[MUD-Dev] Game Economies

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Thu, 10 Jun 1999, Greg Munt wrote:

> Note: the following is just a feeling I get from Mihaly's posts. As such, it
> is based on assumption. Read: I could be wrong :-) (Also, I have no
> particular opinion on the subject. Yet!)
> 
> Your posts suggest a general distaste (almost fear) at trying new things,
> which would make your mud more dynamic. Specifically, that would allow your
> players to interact with each other - and the world - in ways that you could
> not possibly control. (In fact, this would be the whole point. of the
> 'dynamic' features...) You express fear that such things would reduce the
> general income of a pay-mud.

Fear? Heh, I don't think so. It would, however, be silly to allow too much
emergence in something you hope to reap money from. Thus, muds are
_designed_ with specific goals for players, etc. That's the opposite of
emergence. As interesting as a mud based entirely on the idea of emergence
and adaptive features would be, I don't really see the incentive to hire a
bunch of experts in this field to implement it for me.

> 
> Above, you imply fear again, with "I'm not really sure how much I'd want
> this to happen in a for-profit game." (I hope 'fear' isn't a word that you
> find too strong.) Why is this?

See above.

> 
> Do pay-mud administrators feel that they *have* to stay 'mainstream', to
> only have what is deemed popular? And, if this is the case, how can pay-muds
> be involved in any way, with extending the 'state of the art'?

Since when did it become a two-dimensional emergence vs. non-emergence
thing? And since when is the only state of the art in emergent models?

> 
> Endnote: from reading Raph's posts about UO - specifically 'what we planned
> on doing' vs 'what we actually did' - UO seems to be a lot closer to the
> 'state of the art' than most free muds. Yet a lot (apparently) of the
> original plans either remain unimplemented, or have been disabled. Now, we
> all know that UO has no problem clearing its costs - so how are these fears
> of Mihaly's justified?

Shrug, I'm not necessarily willing to credit Achaea with this, but at
least one person on this list (Raph) has said he thinks we are
ground-breaking. In any case, I didn't start Achaea to break new ground.
Any new ground that is broken is done not for the purpose of breaking new
ground, but, in the end, to make money.

Also keep in mind that rarely is any significant segment of the population
interested in anything that is significantly ground-breaking (witness the
endless parade of movies with the same plots, that still make tons of
money, or the popularity of DIKU muds).

--matt




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