[MUD-Dev] Game Economies

[Marian Griffith]

In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Thu 10 Jun, Koster, Raph wrote:

> UO's original design used exactly that sort of artificial life system. The
> issues we found:

> 3) It was a lot harder to balance that it seemed, because of the tendency of
> players to simply eradicate everything. Emergent behaviors don't emerge if
> the average lifespan of your wofl pack is ten minutes. Players hunted
> everything to extinction--but if we merely increased the numbers to try to
> make populations more resistant, then the game became too
> difficult/dangerous--plus too expensive CPU-wise. And extinction was all too
> readily achieved.

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.

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey




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