Michel

[Robspeaky]

Everyone seems to refer to Michel as one of the greatest players, being new to NannyMUD could someone explain what exactly Michel did, his history, reasons for getting banned etc.

[Carrion]

Everyone seems to refer to Michel as one of the greatest players, being new to NannyMUD could someone explain what exactly Michel did, his history, reasons for getting banned etc.

Hiya Michel

Good question, I honestly never knew Michel as a great player (uhm, browsing the 'great players, wtf???'-thread I get the feeling I didn't think there were any at all...), the thing about Michel for me was that the admin seemed very annoyed with him and he used several Michelxx chars to have an amazing 'Plan' (overcoming the max number of characters in a Plan for just one player).

Hopefully others on this forum will give you more facts, and if someone actually have Michel's Plan++ I'd love to see it in its entirety here on the forum...

   /Carrion, the clone

[Escaflowne]

Good question, I honestly never knew Michel as a great player (uhm, browsing the 'great players, wtf???'-thread I get the feeling I didn't think there were any at all...), the thing about Michel for me was that the admin seemed very annoyed with him and he used several Michelxx chars to have an amazing 'Plan' (overcoming the max number of characters in a Plan for just one player).

What was amazing about it, besides its' length?

[Carrion]

What was amazing about it, besides its' length?

I was hoping to refresh my memory about the amazingness of that Plan, thus asking for someone to add the plan to the forum... Not sure if it even WAS amazing, just a lot of quotes of people bitching at Michel... Anyone with better memory than me?

[Kherec]

I do not presume to know much about it, but this I can tell from having observed him, both as a mortal and an immortal (as I was active while he was).

Michel was meticulous in what he did. This included exploring the mud, building convenient, self-sufficient scripts to remove most of the monotonous work of playing. So he learned (through his own means and asked around) many secrets, how to abuse them, how to use them and how to avoid them. His client then helped him amass a lot of gold, experience and equipment, that could of course be gotten in a normal fashion by anyone; but faster and easier.

Through a combination of these things, he rose quickly in vampires and thus made a name for himself there. Hiding his few deaths, combined with beating the odds more often than not, his fame rose.

And by learning he mud, he quickly became a good playerkiller and earned fame through that as well.

I'm not sure how great he was, but the phrase "take away the client, then we'll see how good you are" would certainly apply to him. I mean, the monotonous bottleneck is what keeps most people at bay. His client raised the bar drastically for how much 'work' you can efficiently put into your character before tiring or slipping up. While that does not mean he was his client, his client did make it possible for him to recover or gain something much faster than humanly possible.

But as mentioned above, he was intelligent and meticulous, I do not presume to deprive him of that.

[Escaflowne]

I do not presume to know much about it, but this I can tell from having observed him, both as a mortal and an immortal (as I was active while he was).

Michel was meticulous in what he did. This included exploring the mud, building convenient, self-sufficient scripts to remove most of the monotonous work of playing. So he learned (through his own means and asked around) many secrets, how to abuse them, how to use them and how to avoid them. His client then helped him amass a lot of gold, experience and equipment, that could of course be gotten in a normal fashion by anyone; but faster and easier.

Through a combination of these things, he rose quickly in vampires and thus made a name for himself there. Hiding his few deaths, combined with beating the odds more often than not, his fame rose.

And by learning he mud, he quickly became a good playerkiller and earned fame through that as well.

I'm not sure how great he was, but the phrase "take away the client, then we'll see how good you are" would certainly apply to him. I mean, the monotonous bottleneck is what keeps most people at bay. His client raised the bar drastically for how much 'work' you can efficiently put into your character before tiring or slipping up. While that does not mean he was his client, his client did make it possible for him to recover or gain something much faster than humanly possible.

But as mentioned above, he was intelligent and meticulous, I do not presume to deprive him of that.

I think the client argument is moot.  Everyone can use a client, and everyone is allowed to use a client, so the reality of clients should not be taken into consideration when evaluating a player.  As to the effort factor, it is still an effort to learn from the MUD and prepare your client in the best way possible.  If other people fail to do what Michel did, that's their failing, and his success.  Everyone has the same means to achieving what he did.

This hails back to Carrion's argument that there are no great players because anyone COULD do something if they put the necessary effort in.  Well, so that's the way it is in real life too.  You COULD be a great artist or mechanic or industrialist, if you dedicated your life to it.  So does that make you equal to the person who DOES do those things?  How you answer that will determine your attitude to players like Michel.

[Kherec]

Well there is a line, that if you cross, you break the rules of the mud. Namely automatic clients, robot-like scripts. Some say he crossed it, but in all fairness he never got banished for it. So if he did, he did it good enough not to get caught.

Anyways, how I compare myself to Michel? First off I agree that it's difficult to define what a great player is, so I'll just tell how I compare myself to him without using loose, predefined definitions.

