[MUD-Dev] Persistent Worlds

[John Buehler]

rayzam writes:

> That's another point to the issue. Spontaneous generation, per se,
> occurs both for the ecology and the scripted NPCs. Now, you can model
> the ecology with population rates, but what about the NPCs? Count
> Dracula, once killed, is gone.. his castle goes into disrepair. Can
> you model someone else coming into this position of power? Even so,
> can you model the background/history that is inherent in that area's
> design? I suppose this is a choice that the area/level developers make
> in any game, but IMO a well-designed area has a history to it, and
> thus can't be modelled outside of repopulating it, unless you can also
> model the time inherent in the history, or employ a legion of
> designers to continual update every bit of th e world [which negates
> being able to automate it].

My attitude about this problem is that games should not be relying on
backstory, and definitely not on a backstory that is well know, such as the
legend of Dracula.  A living, breathing storyline is what is needed.  This
king did that, that baron did this and so on.  Create a running soap opera
for players to pay attention to and interact with as individuals.

By analogy, I'd run Babylon 5 as my storyline (with the assumption that the
series had never existed), and the players can be security people, StarFury
pilots, engineers, PsyCorp, all sorts of stuff.  But they don't get to be
Sheridan or G'Kar or any of the other primary characters.  They are involved
in the soap opera, and that gives them a solid 'history' for them to be
interested in and to help propagate.  Backstory is irrelevant.

As for repopulating the world, it's not necessary that the or even 'a'
primary avenue of entertainment be eliminating characters from the world.
Non-lethal combat and a number of other approaches to conflict (whether NPCs
or PCs) can be employed.  Personally, I like the idea of having NPCs die
permanently.  Just as with my hopes about a closed ecology, killing an NPC
should have consequences - such as the loss of the services of that NPC to
the town.  Or the loss of the history of that NPC.  Kill the king and
everything that any player was aware of about that NPC is now at an end.  It
might be a bit like losing a family pet.  It's a bummer.

JB

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