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

[J C Lawrence]

On Wed, 12 Aug 1998 10:13:24 -0500 
Koster, Raph<rkoster at origin.ea.com> wrote:

> 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.

JSSS (my new web toy) contains an interesting article on this area in
its first issue:

  http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS/1/1/1.html

While it probably goes into greater depth than many here are
interested, they consider a wide range of factors which contribute to
the population curve behaviours.  Good stuff.  

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                               Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------(*)                     Internet: claw at under.engr.sgi.com
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...