[MUD-Dev] Gdn: item decay was: Blog about GDC implies changes to MMORPG population

[Mathieu Castelli]

J C Lawrence wrote:

> Decay systems involve lots of change, both in their decay, and the
> constant effort and activity involved in merely attempting to
> maintain the status quo.  The trick is to make those changes also
> interesting.

Reading this rather old post, I was trying to come up with things
that are interesting as decayed, as they reach the end of their
time.  Stars and their nova sequence out of which heavy elements
exist.

Simply translated into the game it could be that right near the end,
weapons and armours could blow out. The metaphor being that the
crackles in the fabric becomes shrapnel (or, if need for a variant,
that as the magical energy is not strong to hold the elements
together anymore, it blows).

Such last instant power could make near-consumed weapons quite
useful, and wearying them out to be a way to inject some value back
into them as higher level players might need the explosion for
specially tough monsters. The price of the item would gradually go
back up from the 'middle' point where it's far both from the
pristine stage and the end life explosion, i.e. where it needs most
work to be back to most useful state. An incentive to wear items
out?

There's a Ultima series 'glass swords' feeling to it.

If not a final explosion, the effect of items could suddenly surge
in the last moments before the item is lost.  Explained by the fact
items build experience as they wear and becore more 'effective', but
more and more fragile, till disapearance.

Also the end life of a caterpillar is pretty. Weapons could disapear
into magical coloured jets...which would be the required event for
some spells, but that's back to the first idea.

hmm, this is all using the decaying objects as reagents, or
material. It was already the case in UO with metallic items being
recycled into lingots.

I just love supernovae as a necessary step for life :)

Mathieu Castelli
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