[MUD-Dev] "gossip"

[Peter]

>On Mon, Nov 20, 2000 at 04:16:20AM -0500, Josh Rollyson (dracus) wrote:
>> Additionally, at each exchange, the "gossip" would grow less 
credible. 
>> So while the first 2 or 3 NPCs in the chain may consider it credible,
>> others might not, until they hear of similar events, or hear of the
>> events from more NPCs.

>And Ted Milker responded:
>I like the ideas presented, however, I don't quite understand
>this part.  Why does the gossip get less credible as time goes
>on?  Wouldn't it make more sense to use some combination of the
>gossiping NPCs stats to determine how much credibility is
>assigned?  If the mayor of the town is saying this to his wife,
>it's probably pretty credible, but if his wife is known as a
>gossip, it might not be quite so credible when passed on from
>her.  However, if the person who hears this from the mayor's wife
>also hears about the incident from someone else, then the
>credibility increases.  Also, except for the really "gossipy" NPCs,
>NPCs shouldn't pass on all of their gossip tokens to every NPC
>they meet.  But with "gossipy" NPCs placed strategically around
>town, gossip can still spread rapidly, especially in smaller
>towns.

	I think the "decrement the value of comments when passing on" helps 
insure that rumors do eventually die out. Ideally this decrementation 
would be non-linearly related to importance... so they'll talk for years 
about when half the town was burned down by marauders but they'll forgot 
in a day or two they saw Boffo down by the miller's.
	Another approach would be to have the recieving NPC save only the 
rumors it's interested in- so the baker might not care that a traveller 
was attacked on the road, but he'll remember that the cobbler down the 
street was mugged.
	NPCs that don't save rumors they're not interested in can't pass them 
on. But your gossipy NPCs thing *everything* is interesting so they pass 
almost all of it on at one time or another. No input filters.


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev