[MUD-Dev] Re: Mud-time vs real-time (was Re: skill system)

[Katrina McClelan]

On Fri, 12 Jun 1998, Richard Woolcock wrote:

> I use 1 real second = 1 mud minute.  This makes a mud year slightly under
> a week.  It is a bit fast in some ways, but it also makes it quite possible
> for players to die of old age.  I have body-permy-death (soul lives on),
> but players are able to choose their body's starting age which helps counter 
> that problem.
> 

I don't do it intentionally that way but it ends up being close:

1 minute = 1.13125 seconds
1 hour   = 1 minute, 7.875 seconds
1 day    = 27 minutes, 9 seconds
1 week   = 3 hours, 10 minutes, and 3 seconds
1 month  = 13 hours and 39 minutes
1 year   = 6 days, 19 hrs, and 48 mins

What is odd is that bu accident, time increments of days and weeks are
exact to the second, and of months and years are exact to the minute. 
It's probably because I used 350000 micro seconds for a game pulse in the
game time keeping and over real time evens out.  As far as being fast, the
big problem with the real time scheme is balancing healing and time flow. 
If you heal at a logical rate, then you end up facing either too slow of a
healing engine, or too fast of an aging engine.  I tend to think that the
1 sec/1 min ratio works rather well.  In a year of play time you age about
55 years.  With magical medicine that players have readily availible,
character health should be such that that means 1-2 years for a human life
span.  For most races that isn't a problem at all. 

-Kat