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

[coder at ibm.net]

On 12/12/97 at 12:17 AM, Matt Chatterley <root at mpc.dyn.ml.org> said: >On
Thu, 11 Dec 1997 coder at ibm.net wrote:
>> On 09/12/97 at 01:42 AM, Derrick Jones <gunther at online1.magnus1.com> said:
>> >On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, Vadim Tkachenko wrote:
>> 
>> >> I believe that if you wouldn't know WHAT exactly has killed you, it
>> >> would be much easier to go with. In other words, you just can't
>> >> differentiate the monster/NPC from the different player, nothing
>> >> personal will be left.
>> 
>> >This is no small task.  
>> 
>> Actually it happens as a side effect for me.

>Yeah. It really depends on how you approach these things. Obviously if
>people can pick player names off the 'who' list, or the game screams 'You
>were PKED!!!!!!!!!!' at you after you die, its going to be obvious
>(unless in the former case, the who list is huge).

These are some of the reasons that my WHO list only lists accounts which
can't be linked to characters, and which definitely can't be linked to
bodies.

>I would like an environment where players care that they were
>assassinated (or died), not if it was a PC or NPC that wrought their
>death (Perhaps I will try to dissociate Player-Killing from being killed
>by a PC - its all character killing?).

Quite.

>> Well, after a short while of play there are no more "normal" NPC
>> populations for me.  For one there is zero difference between an NPC body
>> and a player character body -- especially seeing as all player bodies
>> (other than the default lumpy clay ones) were once NPC bodies.  Next,
>> player pick up bodies and then move them about to do whatever they want,
>> with the result that the population is constantly stirred, with body types
>> (often freed from player control) now long seperated from their original
>> locations.

>This is *very* interesting.

I muddle things a bit further as well by using the population migration
and promotion patters we discussed earler (simple flood/liquid fill,
internal best-fit nominations).  It makes for an almost continuously
roiling NPC population even without players.

I then also have two base forms of NPC intelligences.  I have NPC
intelligences which are tied to a particular area (zone), and attempt to
have control of all applicable bodies in that area.  I also have NPC-type
specific intelligences which are tied to a particular NPC type and ignore
where it is.  The result is that a single NPC can wander across the land
moving from intelligence to intelligence a it goes, while another NPC
makes the same journey staying with the same intelligence the whole way.

Underlieing this is the wan hope that I'll get an effective ecology of NPC
intelligences.  I'd have to allow non-area specific types to mutate to
area-specific and visa-versa, but if done right the world will turn into a
constant Vonn Neumann machine of NPC intelligences boiling across the
land, invading each other, settling, moving on, etc.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...