[MUD-Dev] Hard Sci-fi muds was Character evolution

[Chris Gray]

[Brandon R:]

:Check for a rabbit corpse: The direct benefit of persistence in
:the world - observed quantities don't change.
:
:Check the prob. of a rabbit corpse: The illusion, or simulation, of
:persistence in the world.
:
:Check the prob. of a corpse X rabbits: The illusion of scale - the
:world seems to be impossibly large and complex.
:
:Check for spontaneous generation: The illusion of history - unknown
:actions in the past take effect in the present.
:
:I will leave off for now and see if this makes any sense to me in
:the morning.

I think it makes sense to me. It's another form of detail that is added
to the scenery generation - the area is a newbie rabbit-killing area,
so there is some chance of finding skeletons, increased calcium in
the soil, corpses, etc.

I don't think I'd want to go as far as keeping track of each corpse,
and its effect on the soil and surrounding plants as it decays, but
something simple like incrementing the count of how many rabbits (or
small animals in general, or perhaps scale by animal size, allowing
for human deaths too), could be used to trigger some pseudo-random stuff.
Hmm. A count of various species isn't hard, and the effect might well
be worth it.

--
Chris Gray   cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA