[MUD-Dev] Re: avoiding ecological wipeout

[Laurel Fan]

"Leach, Brad BA" <Leach.Brad.BA at bhp.com.au>:
> 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?

I am implementing this for my mud (keyword: am, not have :>)

One thing I think might work is creating some fairly inacessible (or
completely inaccessible) terrain.  So, when the population is under
pressure, they'll 'hide' there (maybe simply because the ones that
wander out are killed, or maybe by programming some sort of 'instinct'
that would case them to do this).  Another thing is that in most
implementations of this, it is equally easy for two matable members of
the same species to find each other as it is for a predator to.

It seems that making the prey mobs much harder to find when the
population is very low might help.  This can be done in many ways
(bigger areas, more timid mobs (hm... maybe have the mobs be more
scared when there are fewer of them..), hiding places, etc.

Or, if you're feeling really adventurous, you might want to implement
evolution :) (actually, that might be an idea, but seeing as you still
want these mobs to be killable..).

Of course, I can't speak for the effectiveness of these ideas, since I
haven't actually implemented them...


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