First off, I tend to agree that everyone could do everything, if they put their mind to it. But to be honest, I don't know if I could do it as fast and as efficient as Michel did. Theoretically I probably could, but I never put it to the test, nor do I plan to. He also more zealously explored the mud, than I did.

So no; I do not think I am a match to Michel, however you make the comparison. I consider myself a good player, I have good knowledge of the guilds, how they interact and how to use them. My knowledge of the mud has slipped some in the most recent years, so they aren't exactly what they used to be. But great? No, I am not, nor do I consider it worth it to invest enough time to become that.

The only thing I do consider myself better at, is following the rules. I never try to bend them to get an edge over everyone else.

[Kherec]

As for my attitude towards Michel, I suppose it's twofold.

First, I admire anyone who can devout themselves to such an extent as he did to become the best. Much like Polar's achievement in paragon levels, I admire the tenacity of their work (however misdirected I may think it is).

Second, I dislike the "whatever the cost" and "rules are meant to be broken" mentality. To break the rules to win, to be the best. To me that just cheapens the achievement, hell it even makes it void. There are people who didn't quite reach Michel's hights, but who did so without ever going near the grey area of the rules. I have more respect and consider them much better players than he, simply due to the fact that they didn't try to take the easy way there.

[Ereshkigal]

Nice note Kherec. Just a few random thoughts....

I never knew Michel since he went inactive by the time I started playing. He talked to me with his wizard a couple of times briefly, and that was all I ever had to do with him.

But from what I have heard, I guess he did have a really well-built client. I actually do admire that to some extent because it probably took a good deal of ingenuity to make it as effective as I have heard it was. I suppose the fact that I don't have the coding skill to do that makes it seem really cool to me. Of course, if I spend the time to figure it out, I am sure I could do that. But I'd rather do math instead...

I find it really fascinating how he can inspire such passionate reactions from some people. I don't know if he really was that much of a jerk. I don't think you can tell much about a person from how he behaves in a MUD and what he thinks about the "rules". Hmm... that probably suggests that I am a rule breaker.   (Hmm...that could be the topic of another note!)

Even if Michel really was as annoying as people say, I find it cool that he left a mark on the MUD. At least he gave people something to talk about. If he made people miserable during his time here, that just sucks and I have no respect for that. But still... I think it is something that we are still even talking about him. It doesn't make him great, but I think it is pretty cool for the _game_ to have a history worth talking about.

Ereshkigal

[Kherec]

Of course a character's behaviour on the mud has no bearing on how a person is in real life. I know a pair of brothers that are pretty much the good and the bad on the mud, but in real life, it's the opposite. I suppose some people act the same on the mud as in real life, but there's no guarantee.

As for Michel being a jerk ... sure he sometimes acted like a prick, but in the history of the mud he's nowhere near the top jerks that has plagued the mud. Most people just disliked him because he killed them

[Ereshkigal]

As for Michel being a jerk ... sure he sometimes acted like a prick, but in the history of the mud he's nowhere near the top jerks that has plagued the mud. Most people just disliked him because he killed them

Oh good heavens... Kherec the old still has some memories left in him!

Tell us about the true jerks, O ancient one!

Eresh

[Kherec]

How about Cassandra?

[Kherec]

But honestly, I haven't really come across any real jerks. Sometimes some people acted really bad, showed absolutely no respect for people's feelings, killstealing and being "cool" about it afterwards, or so they thought ... but not towards everyone.

It was often a case of subgroups thinking themselves better or more cool than others, feeling superior and showing it through being jerks to anyone outside their little group. Just like highschool people

Then there's a group of people that simply rubb the wrong way and explode verbally on each other.

[Carrion]

But honestly, I haven't really come across any real jerks. Sometimes some people acted really bad, showed absolutely no respect for people's feelings, killstealing and being "cool" about it afterwards, or so they thought ... but not towards everyone.

Hoi! I guess your definition of a 'jerk' isn't the same as mine

[Ereshkigal]

Well.... I guess I have been a jerk to people at times. Of course, I probably was never a top-ranking jerk.

I tend to get pissed off very quickly if I think that someone is being unfair to me. And this tendency was much worse a few years back. (I started playing in Feb 2001.) And then once I get pissed off... well...then things go downhill very quickly. (I am still trying to grow up.. )

There was a phase in which I was totally pissed off at a bunch of knights. And being friends with Karzak helped fuel that further. (Now that was a vamp with some attitude.)  That led to quite a few amusing events. So I suppose it is very likely that a large number of people think I was/am a total jerk. To be quite honest though, I have enjoyed my bad reputation to some extent. (That's very childish I know. But knowing that doesn't stop me from enjoying it anyway.)

Of course, the fact that I have a vampire hasn't helped matters. 

Eresh