[MUD-Dev] Logical MUD Areas

[Greg Munt]

From: Scion Altera <keeler at teleport.com>

> Ditch the human built areas and go for generated ones. Seperate the
> mobs from the areas entirely: create groups of mobs that go
> together, for instance "a goblin village" and "a human
> village". Then, your group of goblins can be loaded in a suitable
> area chosen by the mud, and they can form a village.

> The human village that happened to load nearby them should be full
> of humans that have needs, such as money and food. The soldier mobs
> form a group and walk over to the goblins, beat them up, steal their
> money, eat their food, then return to the human village.

> 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.

> 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?


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