[MUD-Dev] Simpson's "In-Game Economics of UO"

[stoddart at slip.net]

> From: <adam at treyarch.com>
> Reply-To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 16:30:16 -0700 (PDT)
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Simpson's "In-Game Economics of UO"
> 
> On Fri, 28 Apr 2000, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
>> Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services wrote:
>>> Or perhaps give the gamer the choice to have the
>>> character remain in game or not.
>> 
>> I love the way little offhand remarks can spark big things. This is
>> among the coolest simple ideas I've seen. I'm going to steal it and play
>> with it a little, and see if it flies theoretically.
> 
> Indeed.  The simple implementation would be to have it so that you can
> "rent" in an inn and get a safe, invulnerable room - but for a fee; or,
> you can "quit" anywhere, but your character stays in the game and is
> vulnerable to attack.  They also will continue doing whatever task you
> have set them at, such as creating an item.
> 
> I would tend to think that a side effect of this system would be that
> people would just leave their characters logged in in a background window,
> with triggers set up to beep at them if they get attacked or whatever.
> I don't see this as a bad thing at all, except for perhaps encouraging
> multiplaying.  Or if you're a commercial service where you want to *minimize*
> the amount of time that people spend online.
> 
> Adam

Unix Empire is a 24/7 strategy game where you generate command points
continually over time and then every x time units there is an 'update' which
gives all your troops more movement/combat capabilities and economic
development occurs.

When the player logs in they can then use those built up movement and
command points as quickly, or slowly, as they want.  There are some
automated defenses that you can set up to protect your empire whilst you are
away.

What tends to happen is that players attempt to fight when their enemy is
offline as an experienced player generally marshalls his troops much more
effectively than automated defenses do.  Teams of players also lead kingdoms
together so that they can virtually always have someone online, just in
case.  Some people even have their computers set up to page them in the
event that something happens to their kingdom in the game.  This need to be
online can turn a game from an enjoyable experience to a duty - the game
imposes itself upon your real life rather than being a pleasurable
distraction from it.  It is addicting but not, I think, in a wholesome way.
If people have to make decisions about what they will lose in the game if
they go away for the weekend then the game becomes a problem.

In my experience it's extremely frustrating to have a couple of weeks worth
of 'work' destroyed because someone took advantage of the fact that you
weren't logged in at 5:00am on Monday morning.  The randomly hostile nature
of players tends to ensure that, unless game mechanics prevent it, there are
those who will prey upon the automated people for their own amusement.

I like the idea of people being around all the time much more than the
concept of instant safety coming from logging out of the game.  However I
haven't seen an implementation of 'permanent people' which really adds to a
game.  In a sense you're adding realism by having the character in the world
all the time, but then you're detracting again because you have to fake up
enough protections to make the game remain playable.  This assumes a combat
orientated environment, of course.  I imagine that in a peaceful roleplaying
environment the whole concept might work much better.

Mike




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