[MUD-Dev] Proposed Law

[Madman Across the Water]

I accidently deleted the post I'm replying to, so I'm replying to a
reply and cutting out the reply.

<EdNote: The list archives are good for rescueing from these sorts
of situations -- that is one of the reasons I added the ability to
directly reply to archived list messages on the web>

From: "Travis Nixon" <tnixon at avalanchesoftware.com>

> Unless there is some external way to reintroduce cows to the
> system, AND if you put 100 players in a small area that only has
> 200 cows in it,

I'm not sure this matters unless you can guarantee that you will
always keep the number of cows being introduced higher than the
number being removed. Specific numbers of players and cows don't
matter, delta do. Of course, it reinforces itself- if the players
manage to drive it down low enough just for a little while, the
population may not recover.

> AND if there is some benefit to killing cows (you get the meat,
> you practice archery, whatever)

The example I was responding to had given very specific monetary
values to both killing and milking the cow, so I took it as a
given. In fact, had it not been a part of the forumlation, I
probably wouldn't have posted- but the fact that short term, one can
make more money killing the cow than keeping it alive implies to me
that the cows will all be dead in short order.

If you want to make it such that one cannot gain any benefit from
the meat, milk, and hides of the cows, it could be argued that an
external respawn is less unrealistic. I probably wouldn't argue so,
myself, but it would depend on the internal reasons for the lack of
benefit.

> AND if the benefit is worth the time spent (which obviously is
> very subjective)

If a griefer knows he's upsetting you, for many that's worth the
price of admission right there. Yes, very subjective, but given any
benefit (both in AND out of game), there will probably be people who
will consider it worth the time.

> AND if there is no sense of ownership or if there is ownership,
> there are no penalties for killing other people's cows, or the
> penalties are outweighed by the benefits,

penalties outweighed by benefits bring back the subjectiveness
referred to above.

> AND if there are no downsides to killing cows, other than the fact
> that all the cows will be dead...

Even if there are. There are other downsides to the loss of the
rainforests besides the fact that all the rainforests will be
gone. Did the industrial world stop harvesting this resource which
is not renewing itself as quickly and, I'll note, isn't externally
respawning?

> If all of those things are true, then yes, the players definately
> _will_ make them extinct.

Removing the benefits from killing the cows, or rather the IN GAME
benefits, would definately keep more cows alive. It won't stop
people who kill cows because it's fun, or because it annoys other
players.  Specifically, creating any ecology in which it is
_possible_ and not desirable for players to drive it out of
existance means you have to prepare for and expect that they
will. And it gets harder to make sure of this when you don't want to
allow the world to be overrun by cows, either...

Adam B
Madman Across the Water - POLdev

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