September 2002
- A "dev chat" with Brad McQuaid Vincent Archer
- Article on Griefers Rayzam
- Article on Griefers Stephen Miller
- Article on Griefers Michael R. Estepp
- Serialization, dealing with changing classes. Neil Edwards
- Serialization, dealing with changing classes. Sean Kelly
- Serialization, dealing with changing classes. Ammon Lauritzen
- Serialization, dealing with changing classes. Brian Lindahl
- TECH: Serialization, dealing with changing classes. Mark Kochanowski
- Ballerium: Interesting Game John Arras
- Ballerium: Interesting Game Valerio Santinelli
- Ballerium: Interesting Game John Robert Arras
- Ballerium: Interesting Game Crosbie Fitch
- Ballerium: Interesting Game shren
- Ballerium: Interesting Game Peter Tyson
- Ballerium: Interesting Game Valerio Santinelli
- Ballerium: Interesting Game Vincent Archer
- Ballerium: Interesting Game Mark Cheverton
- Ballerium: Interesting Game huserl@yahoo.com
- Ballerium: Interesting Game Adam
- Ballerium: Interesting Game Valerio Santinelli
- Ballerium: Interesting Game Jon A. Lambert
- Much Respect to JessicaM apollyon
- Much Respect to JessicaM Michael Tresca
- Much Respect to JessicaM Sean Kelly
- Much Respect to JessicaM Dave Rickey
- Much Respect to JessicaM Matt Mihaly
- Much Respect to JessicaM Michael Tresca
- Much Respect to JessicaM apollyon
- Much Respect to JessicaM Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Much Respect to JessicaM Sean Kelly
- Much Respect to JessicaM Michael Tresca
- Much Respect to JessicaM Paul Schwanz
- Much Respect to JessicaM Richard A. Bartle
- PK/PD (was Much Respect to JessicaM) justice@softhome.net
- MudDev - FAQ 1 Marian Griffith
- MudDev - FAQ 2 Marian Griffith
- [decentralization] Reputation device (fwd) J C Lawrence
- [decentralization] Reputation device (fwd) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- [decentralization] Reputation device (fwd) Crosbie Fitch
- ANNOUNCE: Open Betas Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- ANNOUNCE: Open Betas Vincent Archer
- ANNOUNCE: Open Betas Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric
- ANNOUNCE: Open Betas Mordengaard
- ANNOUNCE: Open Betas Mordengaard
- Charlie Munger on the Psychology of Human Misjudgment J C Lawrence
- Charlie Munger on the Psychology of Human Misjudgment [summary of points] Sasha Hart
- Point of View Ted L. Chen
- Point of View Shane P. Lee
- Point of View Damion Schubert
- Point of View justice@softhome.net
- Point of View Shane P. Lee
- Point of View listsub@wickedgrey.com
- Point of View justice@softhome.net
- Point of View John Robert Arras
- Point of View Ted L. Chen
- Point of View Ted L. Chen
- Commercialization of virtual spaces Koster, Raph
- Commercialization of virtual spaces Jessica Mulligan
- Commercialization of virtual spaces Derek Licciardi
- Commercialization of virtual spaces Mike Shaver
- Commercialization of virtual spaces Justin Stocks
- Commercialization of virtual spaces Russ Whiteman
- Commercialization of virtual spaces Justin Stocks
- Flexible Perl MUD-like Server Project Luke Parrish
- Flexible Perl MUD-like Server Project stanza
- Flexible Perl MUD-like Server Project Joshua Judson Rosen
- Flexible Perl MUD-like Server Project Lars Duening
- MMOG growth Matt Mihaly
- MMOG growth Koster, Raph
- MMOG growth Daniel James
- UO Advanced Character Service Christopher Allen
- UO Advanced Character Service Jessica Mulligan
- UO Advanced Character Service eric
- UO Advanced Character Service Jessica Mulligan
- UO Advanced Character Service Matt Mihaly
- UO Advanced Character Service Matt Mihaly
- UO Advanced Character Service Amanda Walker
- UO Advanced Character Service Matt Mihaly
- UO Advanced Character Service amanda@alfar.com
- UO Advanced Character Service Marc Bowden
- UO Advanced Character Service Ted L. Chen
- UO Advanced Character Service Freeman, Jeff
- UO Advanced Character Service Damion Schubert
- Storytelling in MMOGs article Koster, Raph
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Jessica Mulligan
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Valerio Santinelli
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Paul Boyle
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Koster, Raph
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Ted L. Chen
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Poe, Lawrence
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Dave Rickey
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article SpY
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Freeman, Jeff
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article SpY
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Derek Licciardi
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Freeman, Jeff
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Marc DM
