[MUD-Dev] Persistent Worlds

[rayzam]

----- Original Message -----
From: "J C Lawrence" <claw at kanga.nu>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2001 8:48 PM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Persistent Worlds


> On Sat, 17 Feb 2001 16:15:32 -0800
> John Buehler <johnbue at msn.com> wrote:
>
> > J C Lawrence writes:
>
> > If all the roleplayers out there can insist that a MUD can
> > encourage everyone to roleplay, then I can insist that a MUD can
> > encourage everyone to conserve natural resources.
>
> I'm not aware that any RP'ers are saying that a MUD can
> (effectively) encourage roleplaying without also having a fascist
> administration.
>
> > I'd rather fight the good fight there than accept that spontaneous
> > generation is the way to go.
>
> I think you're targetting a symptom (spontaneous generation) rather
> than a cause.  Spontaneous generation is just a short circuited form
> of world instantiation, and environment shorthand if you wish that
> the players and the designers both tacitly understand.  It generally
> works under the assumption that "how the NPC got here" is much less
> interesting than the fact that he is here.  As for the Tragedy of
> The Commons approach. and means of dealing with it in a player
> behaviour modifying way, yes, that is very interesting.
>
 <SNIP>

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].

The only exception I really see to this offhand, is if all 'sentients'
are player characters, and thus you just have PvP interactions,
outside of the P versus ecology. Then the players can
politically/socially police themselves perhaps, with
fishing/hunting/slaying licenses, limits, and enforcers. Which might
work if the players have banded into a village/city/castle structure
and gain benefits from the land. Of course, it doesn't stop pillaging
and moving on.

    rayzam

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