[MUD-Dev] Sustainable Ecosystem

[jolson at micron.net]

From: Patrick Dughi <dughi at imaxx.net>
> ps.  Someone mentioned players littering the land with corpses. 
> Wouldn'tthat promote the spread of disease?  I'm sure after the 
> second or third
> black plague, your characters would get the hint and stop 'killing
> everything that moves'.

Eh.  In MUDs, the chance that a playerbase will "get the hint" is 
inversely proportional to its size.  When "the hint" involves 
restraining themselves from something they want to do, don't even 
bother.

It's the same old song: lack of meaningful consequence, anonymity, and 
a pervasive SEP(*) field conspire to create players who display all the 
responsibility and foresight of a 3-year old.

That sounded a little negative.  :)  Another way to phrase it would be 
that it's an exercise in futility (and self-destruction) to attempt to 
prevent players from doing something that they enjoy and that the game 
system allows.  Redirect them, accommodate them, but don't try to stop 
them.  

-Josh Olson

(*) Somebody Else's Problem - see the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 
series





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