[MUD-Dev] Guilds & Politics [was Affecting the World]

[Mike Sellers]

At 11:57 AM 12/6/97 PST8PDT, Marian Griffith wrote:
>> It becomes even more true if there is no real
>> user-level death.  The most important trading (the exchange with most
>> impact) in a MUD is probably done in the realm of social recognition,
>> status, fame and identification.  Of course, if you want to enforce an
>> economy... but then your users might start feeling like slaves and go
>> somewhere else where they get more fun for less...
>
>I agree that not every player may enjoy a game where they have to do
>some work to have their characters survive. But there may equally be
>players who do not mind and enjoy the chance of variety and roleplay
>it brings to the game. Different expectations I guess.
>If a game starts to develop in this direction  it will cease to be a
>kind of mud though  (in the traditional sense of the word)  and this
>may confuse players. It does not mean it can't be a valid foundation
>for a game.

I'm not sure how you mean it would cease to be a mud in the traditional
sense.  The ideal, I think, would be to allow people to play
"traditionally" (questing, killing things, the usual), with the
political/social/economic cycles as background: make them the game if you
want, or ignore them if you want.  That's what we tried to do with the
dabbling bit of politics in M59 (the Duke and the Princess); it worked
pretty well this way, as far as it went.  

Mike Sellers                                    Chief Alchemist
mike at online-alchemy.com                         Online Alchemy              

        Combining art & science to create new worlds.