[MUD-Dev] Law of Resource Congestion

[Patrick Dughi]

On Thu, 17 Aug 2000, Matthew Mihaly wrote:

> On Thu, 17 Aug 2000, Nathan F. Yospe wrote:
> 
> > Matthew Mihaly <the_logos at achaea.com> said:
> > 
> > > Most swords may look alike (well, most foils look similar, most
> > > broadswords look similar, etc) but that's not really relevant to this
> > > discussion, I think. If the players want unique-looking items, then it is
> > > entirely reasonable that every player have unique looking items (I don't
> > > actually give all players unique-looking items, as uniqueness has value,
> > > and thus we charge for unique descriptions, but you see my point I'm
> > > sure.)
> > 
> > And adding some unique wire or gemwork to the hilt (quite doable) would do
> > the job, for those who actually had the money to invest with someone who
> > had the skill.  Mind you, the more unique, the harder to obtain... artistans
> > do have the use of a partial form of the builder engine, but it takes skill
> > to use.
> 
> If artisans have partial use of the builder engine, what can they modify?
> How do you stop them from writing inappropriate things? I've always wanted
> to give artisans the power to alter clothing descriptions as such, but I'm
> aware that were I just to give them the power to do it, they'd be making
> bulletproof vests, giant dildos, and all manner of ridiculous things that
> don't belong in the context. How do you screen for that, without having to
> have admins read everything?

	This isn't so hard, depending on your player base size - simply
require that alterations take time.  Have the player enter all the
alterations they wish to make, and tell them that their character will
work on it when they're not online - and that an alteration of this sort
usually takes X days.

	What X is, is actually the average amount of time it takes for an
admin to come online and sort through all the pending alterations.  No one
said that the alterations had to be instant.  You could also have the
administrator set the cost of the alteration at that point in time too.
This makes things a bit more realistic - if someone wants their clothes to
look ragged, it'll probably be free.  If someone wants their clothes to be
made from crushed velvet with gold-wire embroidery, peacock feathers and
Chantilly lace cuffs, it's going to be a bit more expensive.  Same with
room alterations - mounting a torch bracket won't cost quite as much as
having a working fountain.

	And if they're just the text descriptions, how could you write a
function to determine relative cost otherwise?

						PjD




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