[MUD-Dev] Affecting the world

[Matt Chatterley]

On Fri, 19 Sep 1997 clawrenc at cup.hp.com wrote:

> In <01BCC369.990E39C0.caliban at darklock.com>, on 09/17/97 
>    at 10:10 AM, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban at darklock.com> said:
> 
> >Which is why my characters on MUDs tend 
> >to get to level 30 or so and then stop, because above that it becomes 
> >very difficult to 'solo' much of anything that can move you upward in 
> >level in less than a week and a half of effort. This becomes tiresome, 
> >so I tend to throw out the character. It's not like it matters whether 
> >he stays around or not.
> 
> Which reminds me of a classic economy flaw in many PK games:

Heh. As a side note that may amuse some of you who remember my early
postings. I used to defend (vaguely) levels/exp as concepts - recent
developments in game design (including a skill setup less complex than
Nathan's webs, but still very pleasing in similar ways) have made them
totally redundant. We didn't actually want to get rid of them at any point
(we were ambivalent throughout), they just became obsolete to us. :)
 
>   Newbies can gain XP much more quickly than higher level characters.

And often need less comparitively.
 
>   PK'ers get more XP more rapidly from simple PK's than they would
> "earning" the XP.
> 
> The result is the simple mantra:
> 
>   Create PK character.
> 
>   Create throw-away character.
> 
>   Have the throw-away character get XP quikly via a simple script.
> 
>   Have PK'er kill throw-away character.
> 
>   Repeat.

Heh!
 
> This is of course a direct variation on the money problems that the
> original habitat games had (recall the two vending machines and their
> different rates?)

Errrm, nope?

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics." -?