[MUD-Dev] Sustainable Ecosystem

[Timothy Dang]

On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, Andy wrote:

> From: Timothy Dang <tdang at U.Arizona.EDU>
> > I don't have any suggestions for how such ownership systems could be
> > implemented in a MUD without ruining everyone's fun. I do imagine it's
> > possible, but desinging the social structure around such a system would be
> > quite a challenge. The obvious approach is to place it in a system with
> > player-run justice / politics and inter-player strife. Then the "no
> > hunting in the King's woods" rule has to be enforced by players, and other
> > people can try to take control of the woods.
> 
> Nice Idea I like it.  With that system the players spend more time fighting
> among themselves and worrying about other players to make any inroads
> into the animal population.  The players may also be encouraged to
> "farm" the creatures within that area as game for hunts or for food.
<snip>
> Also just teaching players about the "rules" of what to kill and what
> not to kill will help if is part of roleplay.  After all the woodsman who
> is teaching them how to hunt should have a pretty good idea of the
> balance of nature.

Something like that is a possibility. "Ownership" can be defined over many
things, but should be defined in a way which is useful for the game
world. Here's a suggestion for the woodsman you mention:

Give a woodsman or guild of woodsmen semi-proprietorship over a group of
creatures. When one of those creatures is killed, the woodsman/men get
part of the experience for the kill. When the creatures reproduce, the 
woodsman has similar "ownership" of the offspring. This would encourage a
stewardship role without the extreme nature-protection role commonly
assigned to druids. Depending on how easy or hard life should be for a
woodmsman, they could be given tools to identify and punish those who hunt
their proprietary creatures illicitly. As a woodsman advanced in level,
they could be given higher-level creatures, which would tend to put them
in conflict with higher-level PC hunters.

It still relies on inter-player strife, as outlined above, but perhaps it
doesn't need to. A woodsman could still be placed in the role of
"breeder", who gets to flag creatures as huntable or not. Obviously, there
would need to be some direct environmental challenge to breeding,
since challenge wouldn't be provided by PvP. And having invulnerable deer
running around seems likely to disturb the fiction.

So, maybe I'm getting back to an "offscreen" breeding zone idea, except
this time partially controlled by PC rather than pure simulation.

------------------------------
Timothy O'Neill Dang / Cretog8
520-321-4015
One monkey don't stop no show.




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