[MUD-Dev] RE: Methods to Reduce Ecological Wipeout

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Leach, Brad BA [mailto:Leach.Brad.BA at bhp.com.au]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 1998 11:26 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Methods to Reduce Ecological Wipeout
> 
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> From what I have read, it seems UOL faced problems in the past of
> ecological wipeout due to the lack of "repop'ing" mobs. What methods,
> and how successful were these methods, in reversing this?

UO's original system spawned creatures via two methods:

1) reproduction when two parents of the same type had met their needs
for food.
2) spawn when excess food of a particular type was laying around and not
being consumed.

The breakdown occurred when all the food was grabbed and all the
creatures were killed before they managed to find any. Given this, the
computation power spent on the AL code was wasted and therefore the AL
code was disabled.

We ended up with a region-based spawning system that is not very fancy,
moderately functional, fairly predictable, and far from cutting edge.
But we do have plans to go back to the AL.

-Raph