[MUD-Dev] Re: Implementing god.

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Adam J. Thornton [mailto:adam at phoenix.Princeton.EDU]
> Sent: Thursday, September 10, 1998 12:16 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: Implementing god.
> 
> 
> On Thu, Sep 10, 1998 at 09:48:43AM -0500, Koster, Raph wrote:
> > Yep. Tens of thousands of them.
> 
> If it's not a secret, how many live accounts *does* UO have 
> now?  What's
> the breakdown between adventuring types and entrepreneurial types?

Around 100,000 active players. Over 200,000 people have played at some
point though. Interesting questions that raises: how many mudders are
there, how many are in graphical versus text muds, how many pay versus
how many play for free, how much overlap is there between any of these
groups, etc.

> Which relieves the player of the tedium of having to be the 
> salesman rather
> than the acquisitor all day.  But how long does it take to 
> get to the level
> of status/riches to be able to have the capital and 
> facilities to open shop
> for yourself?  What do players do during that period?

Often guilds or groups pool money the first time they do this. So a
guild will get together, name one guy the shop owner, and pool the funds
to set up the shop. In fact, having multiple owners of a single shop is
a top feature request...

It does take a while if you don't know the game. For an experienced
player, I'd guess it'd take less than a week to capitalize a shop.

> I love the idea of artists' galleries.  Has a coop gallery 
> system evolved? 

No. :( Instead, the vendors are everywhere and scattershot. But the
well-known ones have total inventory turnover (125 items) several times
a day. Increasing inventory for vendors is also a popular request. :)

> However, this already shows a need--in this kind of society, 
> anyway--for
> NPCs who are neither targets nor victims.  At least, they're 
> only "victims"
> in a very, very loose sense.

A tangential topic, but yes, it does. UO NPCs are basically one of these
sorts:

- a player's servant (hireling/pet/vendor)
- a way to make money (NPC shopkeepers are either sources of wholesale
goods, OR they are a place to sell your goods wholesale to; or they are
NPCs wishing escort from one location to another, which is another
moneymaking opportunity)
- occasional services, like banks, guards that enforce the city's rules,
or sources of very basic information (news, gamemaster-developed quests,
directions to the inn, etc).
- targets

It's worth noting that they are never interesting, never plot devices,
never extremely interactive, etc.

-Raph