[MUD-Dev] Proposed Law

[Paul Schwanz]

Paul Schwanz wrote:  (yeah, I know I'm replying to myself again)

>  1) I don't like re-spawns for aesthetic reasons.  They interfere
>  with my suspension of disbelief no matter how consistently done.
>  My preference is for a game to kill things it wants dead and not
>  to kill things it doesn't want dead.  There may be exceptions to
>  this, but I prefer them to be exceptions rather than the rule.  I
>  covered some of this in another post.

>   2) I also prefer to give as much freedom of choice as possible
>   to gamers.  In other words, I'd like them to be able to kill
>   things they want to kill and otherwise destroy things they want
>   to destroy.

>   3) Given the first two points, along with the knowledge that
>   destruction burns content, I need to present the gamer with some
>   reasons to not destroy.  One method of doing this involves
>   having many different dimensions of interaction with game
>   pieces.  As the utility of a game piece goes up, so does the
>   consequences of its destruction.

> I hope that is a bit more clear.

Actually, after writing this, I thought of an example which might
help explain my thinking.

In AC, I killed poor, defenseless cows just standing there and
minding their own business.  In my defense, I was a young, low-level
magic user with very little knowledge.  Rabbits and cows were pretty
standard fare.

  Kill cow.  Take dropped meat to shop.  Exchange for a few pyreal.
  Buy reagents.  Research spells.  Kill more cows.

Really, it seemed quite clear that the cow had been designed to
interact with me in this manner...  and only in this manner.

What if I could have milked the cow?

If I could have milked the cow and received 3p for milk and 5p for
meat, I probably would have milked the cow and then killed it.  Why?
Because it is just going to rewpawn anyway.  Why not?

But wouldn't it be interesting if cows didn't respawn?  I could kill
it and get 5p for the meat now, or I could try to keep it alive and
come back periodically to milk it.

What if I could own a house with a few acres, build a fenced in
area, put a cow and bull together, and breed them, while trying to
keep the wolves from stealing calves?  I'd probably milk some, breed
others, kill a few from time to time, and hunt down any wolves I
spotted nearby...and I'd probably still be playing AC.

--Phinehas

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