[MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <338F1329.167EB0E7 at iname.com>, on 05/30/97 
   at 08:02 PM, Shawn Halpenny <malachai at iname.com> said:

>clawrenc at cup.hp.com wrote:

>> In <338d05d7.277223215 at neptune>, on 05/28/97
>>    at 09:00 AM, alexo at bigfoot.com (Alex Oren) said:

>> >I guess the kidnapped princess scenario could be tweaked so the orcs
>> >will kidnap a different member of the community (could even happen to
>> >be a player, social implications aside) and repeat the kidnapping
>> >only after a long time (to replenish slaughtered troops) but what
>> >happens when some high-level players team up, torch the orc village
>> >and build a castle there?
>> 
>> How about this:
>> 
>>   The princess is prone to wandering.
>> 
>>   The Orcs have periodic population explosions.
>> 
>>   Wandering parties of Orcs tend to be attracted to buildings.
>> 
>>   Should an Orc find the Princess she will be taken prisoner
>>     and conveyed back to Orcish HQ.
>> 
>>   Every time the princess has been captured, and remains captured
>>     for some trigger length of time, a new quest has been created.
>> 
>> The problem of Orcs being made extinct can be generally handled by
>> engineering the world such that Orcs _can't_ be wiped out.  In my
>> original model there were *always* inaccessable breeder orcs to ensure
>> that the species survivied.

>Curious...do you have resets (not necessarily in the traditional,
>clunky, predictable sense), ChrisL?  

Nope.  I try and engineer patterns such as the above so that there is
a systemic behaviour which guarantees or re-creates the scenario I
want as part of its standard process.  What I try and avoid is the old
hack of establishing a state and then figuring out a metholody to
return to that state once a player has corrupted it.

That all being so, I still have the Trash Collectors who close doors,
lock chests etc as a side effect for thir normal random wandering. 
Some things are just too fiddley or too boring to figure out a system
to support.

>Or perhaps resets just for
>objects?  

I probably still also have a few objects which schedule their own
resets.  The odd things like chests that sit there untouched and
opened, to then suddenly have their lid fall shut and the lock
reset...  But all that stuff (what there is left) is done
individually, not on any area or zone based concept.

>I can envision a sort of object factory, churning things
>out that are somehow distributed throughout the world to shops or in
>caravans, etc.

I've actually never looked at going that far -- raw material->final
product distribution etc purely on the basis that I find it boring and
of little to no value to game play.(*)

What I have done is systems as mentioned earlier, such as the Orc
scenario where the Orcs are embedded in a feedback loop that forces
them into endless cycles of population explosions, lemming-like
overruns of the land, and then population crashes, all mixed in with a
nobility system and colonisation of new Orc warrens etc.  The TC's if
you recall have a slightly similar internal system that guarantees
their spread, but restricts their population.

>...--hmm, there's the seed of a reset scheme in there. 

Yup.

>Actual breeding mobiles that repopulate a region?  

Yup.  Back on friday I also posted a possible system to ensure the
generation of princesses who would then be captured by the Orcs (of
the above system), thus requiring someone to go rescue the princesses. 
Side effects of the system ensured generation of kings for each area,
and as an extension of that, population for each area.

>I almost think you
>must have it this way, given that you've stated (I'm too lazy to find
>the exact message) that you're planning more of a simulation than an
>on-the-fly construct.  

Yup.

>I love the concepts in all that, just haven't
>given thought to anything beyond the "object factories", since I'm
>currently saddled with a semi-Diku-like reset scheme (ugh--put in
>those words I'm forced to rethink it again...).

<<Make like a Cheshire cat>>

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...