[MUD-Dev] Biosystems (was Fair/Unfair? Scenarios)

[Dundee]

Richard Ross wrote:
>The basic idea (for me anyway) was to have creatures that only came out of
>their lairs when they were hungry.  A griffin that only ate once a month
>might seldom be seen out of it's lair (nest?), and when it is out (and
>hungry) it attacks smaller creatures it encounters on the way, roams around
>until it's full, then goes home.


My players have asked for wolves to eat rabbits, cats to chase rats, dogs to
kill cats, etc.

I can fake it.

You can fake it too.

The npcs don't need to be playing the game in order to give the illusion
that the npcs are playing the game.

I think anything beyond that is a waste of system resources.  It's cool to
you and me (and NO ONE else) if the npcs are doing realistic stuff
regardless of who is around, but no one ever sees it.  You dont need a mud
for that, though, you can run it on your home computer.  You don't even need
an internet connection.

A really "simple to code" random chance for a wolf to attack the nearby
rabbit vs. attacking the players gives the exact same impact as having a
really complicated AI life-sim type deal, except you can be done coding that
"system" in 5 minutes versus still tweaking soem kinda Sim-Planet deallie
five months from now.

Just say no.  Don't do it.   Waste of time.  You can fake it, too.  And the
players will still say "Wow, gee, this is so cool and reaslistic!  Wolves
eat rabbits.  Ooooh, you are a genius!"

Or in the case of the "hungry animals roam for a while and then go home" -
from the player's perspective its the EXACT same thing as a random chance
that mob-who-is-usually-there-will-be-here-instead.

Pretty easy to code that, too.  Same end result.  Fake it.  Really.  No
fooling.

And I DO mean "fake it".  The players like the illusion, they really do.

But don't do the sim-planet thing.  Just shoot for the end-result.  It's
quick.  It's easy.  The players see the same thing as if you do some kinda
neato deallie that takes a year to perfect.  And that is all that matters.





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