[MUD-Dev] Affecting the world

[Jon A. Lambert]

From:                 Self <Single-user mode>
To:               mud-dev at null.net
Subject:          Re: [MUD-Dev] Affecting the world
Send reply to:    jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com
Date sent:        Wed, 10 Sep 1997 20:34:49 -4

On  7 Sep 97 at 4:00, Marian Griffith wrote:
[snipped a me too]

> Currently they are geared to-
> wards  what I (cautiously) would call a masculine playing style: 
> going out and be the strong powerfull hero  by beating monsters and
> demons.  I do not attach any value to that but I have observed that
> this is the kind of thing that is primarily enjoyed by males.  If 
> my own opinion may serve as an ex- ample,  I would say that females
> in muds  in general are more interested in group mechanics than in
> going out and kill. 

What sort of games involve this type of group mechanics, other than
pure role-playing?  The percentage of women playing on Mush-type
servers is higher. (I agree with Miro's observations)

So then the question might be:
Outside of traditional muds, what games attract a large female 
following?  

> Nothing of the above can be very new to anybody on this list.  But
> what has made me wonder is, how do you get around the limitations of
> players to have an effect on the game world.  What is the point of
> having politics if there is nothing that a politician can
> effectively do?  

A politician holds a position.  That position should allow control of
certain environmental systems.  Those systems should affect the game
in positive and negative ways.  If there's nothing the statesman can
do, it's merely a title.  A couple things come to mind. Allow
statesmen to control taxes, pass laws, commision buildings and
improvements, regulate guilds, raise and equipment armies, etc. 
Create positions that have effects on players.  

[full agreement with resets being bad, limiting equipment and 
persistence in general]

> I do not really expect anybody on this list  to fundamentally
> disagree with this, it has been discussed in many forms already, 
> but are there any ideas how to go about it? I mean not in the
> technical sense although that is part of it also,  but how to design
> a game  around this goal?  

I think there is something to be said for a layered approach to 
designing these things.  One could attempt to model a simple economic
system and a biological system for starters. I think these two things
are the basic blocks to build from.  I also look at other games.  My
ideas on economics come from the games "Rails" and "Tradewars".  My
ideas on biological systems come from "SimLife" and "SimAnt".  All of
the games, save "Simlife", have aquisition as their goals.  I'm not
sure this is any more attractive to women than combat oriented games. 

--
Jon A. Lambert

Nature comprehends the visible and invisible Creatures of the Whole 
universe. What we call Nature especially, is the universal fire or 
Anima Mundi, filling the whole system of the Universe, and therefore
is a Universal Agent, omnipresent, and endowed with an unerring instinct,
and manifests itself in fire and Light. It is the First creature of 
Divine Omnipotence.
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