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23397: Re: [MUD-Dev] [MLP] The use of ecology models (was: NPC Complexity)
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From: "Sean Kelly" <sean@ffwd.cx>
Newsgroups: nu.kanga.list.mud-dev
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 13:22:22 -0700
References: [1]
Organization: Kanga.Nu
From: "Sasha Hart" <Sasha.Hart@directory.reed.edu>
> [Sean Kelly]
>> Any ecology will fall apart if 70% of the entire world's
>> population (beasts included) are rampant consumers.
> ALL real organisms are rampant consumers. If this seems trivial
> (who cares about filter feeders, right) then realize how many
> predators make it their daily, constant business to eat other
> critters. In the case of insectivores, at a rate perhaps
> per-capita comparable to how fast players kill things in UO.
> (That would make MUD players something like glorified virtual
> anteaters, wouldn't it? It's more sensible than the hero notion,
> anyway.)
Though players like to feel like they're being challenged, not
culling the insectile horde ;). Still, you're right. The issue
isn't that players are consumers so much as that there isn't a
sufficiently large ecology to support their consumption.
Personally, I like the idea, as in Horizons (and AO), of pitting
groups of players against one another. Seems a good way to provide
a sustainable opposition with a minimum of effort.
> Yet real ecologies are enormously robust, and predation is totally
> ordinary business. Many differences have been suggested, but I
> think I can let this stand as a proof that in principle, an
> ecology can work even to supply constant killing to players. Now,
> whether or not the CPU and dev time might be better spent
> elsewhere is a different matter.
I think the CPU cost is justifiable, but then I'm as interested in
MUDs as experiment in evolutionary computing as much as a social
milieu. I imagine there are ways to offload the CPU cost onto other
machines so the issue becomes purely monetary, however.
> In this case, simple spawns are a vastly more economic
> solution. In supplying us with something that looks alive, spawns
> are as terrible a solution as the UO model was for maintaining
> high and stable populations of prey. IMO :)
And ultimately, I don't think spawning is very entertaining. The
feeling I always got in MMORPGs was that I was in a funhouse. It's
not any fun if I as a player don't have any lasting impact on the
environment.
Sean
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