[MUD-Dev] Logical MUD Areas

[Michael Stoddart]

> From: Scion Altera <keeler at teleport.com>
> Date: Sun, 6 May 2001 00:45:33 -0700
> Subject: Re[2]: [MUD-Dev] Logical MUD Areas

> 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 culture of the society being threatened has a strong influence on
what they would do if threatened with overwhelming force.  I think
that the archetypal goblins would probably move out and raid easier
pickings rather than fight to the death over a few huts.  Goblins
typically (my interpretation, you might have a different image of
Goblins) don't have much of a sense of chivalry or honour.  They fight
when they are cornered or when they think they can win and they have a
low opinion of sacrificing themselves for someone else - one of the
reasons that goblin hordes are rare and difficult to manage.

Becoming refugees rather than dying to protect your home is not at all
uncommon in human history.  Large displacements of entire peoples
really aren't that uncommon, are they?

I thoroughly support the idea of the Goblins being part of the game's
ecosystem, although I have yet to reconcile the art of area building
with the mechanics of computer generated areas.

Mike

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