[MUD-Dev] Natural Selection and Communities

[Crosbie Fitch]

From: John Buehler

> I'm suggesting that developers of games can pose problems that
> will cause more complex organizational structures to come into
> being.  My mental model of this is that the game itself provides a
> skeletal structure for organizations, and that the players use
> those tools (game problems, rewards, communication mechanisms,
> etc) to flesh out the organizations the way they want them in
> specifics.  As Paul Schwanz is suggesting, having choices in
> social structures is a good thing and I'd certainly like players
> to have a sense of exploration in even how they organize.

> As a more specific example, if moving construction materials to a
> relic fort for the purpose of rebuilding the damage done by
> attacking forces were accomplished in more complex ways than
> simply loading up strong characters with lots of wood, I'm certain
> that social constructs would come into being to deal with that
> problem.

Here's a couple of ideas that I reckon would facilitate social
structures...

  1) A tithe/fealty.

    This allows a player to voluntarily enable an automatic
    deduction of 10% of their income (resources, gold pieces,
    whatever) to another player.

    When faced with destruction and confiscation of
    resources/property by an aggressor, a player may prefer to offer
    up a tithe of some sort by way of peaceful subjugation.

    Given that these tithes should be transitive, this should give
    some potential for pyramidal power structures...

  2) Ability to delegate command of forces

    This allows a player to voluntarily submit to another player,
    i.e. place their power (armies, property, land, subjugates) at
    another player's disposal.

    This would allow imminently overrun players to surrender but
    retain some degree of power albeit in service to another. The
    penalty for disobedience (levied at the discretion of the lord)
    would be forfeiture of 50% of resources, funds, land, etc.

Well, I hope you get the idea. I have others, and am toying with
bringing them all together in an article.

When it's easy for players to set up a no-hassle ongoing power or
monetary relationship, it allows the formation of hierarchies, and
relatively autonomous administrations of these.

I hope to see such things in MMORTSs in the near future....


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