[MUD-Dev] Geometric content generation

[Brian Hook]

At 12:03 PM 10/1/01 +0100, Adam M. wrote:

> Given previous discussions on how hard it is to prevent people
> simply opening new accounts, how do you propose to make it
> undesirable enough that few enough people do so?

Egads, I must have poorly communicated to an extreme for the number
of replies asking the same thing! =)

I think the number of players with multiple accounts are going to be
at a minimum, and given the vastness of the universe (about 60K
unique planets per player to explore), I don't think jealousy is
going to be a huge problem until players willingly congregate.  Now,
that's a psychological solution to the problem, and one that's easy
to defeat, and I recognize that.

Ultimately I'm hoping that the game is compelling enough in its
native form that people aren't going to shell out the extra
$10/month (or whatever) just to amplify their skill in a minor way.
I don't want the situation to consist of egregiously messed up
career types that make the game radically unfun without muling with
multiple accounts.  If that turns out to be the case, then I've
failed as a designer.

Realistically speaking, if you purchase multiple accounts you're
simply going to end up getting much the same effect as if you're
playing with a friend controlled by you.  There's not much benefit
to twinking a second character and then channelling all the money
into a single character, because your secondary character will
suffer without proper equipment (i.e. a better spaceship).

If you have Trabish the Trader and Fiollar the Fighter cooperating,
then as far as "the system" is concerned they're playing the game
"correctly".  I don't care if it's actually just one player
controlling two characters.  And there's no real unbalancing effect,
because if the Trabish character is funnelling all money into
Fiollar, Trabish becomes less viable.  They can't have a stable of
ships or a shared bank, and reselling equipment generally will be at
a high depreciation so buying/reselling on demand won't be optimal
either.

Brian

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