[MUD-Dev] Building a 'Deeper' MMOG

[Brian Lindahl]

From: Ron Gabbard <rgabbard at swbell.net>

> Imagine a world where players harvest trees for wood that is used
> to make player-owned buildings, weapons, furniture, etc.  There is
> no fixed cost for constructing and owning a 'house', just the cost
> of the lumber needed to construct it and that cost is determined
> by free market supply/demand.  Repairs to house degradation and
> damage are also 'paid for' in wood, not gold.  Thus, assuming that
> many people will want to own houses and commercial buildings, the
> demand for lumber would be tremendous and growing exponentially as
> more and more players constructed buildings.

For the most part you seem to delve into the techinical depth while
completely ignoring thematic depth. I think thematic depth is much
more entertaining than the techinical depth you are describing, and
something that keeps getting ignored, and heavily ignored at that,
by both MUDs and GMUDs. Not to criticize you at all, I think its
almost natural for any coder (I'm guessing thats what you are) to
get involved in the technical depth of a project. In fact, I'd
probably would be responding in the same manner as you, were it not
for a recent MUD project I've started with an author who introduced
me into the concepts of thematic depth.

I think technical depth is almost hidden to the players of the game,
while thematic depth is always on the surface for the players to
experience, and thus, is much more important to develop, especially
in conjunction with the code. I suggest you take a trip to
www.mudconnector.com, and read some of the topics in the roleplaying
forum. My co-producer of 'The Cathyle Project', Edward Falconer, has
some very good posts about this topic, although they may be hidden a
bit.

-Brian Lindahl, coder of 'The Cathyle Project'
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