June 1999
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Mark Gritter
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Travis S. Casey
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Travis Casey
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Travis S. Casey
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Jp Calderone
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Travis Casey
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Cynbe ru Taren
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Koster, Raph
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Koster, Raph
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Ben Greear
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Jon A. Lambert
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Munt
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Darren Henderson
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Munt
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Miroslav Silovic
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Alex Oren
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Darren Henderson
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) David Bennett
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Darren Henderson
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Ross Nicoll
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Koster, Raph
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Ross Nicoll
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Jon A. Lambert
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Jon A. Lambert
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Jon A. Lambert
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Koster, Raph
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Ben Greear
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Chris Gray
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- IndustrialMUD J C Lawrence
- IndustrialMUD Greg Miller
- Combat (very long) Matthew Mihaly
- Combat (very long) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Combat (very long) Matthew Mihaly
- Combat (very long) Marian Griffith
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Chris Gray
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Matthew Mihaly
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Chris Gray
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- What about goal oriented interfaces? (was Text Parsing) Adam Wiggins
- thoughts Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Marian Griffith
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Marian Griffith
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Koster, Raph
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies Adam Wiggins
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Greg Miller
- Game Economies Ross Nicoll
- Game Economies Koster, Raph
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Jo Dillon
- Game Economies Ross Nicoll
- Game Economies Marian Griffith
- Game Economies Jo Dillon
- Game Economies Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Game Economies Koster, Raph
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Marian Griffith
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Jo Dillon
- Game Economies Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Game Economies Jo Dillon
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Koster, Raph
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies Greg Munt
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Jon A. Lambert
- Game Economies Shawn Halpenny
- Game Economies Brandon J. Rickman
- Game Economies Jon A. Lambert
- Game Economies Shane King
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Koster, Raph
- Game Economies Nathan F Yospe
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
On Wed, 9 Jun 1999, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> On 08:13 PM 6/9/99 -0700, I personally witnessed J C Lawrence jumping up to
> say:
> >
> >XScreenSaver has a module called "attraction". Run it. The
> >mechanics are extremely simple and quite obvious to the eye. Now
> >consider that eacy ball is in fact a system value or state in your
> >game and that your screen is a two-dimenional graph (with
> >appropriately valued axis for each ball). All of a sudden, with
> >very simple mechanics you have rather interesting behaviours for
> >little expense.
>
> Based purely on this description, this is just the sort of thing I'm
> looking at with UU. The existing economy is excessively simple, excessively
> predictable, *if* you pay close attention to it. A little observation will
> teach you what everything "should" cost in the game and whether 18 credits
> a ton for water is a high price or a low one. But it's a really effective
> *illusion* of a complex economy; it just fudges the idea of supply and
> demand to make it appear that things are complicated when in fact there's
> just a random fluctuation on a set of very simple calculations. A bunch of
> theoretical calculations are lumped together into a final answer, which is
> rapidly calculated based on available variables, and then I just go "umm,
> well, okay, it's not always going to be PERFECT, so let's give it... say, a
> ten percent skew in one direction or the other". I like the elegance of
> this approach. I'm trying to extend it to other things... yeah, I know, the
> magic is sort of gone now, isn't it? ;)
Actually, this sounds like sort of the opposite of what JC is talking
about. A good example of what he is talking about is the game of Life (not
the board game). I'm sure most of you have seen it, so I'll spare you a
detailed explanation, but essentially you start with a bunch of lighted
squares on a computer screen, then apply simple rules to them. I forget
the details of Life, but it's something like if an empty square has 2
lighted neighbors it will light up. If it has 3 or more (or maybe 4 or
more, I don't remember), it will die out.
That's the simplest version, but even with those extremely simple rules,
you end up with these really interesting and persistent patterns. You've
got flyers, which are patterns that fly across the screen over and over,
maintaining the same pattern (the screen wraps around), you've got guns,
which are stable islands that regularly fire off clusters of the same
pattern. You've got some that switch back and forth between the same
states (some guys at MIT even were able to devise an initial configuration
through which a stable pattern would be produced that would cycle through
_eight_ variations before returning to the original). There are others
too, but I can't remember them. Life is an absolutely fascinating program
to watch. You can start out with total chaos, with squares lit up at
random, and see how long the systems can go before all chaos dies away and
you have pure order. You want to avoid hitting order, because then it's
boring and uninteresting (not to mention not realistic), but you also want
to see stable patterns emerge and disintegrate. The ideas that the Santa
Fe Institute are dealing with are all about finding this "edge of chaos",
where they feel that things get interesting, from the possibility of life
and intelligence, to most economic activity, etc.
