[MUD-Dev] Logical MUD Areas

[Greg Munt]

-----Original Message-----
From: Scion Altera <keeler at teleport.com>
To: Greg Munt <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: 06 May 2001 5:38 PM
Subject: Re[2]: [MUD-Dev] Logical MUD Areas

> 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.


A world simulation doesnt mean no "smoke and mirrors" - not at
all. There's no need to have things happening in your world, that no
player will ever see. However, teleporting a town to another place
wouldn't make sense. You'd need scouts going out into the world, to
help decide where the new location of the town should be. You'd need
people to go on ahead, and build new buildings, and stuff like
that. Then you'd need to transplant the actual inhabitants. A town
should repop just as much as an NPC/mob should. (Read: it shouldn't.)

> 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.


Well, you only have this kind of situation if your builder's expect
their area to be artificially permanent. Builders should work within
the constraints of the world. In short, they shouldn't be surprised if
their work is destroyed. Perhaps a town could be suitably generic to
be used elsewhere, or a builder could produce a template that is
enhanced by the system. Builders should be as flexible as the world
they are building for.  In traditional muds, the world is
permanent. Players can't change it in ways such as we are
discussing. Builders have expectations. If they aren't met, you're
asking for trouble. All you have to do is set the right expectations.
And if they need to be changed, warn your builders well in advance.

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