The game has limited diplomacy. But the players have worked around that by bringing the diplomacy into the virtual world outside the game (email, irc, instant messaging).
The game has limited spying ability. Someone brought that out into the virtual world by creating a kindof embassy spy persona. In my abilities as a system administrator there are some things I could do to fight that but it doesnt seem like that big a deal. I dont LIKE it, but I would say that it is now part of the game that people will have to beware of.
However, I will use the full force of my abilitys if anyone brings assassins out into the virtual world. You might laugh but as a white-hat security hacker I can very well see the capabilitys to remove a player from the game using the types of methods we use against black-hats, trolls, and spammers.
So for bringing game-actions into the rest of VR its diplomates=kewl, prophets=fine, spys=not kewl, assassins=will be hunted down and destroyed, and of course only Shrapnel and Illwinter get to be pretenders outside the game. Maedads are optional
[ May 25, 2004, 16:35: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]