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Matt Mihaly
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Marc DM
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Matt Mihaly
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article holding99@mindspring.com
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Sean Kelly
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Marc DM
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Sean Kelly
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Mathieu Castelli
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Matt Mihaly
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Matt Owen
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Damion Schubert
- Game developers gear up for cyber wars Michael Tresca
- Online Games Resource Guide Valerio Santinelli
- Critique this combat system Britt Green
- Critique this combat system Paul Schwanz
- Critique this combat system Edward Glowacki
- Critique this combat system hart.s@attbi.com
- [TECH] new linux thread library coming for libc Bruce Mitchener
- Zhe4 shi4 shen2me zhan4? Richard A. Bartle
- Grouping in MMP Games Dave Rickey
- Grouping in MMP Games Clay
- Grouping in MMP Games Amanda Walker
- Grouping in MMP Games Alex Kay
- Player Created Content - The Holy Grail? Matthew Dobervich
- Player Created Content - The Holy Grail? Matt Mihaly
- Player Created Content - The Holy Grail? Sulka Haro
- Player Created Content - The Holy Grail? Matt Mihaly
- Player Created Content - The Holy Grail? Michael Tresca
- Emoticons: When was the "big bang?" Randolf Richardson
- Emoticons: When was the "big bang?" Darren Henderson
- Emoticons: When was the "big bang?" Elia Morling
- Massive Online Gaming magazine Dr. Cat
- Massive Online Gaming magazine Matt Mihaly
- Massive Online Gaming magazine Dave Rickey
- Massive Online Gaming magazine Matthew Dobervich
- Massive Online Gaming magazine Dr. Cat
- Massive Online Gaming magazine Mark Cheverton
- Massive Online Gaming magazine Zach Collins {Siege}
- Massive Online Gaming magazine Dr. Cat
- Massive Online Gaming magazine shren
- Massive Online Gaming magazine Peter Tyson
- Understanding Simulation (was: Point of View) Ted L. Chen
- Understanding Simulation (was: Point of View) John Robert Arras
- Understanding Simulation (was: Point of View) Ted L. Chen
- Understanding Simulation (was: Point of View) John Robert Arras
- Understanding Simulation (was: Point of View) Derek Licciardi
- Understanding Simulation (was: Point of View) Matthew Dobervich
- Understanding Simulation (was: Point of View) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Understanding Simulation (was: Point of View) Travis Nixon
- Understanding Simulation (was: Point of View) Ted L. Chen
- Understanding Simulation (was: Point of View) Sasha Hart
- Understanding Simulation (was: Point of View) Ted L. Chen
- Understanding Simulation (was: Point of View) hart.s@attbi.com
- Understanding Simulation (was: Point of View) Kwon J. Ekstrom
- MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article Clay
- Diamond Age (ex story telling in MMORPG) Mathieu Castelli
- visualization toosl for text mud builders... (aka automapper) fred@clift.org
- Understanding Simulation hart.s@attbi.com
- Understanding Simulation Damion Schubert
- Understanding Simulation Michael R. Estepp
- Understanding Simulation Ron Gabbard
- Understanding Simulation shren
- Understanding Simulation Sasha Hart
[Shren]
> In my ecology simulation thought experiments, a creature becomes
> tougher as it becomes more rare.
I think this is a great kind of solution to these problems (I would
compare it to the suggestion made earlier in the thread, to increase
the cost of finding prey - a different way of increasing the cost of
kills).
I have some half-baked comments on the implementation & results. In
the below I'm assuming something like logistic growth.
-- OK, so as population decreases, the cost of making a kill
increases, and so we assume the number of kills 'bought' by
players (e.g., the kill rate) decreases. Let's assume that the
increase in difficulty and/or difficulty when there are no kills
are set sufficiently high to prevent extinction entirely. In this
case, it seems that things will reach an equilibrium when players
hit a difficulty that is just tolerable. I wonder whether this is
acceptable (e.g., a system to ensure that everyone is fighting
just barely tolerable monsters).
Objection 1. I neglected population size and per-capita birth
rate as parameters. As these increase (e.g., as the supply
increases), the prices can get lower without hurting the
populations' ability to regenerate at all. Thus the tolerability
of the fighting is independent of Shren's idea, but birth rate
is very important to this independence.
