[MUD-Dev] Game Economies

[Katrina McClelan]

On Fri, 11 Jun 1999, Marian Griffith wrote:

> I am not sure if this is desirable but one way to prevent extermination
> of all wild-life in a game,  is by planting players formly at the lower
> half of the food chain.  If there are plenty of predators  who can take
> out a player then without a problem,  then players are less eager to go
> out and kill indiscriminately. This may not be a solution for UO though
> as that game seems to, to a large extent,  focus on killing in order to
> gain.
> 

A better way is to have a circular food chain, such that killing too much
stuff will allow for a population of stuff dangerous to you to flourish.
Kill off all the cats, and the rodents become quite numerous.  And while
individually small, in numbers they carry diseases and such dangerous to
man.  The problem with any such solution is that the cycle can't complete
itself.  In this case scores of men would die of disease, allowing the
cats to regain population.  However in a game, a player will just generate
a new character.  This is the real problem with building a simulation.
The fear of death isn't strong enough.  If a player had to be wait to be
"reincarnated" as a youth, and mature back to adulthood after the loss of
a character, and start over, then you could perhaps pull it off... but
players would sour on this quickly.

-Katrina



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