[MUD-Dev] Re: Less numbers, more roleplaying.

[Richard Woolcock]

Marian Griffith wrote:
> 
> On Tue 25 Nov, Derrick Jones wrote:

[snip]
> > or those creature who attack only for food.
> 
> I don't think this is currently handled on a mud anywhere is it?

Well I coded something a while back (which I no longer use because I've
since chosen a theme) along these lines.  I have a mob called 'a small
furry creature' which used to sit in a room (its no longer loaded up), 
asking random players in the room if they can spare any food (he has 
about a dozen different ways of phrasing it/acting in a hungry way).  
As soon as anyone gives him some food (or drops some) he picks it up and 
eats it.  Every time he does this, there is a chance of him forming into
a 'cocoon', which hatches out the next tick into a small gremlin.  The
gremlin wanders around, eating food and laying eggs which hatch a few
ticks later into medium gremlins.  These in turn repeat the process
creating large gremlins, which then go around eating food and laying
small green crystalized eggs (which don't hatch, but can be eaten to
restore mana).  Each size of gremlin is more powerful than the last, and
they wander around killing any non-gremlins which they think they can
beat (including mobs), devouring corpses and severed body parts (each
time they do this, they have a chance of laying an egg).  I originally 
had problems with thousands of gremlins causing the mud to freeze up, 
so I have set limitations - they only survive for a limited amount of 
time, they are only able to lay a few eggs, and they will starve to 
death if they do not find food within a certain time (although if they 
reach this point and there is another gremlin around, they will say 
"sorry brother, but I must eat or I will die" and then attack them).
When the 'furry creature' was available, players used to lead it (it
would sometimes follow people around) into an out-of-the-way location
on the mud, then dump huge amounts of food around the place and leave,
coming back later to 'collect the harvest' of crystalized eggs.  The
only problem was that the gremlins move around the mud quickly, and
don't double back on themselves unless they have to - thus if the 
gremlins were not too far from town, they would occasionally wander in
(and the large ones could take down most players).

The code was entertaining, maybe I'll think of a way to incorporate it
back into my current theme (with modifications, of course).

KaVir.