[MUD-Dev] Wilderness

[Freeman]

> From: Caliban Tiresias Darklock [mailto:caliban at darklock.com]

> The major problem, of course, is that the concepts behind it don't
> apply very well to the "real world" as you would want in a
> medieval-style game.

Oh, I think it does - on a larger scale, at any rate. If they don't
have sophisticated maps of the world then they don't have a good
idea of the size and shape of the world to begin with.  The
rationale is "It was always there, you just didn't know it."

Take this map, for example:

	http://home.swbell.net/cynack/maps/205BB.jpg

> There's just no logical rationale that immediately presents itself
> for the inn to be on one side of town today and the other side
> tomorrow.  I'd like to hear any plausible rationale people can
> come up with; I'm sure it would be interesting.

No, the towns (and for that matter, kingdoms) would need to remain
fairly static.  But the wilderness - the area between civilized
regions, doesn't need to be static.  Average traveller gets from
point-A to point-B by following the itinerary, whereas the explorers
are able to find new routes (and new points, for that matter)
through the wilderness.  A fanciful/magical explanation is
explicitly what I would want to avoid.

I also like the idea of areas changing - forests getting
burned-down, turned into swamps, grown into larger forests, and so
on - possibly changing the routes from one point to another (say, if
you can travel through the orc-infested forest, but once it becomes
a swamp then it is impassable, and someone will have to find another
route).
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