Defining what the outcome is going to be is sort of the opposite of this
sort of thing. What JC is doing sounds really interesting, though I have
no idea how much fun it is for the players. I doubt I will ever take the
risk of putting a system in with the intention of allowing emergent
properties, simply because they could be bad for business.
--matt - Game Economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game Economies Koster, Raph
- Game Economies Brandon J. Rickman
- Game Economies Marian Griffith
- Game Economies Katrina McClelan
- Game Economies Adam Wiggins
- Game Economies Katrina McClelan
- Game Economies Albert
- Game Economies Jp Calderone
- Game Economies Laurel Fan
- Game Economies Albert
- Game Economies Charles Hughes
- Game Economies J C Lawrence
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Mik Clarke
- Game Economies Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Game Economies Matthew Mihaly
- Game Economies Ling
- Game Economies Ling
- Game Economies Mik Clarke
- Rooms Greg Munt
- Parsing Text Output Jon A. Lambert
- Parsing Text Output Chris Gray
- MUD-Dev request rejected Greg Miller
- Interface/Custom Clients Greg Miller
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)y Mark Gritter
- Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)y Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Greg Munt
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Matthew Mihaly
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Koster, Raph
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Ross Nicoll
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Richard Bartle
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or againsteach other? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Christopher Allen
- Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other? Richard Bartle
- CVS repository for ScryMUD is online at scry.wanfear.com Ben Greear
- Mihaly's Combat Greg Munt
- Mihaly's Combat Matthew Mihaly
- Looking for UML David95037@aol.com
- Looking for UML Greg Munt
- Looking for UML David95037@aol.com
- Slogans (Game Economies) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Slogans (Game Economies) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- A couple Qs, and thanks Ben Greear
- Understanding and "should-ness" Matthew Mihaly
- Understanding and "should-ness" Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Personalities J C Lawrence
- realism Matthew Mihaly
- Gender and Mud Development Nathan F Yospe
- Gender and Mud Development Greg Miller
- Gender and Mud Development Katrina McClelan
- Gender and Mud Development Jon A. Lambert
- Gender and Mud Development Matthew Mihaly
- Gender and Mud Development Jon A. Lambert
- Gender and Mud Development Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Gender and Mud Development David Holz
- Gender and Mud Development Jon A. Lambert
- Gender and Mud Development Matthew Mihaly
- Gender and Mud Development Greg Miller
- Gender and Mud Development J C Lawrence
- Gender and Mud Development Koster, Raph
- Gender and Mud Development J C Lawrence
- Gender and Mud Development Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Gender and Mud Development J C Lawrence
- Gender and Mud Development Koster, Raph
- Gender and Mud Development Greg Munt
- Gender and Mud Development Greg Miller
- Gender and Mud Development Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Gender and Mud Development Marian Griffith
- Gender and Mud Development Matthew Mihaly
- Gender and Mud Development Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Gender and Mud Development Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Gender and Mud Development Adam Wiggins
- Gender and Mud Development Travis S. Casey
- Gender and Mud Development Marian Griffith
- Newbies (was Text Parsing) John Hopson
- Newbies (was Text Parsing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Average play time? Timothy O'Neill Dang
- Average play time? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Average play time? Koster, Raph
- {OT} Gender and Mud Development Wendy Winkler
- AOL lawsuit (was text parsing) Koster, Raph
- Sexual archetypes claw@kanga.nu
- Systems and concepts Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Katrina McClelan
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Koster, Raph
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Greg Miller
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) J C Lawrence
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Jon A. Lambert
- Games within Games [Was: Gender and Mud Development] Kristen Koster
- Games within Games [Was: Gender and Mud Development] Greg Miller
- Games within Games [Was: Gender and Mud Development] Kristen Koster
- Games within Games [Was: Gender and Mud Development] Jon A. Lambert
- Games within Games [Was: Gender and Mud Development] Kristen Koster
- Games within Games [Was: Gender and Mud Development] Marian Griffith
- Tactical Combat and Traps (was the gender thread) Katrina McClelan
- Game construction and a big mistake Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Game construction and a big mistake Marc Bowden
- Game construction and a big mistake Greg Miller
- Game construction and a big mistake Matthew Mihaly
- Game construction and a big mistake Willowreed@aol.com
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Koster, Raph
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) claw@kanga.nu
- Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some) Marc Bowden
- Client-Server vs. Peer-to-Peer -- Implementing DIS on the Internet claw@kanga.nu
