[MUD-Dev] Re: Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ]

[Damion Schubert]

-----Original Message-----
From: Leach, Brad BA <Leach.Brad.BA at bhp.com.au>
>The article raised a few points that interested me. 'Sid's philosophy of
>"when fun and realism clash, fun wins."'
><URL:http://gamespot.com/features/sidlegacy/ss.html>
>I am wondering how relevent that is to muds. It seems most of us
>are striving for increased realism with our designs - Is this at the
>cost
>of fun?

I agree with this 100%.  Sometimes, you can have so much fun running
the ant farm that you forget what it's like to be an ant.  Most of us
(myself
included) are guilty of putting in high-minutae, low-visibility features.
Meridian had a 'barely dynamic' economy, where any number of things
could bump the price of tea in china up or down a shilling or two.  In
retrospect, the change was so small that the only people who cared
were the ones who figured out ways to drop the purchase price below
the buyback price =)

On the other hand, another god on Meridian created a 'shrunken head'
and snuck it in the game.  It just sits in your inventory, occasionally
making rude comments, reporting the contents of your inventory to
the room at large, reporting if anyone in the room is in a secret
guild, and any number of other (mostly) harmless activities.  Great,
high visible social amusement.  I still see posts about that thing.

My economy (which is stripped down and nothing near the complexity
of UO's) took me about 1 week to do, and I had to revisit it occasionally
when it broke.  Ed's talking head took him a day to code.  Bang.  Buck.

--damion