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

[Richard Woolcock]

Mike Sellers wrote:
> 
> At 09:37 PM 6/11/98 -0700, Richard Woolcock wrote:
> >... if you were bullied as a kid, how would you feel if you
> >met that bully again as an adult?  What if said bully was still far bigger
> >and meaner than you?  Perhaps it could store the fact that you hadn't fought
> >him for a certain amount of time (I might use 3 bits, giving a number of
> >real-life days between 0 and 7 since you had last fought them - 7 days = 1
> >mud year, which would be a reasonable maximum).
> 
> This sparked a thought in me I haven't seen dealth with here: does anyone
> keep a real and meaningful tally of long-term time going by?  For example,
> if you said 1 month = 1 mud year (1 week/mud year seems a bit short to me),
> you could fairly easily make adjustments for aging, skill aquisition and
> atrophy, and even crop cycles, building maintenance, etc.  It'd make
> anti-aging potions powerful, and give players reasons to let their old
> (literally) character die and move on to another one.

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.

> Hmmm.  At 10 days to the mud year, you'd age 3 years/month or thereabouts,
> and 36 years per real year.  So an un-enhanced character _might_ have a
> lifespan of 1-2 real years (say average starting age of ~20) if human --
> other races could vary wildly from this.

Yes that would work, I just find it easier to use 1 second == 1 minute,
particularly as the system time conveniently gives me the elapsed time
in mud MINUTES since 1970 ;)  I suppose you could double it quite easily,
which would work out at slightly over 12 real days per mud year.

> Thoughts?  Who's tried this in any serious way?  What are some of the
> downsides to doing something like this?

After a few months the mud looks like a pensioners home ;)  Actually its
my fault for:

1) Not coding age-death yet, and
2) Not stopping vampires from aging.

Both are due to the mud not being finished yet *sigh*.  I've never really
imagined finishing it, but some day I would just like to get the damn thing
playable.

KaVir.