- Goals and directions (was the gender thing) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #93 - 27 msgs Dr. Cat
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #93 - 27 msgs Greg Miller
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #93 - 27 msgs Koster, Raph
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #93 - 27 msgs Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Gender and Mud Development (drifting off topic again) S. Patrick Gallaty
- Laws of Online World Design (was: realism) Koster, Raph
- Game construction and a big mistake Koster, Raph
- memory and speed Matthew Mihaly
- memory and speed Adam Wiggins
- memory and speed J C Lawrence
- memory and speed J C Lawrence
- memory and speed Matthew Mihaly
- memory and speed Adam Wiggins
- memory and speed Chris Gray
- memory and speed Miroslav Silovic
- memory and speed Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- memory and speed Mark Gritter
- memory and speed Ben Greear
- memory and speed Matthew Mihaly
- memory and speed S. Patrick Gallaty
- memory and speed Adam Wiggins
- memory and speed Brad Leach
- memory and speed Petri Virkkula
- Virtual worlds based on real world history Greg Munt
- Stockmarkets... Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Games within Games Jesse Farinacci
- ADMIN: Posting authority J C Lawrence
- thoughts on game economies Travis S. Casey
- thoughts on game economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- thoughts on game economies Travis Casey
- thoughts on game economies Koster, Raph
- thoughts on game economies Travis S. Casey
- thoughts on game economies Koster, Raph
- thoughts on game economies Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- thoughts on game economies Jo Dillon
- thoughts on game economies Greg Miller
- thoughts on game economies Matthew Mihaly
- thoughts on game economies Greg Miller
- thoughts on game economies Matthew Mihaly
- thoughts on game economies Jeremy Music "Sterling"
- thoughts on game economies Robert Brady
- thoughts on game economies Ling
- thoughts on game economies Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- thoughts on game economies Alex Oren
- thoughts on game economies Albert
- thoughts on game economies Adam Wiggins
- thoughts on game economies Travis S. Casey
- thoughts on game economies Travis S. Casey
- memory and speed Matthew Mihaly
- memory and speed Shawn Halpenny
- Game economics Matthew Mihaly
- Game economics Nathan F Yospe
- Playing the monsters David95037@aol.com
- Playing the monsters Katrina McClelan
- Playing the monsters Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- How to debug a method taking a variable list of arguments? Ben Greear
- Twisted Reality claw@kanga.nu
- ADMIN: Searching on MUD-Dev archives claw@kanga.nu
- Object Obsolescence [ WAS: thoughts on game economies ] Shawn Halpenny
- SAR Adam Wiggins
- speed problems update Matthew Mihaly
- speed problems update Quzah [softhome]
- ADMIN: NoMail Subscriptions -- please reconfigure J C Lawrence
- Fwd: Books on Compilers Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- UM2 Greg Munt
- 3D Anarchy Adam Wiggins
- Properties of computer languages Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Properties of computer languages Jon Leonard
- Properties of computer languages Mark Gritter
- Properties of computer languages Cynbe ru Taren
- Properties of computer languages Travis S. Casey
- Properties of computer languages David95037@aol.com
- Properties of computer languages Travis S. Casey
- Properties of computer languages Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Properties of computer languages Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Properties of computer languages Joey Hess
- Properties of computer languages Chris Gray
- Properties of computer languages David95037@aol.com
- Properties of computer languages Adam Wiggins
- Properties of computer languages Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Properties of computer languages Mik Clarke
- Different approaches? Dani Dumitrescu
- Different approaches? Koster, Raph
- i got's a question for yall on the best way to do something.. PartyG2816@aol.com
- i got's a question for yall on the best way to do something.. Marc Hernandez
- i got's a question for yall on the best way to do something.. Jim Clark
- i got's a question for yall on the best way to do something.. PartyG2816@aol.com
- i got's a question for yall on the best way to do something.. PartyG2816@aol.com
- Game Design [Simulation] Justin Lockshaw
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #105 - 12 msgs Dr. Cat
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #105 - 12 msgs Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #105 - 12 msgs Chris Gray
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #105 - 12 msgs Mik Clarke
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #105 - 12 msgs Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- A little off topic - anyone receiving multiple copies of list mail? Charles Hughes
- Role playing and Multiple Goals John Bertoglio
- Critiquing Muds Marian Griffith
- Critiquing Muds Koster, Raph
- Critiquing Muds Travis Casey
- Critiquing Muds Marian Griffith
- Critiquing Muds Travis Casey
- Critiquing Muds Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Critiquing Muds Marian Griffith
- Critiquing Muds Jon A. Lambert
- Critiquing Muds Koster, Raph
- Critiquing Muds Matthew Mihaly
- Critiquing Muds Koster, Raph
- Critiquing Muds Damion Schubert
- Critiquing Muds Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Critiquing Muds Michael Willey
- Critiquing Muds Jon A. Lambert
- MUD-Dev: An apology J C Lawrence