August 1999

• Game design and gender: An interesting article Nathan F Yospe
• • Game design and gender: An interesting article Jon A. Lambert
  • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Marian Griffith
    • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Jeremy Music "Sterling"
      • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Cynbe ru Taren
        • Game design and gender: An interesting article Caliban Tiresias Darklock
        • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Matthew Mihaly
          • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Caliban Tiresias Darklock
            • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Ben Greear
              • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Albert
          • Game design and gender: An interesting article Koster, Raph
          • Game design and gender: An interesting article Laurel Fan
          • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Caliban Tiresias Darklock
            • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Willowreed@aol.com
              • Game design and gender: An interesting article Albert
        • Game design and gender: An interesting article Koster, Raph
        • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Adam Wiggins
          • Game design and gender: An interesting article Marian Griffith
        • Game design and gender: An interesting article Marian Griffith
      • Game design and gender: An interesting article Ola Fosheim Grøstad
      • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Matthew Mihaly
        • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Adam Wiggins
          • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Caliban Tiresias Darklock
            • Game design and gender: An interesting article Matthew Mihaly
        • Game design and gender: An interesting article Marian Griffith
        • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Mik Clarke
        • Game design and gender: An interesting article Marian Griffith
        • • Game design and gender: An interesting article Ola Fosheim Grøstad
  • Game design and gender: An interesting article Greg Miller
• question about tile-based games Chris Gray
• • question about tile-based games Scott Boding
  • question about tile-based games Jeremy Music "Sterling"
  • • question about tile-based games Katrina McClelan
    • • question about tile-based games Caliban Tiresias Darklock
      • • question about tile-based games Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
        • • question about tile-based games Chris Gray
    • question about tile-based games AR Schleicher
  • question about tile-based games Wes Connell
  • question about tile-based games AR Schleicher
  • • question about tile-based games Wes Connell
• Mud Census? Timothy O'Neill Dang
• MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Par Winzell
• • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Dr. Cat
    > From: Par Winzell <zell@alyx.com>
    >
    > I'd love to see a resurrection of a thread dealing with these old dreams.
    > It seems to me the gaming world is well aware of the allure of background
    > simulation in presented virtual worlds -- the idea of a world larger than
    > the player, cookin' away oblivious to whatever the player's fiddling with
    > at any given moment... this is alluded to in advertisements constantly.
    > It's strange to me that more isn't happening in this direction. Could it
    > be that it's a somewhat adult theme? Perhaps the Average Teenager is less
    > interested in a real world -- unless they can shoot it up?
    
    Sorry to sound cynical, but I try to be a realist about these things...
    My personal take on this sort of work is that it's actually primarily
    for the enterainment of the programmers making and/or administrating it,
    not for the fun of the players. But they convince themselves it will be
    great fun for the players, which would certainly justify doing the stuff
    they're so looking forward to the pleasure of tinkering with.
    
    I'm quite willing to be proven wrong. If I ever see a world with a large
    amount of simulation of ecology and/or economy "behind the players' backs"
    that makes the game a lot more fun and was well worth the effort, I'll
    change my opinion. But to date, such efforts generally fail to produce
    the large amounts of fun the programmers expected. Either they generate
    a tiny quantity of fun, or none, or sometimes their simulation breaks
    down entirely.
    
    The one series I know of where people seem to derive pleasure from
    complex ecology/economy simulations are the Sim series of games from
    Maxis (SimCity, SimEarth, SimLinearAccelerator, etc.) But in those
    games, the player is given access to all of the details about all of the
    stuff that's being simulated, and can watch and/or meddle with it.
    Putting him/her in a role more like that of the MUD programmer who enjoys
    building and watching the simulation in their game, while all the player
    knows is whether or not there were any deer or wolves in such-and-such
    place when they went by again today.
    
    It's really hard to simulate when and why there are wolves there, or how
    much it costs to buy a new shirt, in such a way that the patterns of it
    seem significantly more interesting or fun to someone experiencing it.
    Indeed, we have such forces influencing the prices of things we buy in
    the real world, but few people find the fluctuations in the prices of
    things like clothes and food to be "fun". (Maybe when something's on
    sale cheap.) More likely you find it in more extreme and exaggerated
    situations, like the stock market. A good example of a game that was
    engineered to have more dramatic and interesting supply and demand price
    fluctuations involving multiple players was M.U.L.E. That game only
    works with 4 players though, coming up with a model that fun and clean
    and well balanced that would support 400 or 40,000 is something that I
    don't know if anyone's ready to accomplish yet.
    
    I'm perfectly content to "work backwards", starting at the outrageous and
    socially unacceptable point of "what type of end results in 'gameworld
    behavior' do I think would generate fun for the players?" And once I
    think I have an answer to that question, I'll just design and program the
    absolutely most simple and bulletproof algorithms to generate those types
    of behavior. If I think two population booms/busts per month, or five
    dramatic price fluctuations per month would be the right frequency to
    make them frequent enough to provide interest, but not so frequent that
    players get bored of them and don't care... Well I could try to program
    some complex simulation and balance it that way - or I could say "Look,
    this operating system has date and time functions my server program is
    allowed to call. Let's pick a random number from 3 to 7 for how many big
    price fluctuations I'll do this month. Ok, 4. Let me pick 4 random
    days... Got it. Every other day I'll vary the price of this item up and
    down with statistical white noise, and on those days I'll make some big
    dramatic changes."
    
