[MUD-Dev] Social Networks

[Tess Snider]

On Thu, 22 Aug 2002, Bruce Mitchener wrote:

> Some factors that she claims play a role in the safety of a city,
> based on some anecdotal stories, are:

>     * Presence of passers-by, kibitzers, shopkeepers to intervene
>     (or prevent by their presence) in criminal acts.

[...]

> There are numerous problems with applying these ideas to a game:

> [Problems presented]

I would add:

      - There generally isn't a population of players who maintain
      static posts, such as shopkeepers.  You could make your NPC
      shopkeepers take more interest in the goings-on in front of
      their stores, and potentially fill an enforcement role, but it
      could then be argued that they aren't much different, then,
      from guards, which, as was pointed out, further up, aren't
      that effective.

This is really part of a broader problem.  Real cities are places
where people work, in addition to living.  In most MUDs, any mundane
jobs that the players might have are usually performed off-screen,
or quickly, in a matter of clicks.  Their real, on-screen business
(usually killing things) typically occurs outside of the city.  In
roleplaying-intensive games, a character's "work" (which may be
political, social, or whatever) usually does take place in urban
areas, but those cities are usually vast wastelands, connecting
taverns and other hot-spots of actual active play.

I have found that game cities come closest to real cities when there
is good support for player mercantile activity, and that, for
whatever reasons, the cities are better places for conducting
business than, say, the mouth of a cave, or the front gate of the
city wall.  There are many things that designers do to make cities
terrible places to do business!

Some examples:

	- Making cities difficult or impossible to navigate.

	- Making cities nothing but static wallpaper, with no
	changes, or moving parts.

	- Not allowing players any form of -ownership- in the city
	or its fixtures.

	- Making a large class of potential business clients
	kill-on-sight in the city.

	- Building cities that take a long time to "zone" into.

	- Making your city NPCs too spammy when players have to
	interact with them frequently.

	- Making players have to fight over basic crafting equipment
	in the city, driving them to more remote equipment,
	elsewhere.

	- Making city spaces that are buggy or laggy even before the
	players start showing up (don't laugh, I've seen it
	happen!).

	- Making it prohibitively difficult for players to even
	convey supplies, loot, or manufactured goods back to the
	city.

Some of these are design-tradeoffs, but others, such as the spammy
NPCs, should just be avoided, in general.  Of course, the question
remains, do you WANT everyone piling into your cities to do their
trading?  Depending on your game (and its ability to handle high
player concentrations), the answer may be no.

Tess


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