[MUD-Dev] Unique items (was: Graphic MUDS/Ultima Online)

[coder at ibm.net]

On 01/02/98 at 02:20 AM, Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl> said: >On Sat
31 Jan, Brandon J. Rickman wrote:

>> In such a case, the role of builders is to create highly modular pieces
>> of scenery and write some nice code to put the pieces together.

>Ick. How many builders can code, or even want to? There are other dis-
>advantages with this idea also,  but this is not the thread to go into
>that subject.

I've been putting a lot of thought into this area over the last few days. 
I think it is not only possible, but do-able in a usable and even
enjoyable manner (with some technical barriers yet to overcome).  It won't
be "building" as we think of it now.  Individually hand crafted areas,
plots and carefully tailored presentations are not part of the art any
more.  It will be much more abstracted and closer to the old game of Life
except that you can now design new bacterial species, bacterial predators,
and arrange the food etc resources on the playing field.  You can't
control exactly what will happen where any more, just what is *possible*
to happen.  Much closer in fact to the Sim-* games, except that you don't
even get to define where the buildings go, just what buildings are
possible, where the hills, valleys, rivers, seas, bays, minable resources,
weather patterns etc are and the sim-people (ie NPCs and players) do the
rest.

It almost becomes a grand excercise in electronic evolution.

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