    Another advantage to this type of method, aside from the fact that it
    takes orders of magnitude less implementation time, is that it's much
    easier to predict in advance how much fun you will add to the game if you
    do this work. Whereas with a simulation all you can do is take a wild
    guess, then do the huge amount of work and find out how much fun you
    actually REALLY added. I'd rather spend time on things that I'm highly
    confident will produce fun, rather than take a stab in the dark and maybe
    find out that I was just fooling myself.
    
    And besides, all MUDs already have a large number of interacting forces
    combining to produce interesting and unexpected results. They're called
    human beings, or to you and me, "players". Now that I think of it, this
    really closely matches the mania often present in the single-player game
    development world (and which some of them bring to the online world)
    about simulating NPCs with more and more depth and personality and realism.
    We already have the experience of talking to real people, which is a
    thousand times better or more. Trying to make NPCs do that job anywhere
    near as well is the LAST place you should spend any effort. Make them do
    useful things that players can't or won't do, but don't try to make them do
    things like rich conversation. You'll fail, and there's already a source
    of that available anyway. Simulating a background economy/ecology seems
    like the same sort of thing. Build the world in such a way that the
    collective actions of the players themselves becomes rich and
    interesting. Don't try to make a bunch of deer and wolves and
    shopkeepers do it all on their own even when nobody is logged in!
    That'll always be far less interesting to the players.
    
    *-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
    Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test:
    *-------------------------------------------** http://www.bga.com/furcadia
    Furcadia - a new graphic mud for PCs! || Let your imagination soar!
    *-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
  • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Matthew Mihaly
• MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Par Winzell
• • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Matthew Mihaly
• MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Wes Connell
• • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Koster, Raph
  • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Greg Miller
    • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Colin Coghill
      • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Marian Griffith
      • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Greg Miller
        • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Matthew Mihaly
          • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Miroslav Silovic
            • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Matthew Mihaly
              • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Caliban Tiresias Darklock
          • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Marian Griffith
          • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Greg Miller
            • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Marian Griffith
              • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Greg Miller
        • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Koster, Raph
        • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Mik Clarke
          • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Koster, Raph
            • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Mik Clarke
              • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Koster, Raph
                • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Greg Miller
          • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Wes Connell
          • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Albert
          • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Marian Griffith
          • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
            • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Matthew Mihaly
              • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Marian Griffith
                • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Greg Miller
                  • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Marian Griffith
              • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Caliban Tiresias Darklock
              • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
                • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Matthew Mihaly
                • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Caliban Tiresias Darklock
                  • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Matthew Mihaly
                    • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Koster, Raph
                • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Greg Miller
  • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Ola Fosheim Grøstad
  • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Koster, Raph
    • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Ola Fosheim Grøstad
      • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Koster, Raph
        • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Ola Fosheim Grøstad
    • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Greg Miller
  • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Marian Griffith
  • • MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs Matthew Mihaly
• Designing fun sims. (was MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
• The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Dundee
• • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Ola Fosheim Grøstad
  • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
    • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Colin Coghill
      • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
        • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Sellers, Michael
        • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Wes Connell
        • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Matthew Mihaly
          • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Koster, Raph
            • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Wes Connell
          • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Sellers, Michael
      • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Ola Fosheim Grøstad
      • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Ilya, SCC, Game Commando
        • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Dundee
          • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Ilya, Game Commandos
            • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Dundee
              • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Jon A. Lambert
                • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Travis S. Casey
                • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing J C Lawrence
                • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Koster, Raph
                  • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Adam Wiggins
                  • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Koster, Raph
                    • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Adam Wiggins
                      • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Koster, Raph
                        • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Ola Fosheim Grøstad
                        • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Wes Connell
                        • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Travis S. Casey
                          • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Wes Connell
                            • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Travis S. Casey
                              • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Caliban Tiresias Darklock
                                • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Dundee
                                  • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Travis Casey
                                  • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Caliban Tiresias Darklock
                          • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Dundee
                        • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing J C Lawrence
                        • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Robin Cloutman
                        • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Adam Wiggins
                          • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Ilya, Game Commandos
                            • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Wes Connell
                          • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Laurel Fan
                          • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Mik Clarke
                      • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing J C Lawrence
                      • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing J C Lawrence
                    • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing J C Lawrence
                  • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Timothy O'Neill Dang
                  • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing J C Lawrence
                  • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Dundee
                  • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing J C Lawrence
                    • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Caliban Tiresias Darklock
                    • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Dundee
                      • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Adam Wiggins
                        • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Greg Miller
                        • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Ilya, Game Commandos
                  • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Travis S. Casey
              • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Chris Turner
              • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Adam Wiggins
                • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Chris Turner
          • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Ola Fosheim Grøstad
          • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Ilya, Game Commandos
            • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Ola Fosheim Grøstad
            • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Greg Miller
            • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Ola Fosheim Grøstad
              • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Caliban Tiresias Darklock
                • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Greg Miller
  • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Eli Stevens {KiZurich}
  • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Adam Wiggins
    • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing J C Lawrence
    • • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Wes Connell
      • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Greg Miller
  • The Best Guy on the Mud Thing Dundee
• Balancing issues (renamed) Marian Griffith
• Singleton design pattern (OT?) Eli Stevens {KiZurich}
• • Singleton design pattern (OT?) Wayne Pearson
  • Singleton design pattern (OT?) Cynbe ru Taren
  • • Singleton design pattern (OT?) Adam Wiggins
• OT: My absence J C Lawrence
• ScryMUD: News update (Opening to the Public on the 4th of September!) Ben Greear