[MUD-Dev] Population container

[Jon A. Lambert]

> From: Wout Mertens <Wout.Mertens at rug.ac.be>
> Subject: [MUD-Dev]  Population container
>
> Here's an idea I had:
> 
> Instead of having all that trouble of having to constantly update your
> objects, even when noone is around, I present:
> 
> The Population Container
> 
> What is it? Well, you take a kind of monster that you want to populate a
> zone with. Now make a population model, something like Fibonacci's row or
> so (rabbits!), and update the model every once in a while.
> Now, if a player is about, and he 'spots' one (or more) of the population,
> decrease you population by one (or more) and make the appropriate monster
> appear.
> 
> This way, you can have zillions of flies, musquito's, dwarfs, etc etc, you
> could even describe the critters from the container (some dwarfs are
> lurking about) (tho I think that's a bit farfetched), and all with
> virtually no memory or cpu overhead.
> 
> That's it.
> 
> Thoughts? Questions? Ideas? Stuff?
> 
Very interesting.  I am using the distinction of object classes and 
object instances in which the class object contains static methods for
instance populating and static variables for descriptive detail.
It saves lots of memory but, sadly, it does not do anything for me in the 
area of minimizing object instance updates.


JL