[MUD-Dev] Game Economies

[Adam Wiggins]

On Fri, 11 Jun 1999, Katrina McClelan wrote:
> 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.

Although all of us nod our heads sagely at such an idea, it unfortunately
boils down to the following for players logging onto the game the first
time:

"Ew, this place is all rat-infested and screwed up!  What the hell? <quit>"

Not so good for a semi-mass-market, for-pay MUD.

Adam W.





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