[MUD-Dev2] Meaningful Conseqences

[cruise]

John Arras wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 4:31 PM, Eric Lee <saintgimp at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Players will try to trash things, so to work in an MMO, you will need to
> make the
> world altering actions difficult to achieve or you would need to make the
> actions consume resources that the players can't have in unlimited amounts.
> 
> So, killing a wolf doesn't mean no more wolves appear at a location. It
> might mean an
> underlying wolf population in some simulation is lowered by 1, but it will
> take
> a while to actually make an area barren.

Depending on the numbers of players you have in your game world, it can
be very difficult to find the line between too easy and impossible. Too
low a threshold for change, and players will quickly figure it out and
band together to lay waste to entire areas. Set it too high to prevent
this, and individual players will never see the effects of their
actions, an the entire process is moot.

I do think it is solvable, however, and I agree procedural techniques
are the way forward. One important requirement for this is  to require
long-term, large-scale co-ordination between players to achieve larger
effects. That is, a bunch of bored warriors shouldn't be able to invade
an enemy nation and lay waste to it's food supply in an afternoon.
Supply lines, scouting, removal of early warning systems, etc. could all
be requirements. Different classes, different skills, working together
for several days. If players can co-ordinate that well, they deserve to
have an effect.