identity from me and my staff in order to bypass a ban or be able to illegally multiplay with a deadly character and I'm going to act on that assumption accordingly.

I would say "but maybe that's just me", except that this thread so far has clearly demonstrated that I'm not the only one here who feels that way.

Heh. Well. If I had players, I wouldn't care if they used proxies to connect. But if they did, they'd still be subject to the same set of rules as always. Just because you might not get caught today, tomorrow, or next week, doesn't mean we won't eventually. Back in our day we used to be pretty good at spotting multis. Proxy or no proxy.

I avoid games where the staff has any interest in who is playing which character or how many characters one might be playing. There is no practical difference in game terms between me multiplaying, my wife, son and I playing at the same time, or sharing each others characters than there is if we or anyone else with ooc connections logged in together and played together under different ips. We don't feel we have to explain this or any other personal matters, and thankfully there are many muds where it is simply not an issue either in the rules nor in the design of the game and where "playing nicely with the staff" doesn't mean forced acknowledgement of a childish feudal arrangement. If asked and the staff doesn't respond to "none of your business", then we just move on to a different game.

I see bans against proxying the same way as I see bans against
botting. If people enjoy the mud in their own weird, quasi-transgressive
way, who cares?

The only way it would bother me is if made it difficult for other players
to enjoy the game. This calls into question whether the point of the mud
is this one dude hogging it, and that question has an obvious answer.

But given that xp isn't actual money, and that in general, a few non-traditional
players aren't going to hurt the game, I don't see the foul.

If anything, I'd be pleased as punch to have someone Kobayashi Maru my game.
It would show me where work needs to be done, it would pay me the
compliment of suggesting my mud is worth "gaming", and it would give
people a new bit of gossip to jaw about and be interested in.

In my mind, proxying doesn't even come close to the bar of high crimes and
misdemeanors…again, unless it's to the detriment of others. But hey, dif'rent strokes.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

whats to stop a player, from using several proxies, making it look like attempts were on his player, and meanwhile, he was connected using another proxy, and he logs in, and transfers all the stuff over to the other player.

And then logs in, bitching and crying that someone hacked him, when it was just him, transfering eq, and now he wants to get stuff re-given to him (as allot of imms will do when they review the logs and see that he isn't from the same address as normal, and infact, the other side of the country where he couldn't of been) stuff like that.

Thats one of my biggest issues is problems like that, WILL arise with players.

As long as a player is responsive to their environment I don't have a problem with botting. If they lower the enjoyment of other players with non-responsiveness or do not answer "staff tells" then they are considered afk, and we do have a policy against afk botting. Usually "punishment" (which is loosely situationally dependant) involves anything from a hard aggressive MOB transfered near them, a staff talking to about rules or just a simple boot.

Proxies can be problematic as a get-around to multi-play rules and to problem players that have been banned. As each MUD makes their own rules a player should respect the rules of the game they are playing. Some folks seem to have to test, bend and break rules.

I admit we do not have a clearly defined proxy policy at our game. I am finding this discussion thought provoking.



Gotta ruin a decent blue dress for that these days.
(Sorry, had to)

I agree. Enforcement of these arbitrary rules (botting, multiplaying, character sharing) is about as useful and productive as trying to enforce a smoking ban on players. If one's game is truly damaged by any of the activities, it is broken. It's long been my opinion that the only people who can "cheat" in the full sense of the word on a mud are those with capabilities not available to players; the administrators.

That's a problem you would have created. Don't give reimbursements. And don't deal in player complaints about hijacked characters. I've never ever encountered a player whose hijacked characters were "hacked". I acknowledge it is possible but highly unlikely. In all cases, I've dealt with they were taken by an aquaintance who they gave the password to or had access to their computer. My answer was always. Tought titty. Not my problem.

There are several things you can build into your mud do to minimize the possibility of a unknown third party from hijacking a player's account, but next to nothing you can do for fools and friends of fools.

Edit: And if you have a policy of responding to complaints like the above, you are setting yourself up to be gamed by players. You're response is just as likely to be an unwitting administrative hijacking or deletion of a character. ;-) :alien:

my policy is the tough titty bit, but, you gotta remember, people will try.

Ontop of that, i just don't like proxies, if your at school or work, you should be studying or your job, so if you have to proxy in, to get around their systems, then you'll be saddened cuz when i find out, i'll just remove your player. I consider proxying a way to cheat the imm-staff.

and my players know it.