[MUD-Dev] Natural Selection and Communities

[John Buehler]

Matt Mihaly writes:
> On Wed, 28 Aug 2002, John Buehler wrote:
>> Matt Mihaly writes:

> I think you misunderstood what I was driving at, which was that
> the cultures of player organizations will evolve differently even
> using the same code-supported political systems. In order to end
> up with radically different organizational cultures, it's not
> necessary to support, say, city-state democracies, AND city-state
> autocracies AND city-state oligarchies AND city-state's that are
> religiously led, etc. Not that that's not nice (though I wrote an
> article for Gamasutra on politics in games a couple years ago and
> argued that democracies are the only system that really makes
> sense to put in a game) but it's not necessary in order to end up
> with very different cultures.

I did misunderstand you to a degree.  I will maintain my observation
that without purpose, those organizations will not come into being.
None of those organizations will come into being in EverQuest, for
example.  Organizations come into being for a reason - in response
to a circumstance (including, as Dave Rickey just pointed out, the
circumstance of a desire for a reward).  Lacking that circumstance,
the organization will not form.  I don't believe that games need to
'code' an organization into being, but a game does have to lay the
groundwork for the players to naturally form into a given
organization.

JB


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