[MUD-Dev] Logical MUD Areas

[Scion Altera]

Saturday, May 05, 2001, 6:51:16 PM, Greg Munt wrote:
> From: Scion Altera <keeler at teleport.com>

>> The goblins, fed up about being attacked and killed so much, check
>> out the humans and decide they are outmatched, so the village is
>> unloaded and the game picks another suitable location to put
>> it. Now.. this process could involve making the mobs actually pick
>> up their stuff and walk over to the new spot, or they could simply
>> teleport at a convenient time when no players were
>> watching. Doesn't matter too much on a grand scale.

> I think that this scenario is unrealistic. A community would not
> leave, unless they lived in mobile dwellings, or were constantly on
> the move, to follow their food supply. I would expect goblin
> communities to band together against their common enemy. I would
> expect a war to develop. Or terrorist attacks aimed at getting the
> humans to leave. You just don't leave your home that easily! I'd be
> interested in portraying goblins in a realistic way, too. Instead of
> the player-fodder token evil NPCs, they should be seen as simply
> another race of sentient intelligence. They should bear children,
> raise them, make demands on local resources, just as humans
> do. There should be some empathy.

Quite true. Now that you point that out, I must say I agree. Not only
is it more interesting, it is more realistic for a non-nomadic group
of people to fight for their homes regardless of overwhelming odds.

The point of my original post is still valid, however: the game
recognizes the groups of mobs as entities, and makes at least some
decisions on a group-wide level rather than solely on an individual
level.

It also points out the value of "smoke and mirrors" style coding for
MUDs as games. For your simulation, you would want the migrating
goblins to actually pick up all their stuff and walk somewhere new.
For the game, you probably want to save the trouble of coding that,
and have them teleport when nobody's watching... because none of the
players will be able to tell the difference.

>> I mentioned above that you need to ditch human built areas. This is
>> purely for the sake of not hurting anyones' feelings, and not
>> because the code somehow requires it. Having been a builder myself
>> long ago and far away, I know I would be very upset if I built an
>> area and some yahoo player came along and set it all on
>> fire... destroying the whole zone permanently. If the mud itself
>> generated the area, nobody will care if it gets ruined. Therefore
>> you have much greater flexibility in what you can let the players
>> do.

> Well, there's ruined, and ruined. Anything that makes the game
> better does not come under my definition of the term. Imagine the
> potential of a town gutted by fire. How would the inhabitants of the
> area react to it? Would humans attempt to rebuild it? Would an
> atmosphere of fear develop? How would it affect goblin/human
> relations? How would it affect the reputation of the goblins with
> other races, and with other goblin communities? If humans abandoned
> the settlement, what creatures would move in to take their place?
> Would it be feasible for the town to become a 'dungeon' area?

Absolutely.. that is something I am planning to do in my own game. I
want players to be able to rampage through a town and burn it to the
ground, given the right equipment. I'd like the folks who live in the
town to resist their efforts and try to save their town, and I'd like
the folks living outside the town to become interested in it as an
opportunity if it is left abandoned.

The point I was making with that example, however, is that if you hire
a builder who spends tens or even hundreds of hours carefully crafting
a beautiful village (don't scoff, I used to do that before I learned
to code :P), then they might be just a bit annoyed when some player
comes along with a few blocks of C4 and some napalm, leaving the town
a smoking pile of rubble. It might still make the mud a better place
in the long run, but I can assure you that builder won't build
anything more for you unless you can restore it.

-- Scion

"I don't write my poems. I write the poetry of those around me. To
write my own poetry would be selfish and on the whole, uninteresting." 
-- Anonymous

-- keeler at teleport.com -- peter.keeler at brokat.com -- ICQ: 1824934 --


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