[MUD-Dev] Natural Selection and Communities

[Paul Schwanz]

"Koster, Raph" wrote:
> From: John Buehler
>> Paul Schwanz writes:

>>> Why not let the player-run cities each decide for themselves
>>> what form ED will take?

>> I assume that game developers don't want to give players that
>> much control.  They fear exploits of feature combinations that
>> will result in exploitable behavior.  This is the same attitude
>> that has made class theory rule the day - careful structuring to
>> ensure that players have fun in the way that the game designers
>> designed the game.  At best, I assume that they would go with a
>> class-like treatment of city design problem, and say that the
>> players can have community types A, B, C and D.  Those types
>> would all be prestructured for the styles that the game designers
>> themselves consider to be viable and entertaining.

> Speaking hypothetically here (*poke Paul*) it could also be
> because said developers have limited time in which to implement
> features and are choosing to implement the bare minimum
> functionality in order to ensure that the feature gets in at
> all. :) 

OK, I admit it.  I am an idealist, motivated by a singular goal to
design a better MMORPG.  But I can see that there are practical
limitations to what can be accomplished in specific implementations.

As long as said hypothetical developers (*grin*) design to allow for
implementation of such features at a future date, I'll stick with my
(admittedly uninformed) opinion that it could benefit community and
retention enough to justify cost.  In the mean time, hopefully, I'll
be enjoying the heck out of the bare minimum player empowerment
functionality in their hypothetical game and counting myself lucky.

If any developers, hypothetical or otherwise, are looking to do this
in a future or current project, I would thoroughly enjoy discussing
with them the limitations and possibilities for such a system.

--Phinehas


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