[MUD-Dev] Re: world concept

[Jo Dillon]

jacob langthorn (jlangthorn at towertechinc.com) spake thusly:
> Some friends and I are toying with the idea of building a mud that has
> both admin and player control. Admin control is largely traditional in
> that it encompasses building and repairing. The player control we are
> talking about is along the following lines.

  I've thought along these lines, but didn't have the time to put
them into practise (like lots of people here I have a half-finished
codebase, but I have Finals and things so haven't worked on it in some
time). I once ran an Abermud where I had a legal system and a Parliament,
run on 18th-century constitutional lines (I.e. the King and Queen -
me and the other God could veto anything Parliament put forward, but
needed Parliamentary permission to get our own legislation accepted).
The legal system worked quite well, but Parliament didn't because
we didn't have enough people playing to run elections. The moral is,
either make sure you have plenty of players, or perhaps flesh them
out with NPCs (i.e. have NPC electors whose votes are decided by
impartial admins).

> 1.	As players advance they will have the ability to become town
> mayor's or local lords. This will include taxes and building to some
> degree. Building will be more along the lines of deciding how can build
> a house or a keep and where. The overall land scope and basic political
> system will be set by the admin team this way we can control and improve
> the political diversity ( to be a mayor you have to be elected by the
> towns PC's and NPC's, to be a lord you must be appointed or take over).
> The taxes will be set by the local lord/mayor for the local populace but
> that will be tempered by what he has to pay the admin.  The player will
> decide how people are taxed and how he enforces these taxes.

  This sounds reasonable, although tax collection enforcement could be
difficult to code. However, I wouldn't enforce political forms in the
game code. I'd allow towns to become taken over by oligarchs, for instance,
or states to become democracies - I'd tend to encourage player-run
factions, and have arranged battles and revolutions to determine changes
in government. I'd also allow states to take each other's land, and I'd
allow states to, say, build houses of their own and give them to their
followers if they wanted. I'd also allow bribery, corruption, siphoning
off of funds and so forth.
  I'd try and control this more indirectly by having the admins influence
NPC 'public opinion' and maybe control the Emperor of a loose federal
state (a la 17th century Holy Roman Empire). So, for instance, favour
your own adherents too much or overthrow a democracy and you could see
that NPC shopkeeper in Short Street giving his support to an opposing faction
and fighting you in a street riot.

> 2.	We would also like the world to be dynamic to some degree.
> Meaning new areas to be explored             and developed as well as
> older areas being invaded or following into disuse.


  Makes sense. I personally favour a persistent world, so if everyone
were to move out of a village that village would become disused - no players
would live there, NPC's would leave, and admin would change the room 
descriptions to indicate dilapidated cottages and so on.

> Basically my question is has this been attempted and if so where do I
> look? And am I totally off my rocker for wanting to do this. By the way
> the actual idea is much more detailed and I will post more if others are
> interested. 

  I'm interested.

> Jacob Langthorn
> Systems Manager
> Jlangthorn at toertechinc.com
> (405)979-2149
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.

	Jo


--
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.