[MUD-Dev] Geometric content generation

[Ian Collyer]

John Buehler wrote:
> Ian Collyer writes:

>> I think it helps to view this 'content race' problem as a
>> mathematical equation where, in order to meet demand for new
>> content the following must be satisfied:

>>   ContentCreationRate * NoOfDevelopers >= ContentConsumptionRate

>> Rearranging gives:

>>   NoOfDevelopers >= ContentConsumptionRate / ContentCreationRate

>> An interesting point to note is that this is _independent_ of the
>> number of users, which prompts me to question why everyone is
>> discarding option 1 above so quickly. Surely with a sufficiently
>> large paying user base simply increasing the number of developers
>> is a viable option.

> Your units are messed up.  Rate * Number = RateNumber, which is
> not comparable with a Rate.  The number of users is significant.

> ContentCreationRate * NumberOfDevelopers >= ContentConsumptionRate
> * NumberOfUsers

I didn't give an example originally as I felt that might implicitly
define 'content' as something much more restricted than I would
like. The example below is based on areas or zones as content for
simplicity, but it could equally apply to new skills, new races,
etc.

Although there will be some (perhaps a lot of) individual variation,
arithmetic means are used for the content creation and consumption
rates.

So your average developer will create 'ContentCreationRate' new
areas per month, whilst your average user will explore
'ContentConsumptionRate' new areas per month. This will still hold
no matter how many developers or users you have.

  [It's just struck me that 'consumption' is perhaps a bad choice of
  word here as the point is that the content is _not_ consumed and
  once created it can be experienced by any number of users at no
  incremental (creation) cost.]

So if your average user explores four new areas a month and your
average developer can create only a single new area per month you
need four developers creating new areas to satisfy demand regardless
of the number of users.


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