[MUD-Dev] To good to be TRUE, in an MMPORPG?

[Freeman]

> From: Koster, Raph [mailto:rkoster at verant.com]

> The place where it WAS scale that was problematic was in making
> the sim scaleable enough for a world that size. That's just
> another kind of design flaw, though.

But is that a problem with scale, or with population density
(playerbase size relative to the world-size, that is)?
 
>> UO didn't try player-policing, either.  UO tried anarchy, and the
>> results were the exact same as the results you get on a
>> small-scale MUD: Dead noobs all over the place.

> Here, I disagree; plenty of muds exist where peer pressure alone
> (occasionally with some admin step-in) handles the policing. And
> the size of the playerbase does seem to matter a lot, in terms of
> the effectiveness of peer pressure.

The "no restrictions on killing = dead newbies everywhere" strikes
me as the more common of the two, though.

> I think the main things that felt scale-impacted to me were social
> dynamics.  Over and over I found that groups of players behaved as
> I expected, but that the playerbase as a whole didn't.

Interrelationships between sub-communities, vs. a MUD which
(perhaps) is one community, then?

> A lot of older problems were exacerbated, sometimes turning a
> minor problem into a big problem--like what happened with camping
> in EQ.

That also strikes me as a problem with population density (and in
some cases level design), rather than one of scale.  i.e. The people
aren't really behaving differently just because there are more of
them.
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