[MUD-Dev] Wilderness

[Trump]

On Monday 30 July 2001 08:09 am, Freeman, Jeff wrote:

> I've been thinking about how to implement perpetual wilderness in
> a MUD without driving the explorers crazy (since I think it would
> annoy them to no end to map out some section of the MUD only to
> find out later that their map didn't take, and the next time they
> visit the wilderness it's still un-mapped territory).  

I was considering a different option that would probably solve the
same "problem" you are looking to solve.  Taking lesser used areas
and converting them into something new.

Take a lightly wooded area that has some orcs in it.  Now likely
this will attract hordes of lower level players who will quickly
kill all the orcs.  You can limit the respawn, and actually lower it
as more orcs are killed.  Soon you will have an area with no orcs in
it.  All the players will then leave.  After a while (a few days or
weeks in accelerated gametime) you move in some elves who use their
nature magic to grow it into a forest.  High quality elven arms and
armor are popular among adventurers, so players start pouring in to
buy these goods.  Being somewhat anti-social the elves dont like
this much and move out.  Now, some orges move in to the area, cut
down all the trees to build an Ogre village.  The players come back,
and we have a repeat of the orc situation.  Now a Lich decides this
abandoned area is a great place to play necromancy, so he casts a
spell to turn it into a swamp (so it's even less attractive to
intruders) and builds a tower.....  ..... and so on.

Obviously you'd need an engine that would allow for these types of
changes.  I believe AC can already do this.  It seems almost easier
to make these types of changes in a 3d game than in a MUD.

By making weekly updates to your map (2 weeks of orcs, 2 of
transition, 3 weeks of elves, 1 of transition, and so on) .  Things
would be almost the same as they were a few days or weeks ago,
making recent player maps useful.  Maps 2 months old might still be
helpful, but very lacking, and ones a year old would be useless.

-Azeraab
azeraab at dies-irae.org
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