Objection 2. Local fluctuations in supply (artificial or
natural) are surely going to create fluctuations in the
difficulty of the critters.
Objection 3. Just barely worthwhile fighting isn't different
from the status quo!!
Objection 4. In some games it won't matter whether fighting is
worthwhile, because there are other things to do.
-- Also, it seems that those who kill the most will set the
difficulty of the NPCs. That's not good if it is important that
newbies get to kill things. Even if everyone had the same ability
to kill, the people who are willing to pay more are going to
contribute substantially to setting the price (difficulty). So we
might worry about casual players getting lost.
Objection 1. If the people increasing the difficulty of the NPCs
were all hunters of roughly the same ability to kill, it would
be fair for them to set the difficulty. It's a solution because
all the people who need to be able to hunt the monsters
regularly are given the tools to do so, while bureaucrats and
thieves hunt at their own risk. That's fine if you're willing to
embrace this lack of substantial differences between players in
kill capacity. On the other hand, it's a big problem if you have
powerful old-timers and weak newbies beating on the same
populations. Very level-based games will probably need to keep
the partition of prey populations by level (e.g., smurf village
vs. Olympus).
Objection 2. As casual players stop killing, the supply
increases slightly and the price decreases. Where this price is
absolutely seems, again, to depend on birth rate. Thus this
concern doesn't really seem to hold water - you solve the
problem for casual players by increasing the supply (e.g.,
cranking birth rates per capita or overall).
-- I think a lot of the interest in the system lies in the
fluctuations of supply and demand. But this isn't compatible with
McDonald's style consistency in product. Some designers want this,
although I think it is not hard to make a case that variable
payoffs can be very compelling, particularly if the fluctuations
are mostly up above the limits of player toleration rather than
below them.
-- I wonder about the function of player kill rates
vs. difficulty. It would be nice if it was a clean line, but it
probably isn't. In some cases kill rates aren't going to be
sensitive to difficulty until you run up against kill
*possibility*. If you let players do better in groups then you are
working against the maximum effective group size that can be
mustered. It probably also depends on what kind of difficulty it
is (I won't even pretend to know how).
In any case, this concern alone could completely destroy everything
I wrote above while assuming a simple supply-demand kind of
situation. Oh well ;)
> Extinction becomes extremely unlikely, however, a creature can
> easily be nudged into limited terrain.
The use of space here is very cool - in effect you are rewarding
players for spreading out. Lots of interesting side effects of this
- for example, if things are stable then people might develop little
hunting territories, but as populations decreased in some places
people would move on, possibly into others' territories...
This and PVP makes for some interesting fights over resources ;)
> Then again, however, I strive for dynamic ecology instead of
> realistic ecology.
The demand for "realistic" ecologies is what I perceive to be the
biggest reason for the difficulty in using ecologies in MUDs.
As if that weren't enough, I don't think that the typical idea of
"realistic" is really particularly realistic (as I argued earlier,
extinction is a great example - extinctions do occur in the real
world, but the real world has more than four species as well, so
each extinction, while sad, is for most purposes a drop in the
bucket). - Understanding Simulation shren
- Understanding Simulation Peter Harkins
- Understanding Simulation shren
- Understanding Simulation Sasha Hart
- Future of MMOGs Valerio Santinelli
- Future of MMOGs Shane P. Lee
- Future of MMOGs Eric Lee {GAMES}
- Future of MMOGs Crosbie Fitch
- Future of MMOGs Koster, Raph
- Future of MMOGs Mike Shaver
- Future of MMOGs Crosbie Fitch
- Future of MMOGs Joe Andrieu
- Future of MMOGs Crosbie Fitch
- Future of MMOGs Jeremy Noetzelman
- Future of MMOGs Sean Kelly
- Future of MMOGs Dave Trump
- Future of MMOGs Matt Mihaly
- future of MMOGs Adam
- Future of MMOGs Brack, J. Allen
- Future of MMOGs Matt Mihaly
- Future of MMOGs Matt Chatterley
- Future of MMOGs Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Future of MMOGs Damion Schubert
- Future of MMOGs Derek Licciardi
- Future of MMOGs Jon A. Lambert
- Future of MMOGs Valerio Santinelli
- Future of MMOGs Travis Cannell
- Future of MMOGs Dr. Cat
- Future of MMOGs Crosbie Fitch
- Future of MMOGs Koster, Raph
- Future of MMOGs Crosbie Fitch
- Future of MMOGs Adam
- Future of MMOGs Amanda Walker