[MUD-Dev] List Rituals

[John Robert Arras]

Daniel Harman  (Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com) wrote:

<snip>

> I'm close to starting to build a mud from the ground up (yeah yeah
> :p ) as I want to explore the area domination metaphore, but
> frankly my brain has melted trying to work through some of the
> game dynamics involved and I'm reluctant to start until I have
> worked through the problem domain sufficiently. I really feel
> there is a lot of milage to be had marrying a RTS approach with an
> MMORPG. Its just that when you start moving into the realm of
> player built towns and outposts, I start seeing more problems than
> I see answers. I'd love to discuss the topic here in more depth,
> but its often a case where I don't even know the questions...

This problem is something I've been trying to hash out for a couple
of months now.

My background is playing alignment based/racewar pkill MUDs like
MUME/Sojourn/EmlenMud. This pkill framework was discussed recently,
but basically this setup gives people a group of friends when they
log in who can teach them about the game, and a group of enemies
they will eventually have to fight in PvP combat.

As I was talking to someone, it occurred to me that a setup like
this is a lot like an rts. There are a few sides, and each side has
many units (players) and the players gather resources and then go
out and kill people on the other sides, and the "tech level" or
"power level" on each side increases over time.

This is how far I've gotten trying to work this out, including the
code ideas I've tried.

I have some code that will create things called "societies" which
are groups of mobs that are created as children, and periodically
grow in power. As the children grow up, they choose a "caste" like
worker or healer or warrior. The castes are each limited by
population, and each caste has one or more tiers. The maximum number
of things allowed into the top tier is a fraction of the max
pop. Each lower tier in the caste can have 3/2 as much as the next
tier up, and so forth, to keep the caste from becoming topheavy.

The members of each caste have specific duties. Most are designed to
fight, like the warriors and healers and wizards, and I've also
tried to give them some tactics like wizards range casting, and hurt
mobs fleeing to healers to get healed, just so they don't walk up
and die. Things also yell for help when attacked, and other members
do come to back them up.

The workers act like peons or villagers in an rts. They have an
assigned resource to get, and they go and get as much of that
resource as they can carry, then they return it to a builder. The
builder is a drop off spot that adds the resources to the society's
pool. Builders will eventually work to make cities using randomized
templates I'm working on. The workers use the same kinds of commands
players would use to mine for minerals, or to chop down trees.

Every minute, the society checks its status and decides if it wants
to try for a goal. Goals include making new members, increasing the
max population of a caste, increasing the max tier in a caste to
allow access to more powerful versions of the caste members
(technology), and increasing the "quality" of the society, which
represents things like increased stats and carrying capacity.  Thus,
the society makes a list of everything it would like to do based on
its current status, and it then attempts to do all of those
things. If it doesn't have enough resources, it puts the required,
but missing resources into a list of "resources wanted." When
workers drop off their loads, they pick a random needed resource
(based on how needed it is) and go looking for that. When the
society is flush with resources, the workers try to even out the
piles of resources, and so forth.

The societies also do other things besides collecting piles of shiny
things. If the population gets too big, the society may split and
form a new society at a new location. It may raid a city either
briefly, or in force. On the other hand, if the members of a society
are getting killed off, then the tiers available in a caste may go
down, or the max populations of castes may go down, or the quality
may go down.

Then on top of this we will have two levels of loyalty.  There are
alignments/kingdoms: Good/Neutral/Evil, or something.  There will be
one alignment, Neutral, representing the "everyone for themselves"
philosophy. Neutral societies will always be considered enemies (or
at least not friends) of anything not in their society. Good or Evil
societies suppress their society instincts and instead consider
anything of the same alignment to be a friend first, and then
anything of a different alignment to be an enemy. Even if they are
all made up of the same types of mobs.

Each city/outpost can be made up of members of a certain society.
If they're neutral, you may have to beat them up or bribe a leader
to get them to turn to your side, but the cities can be taken over
by taking over the society controlling them.

Right now, players can't control the societies, but I will
eventually allow powerful players to guide the general development
of the societies. I was thinking of letting people be "in control"
of certain cities like generals, with one king who can control any
member of any society in the same alignment. Even if they were in
control, it would be on a meta level, as opposed to ordering
specific units around.


Players act as enhanced members of the society. If some workers yell
for help, players better go help them or else they will find that
their side is losing resources and losing the buildup race.  If some
of their warriors go on a raid, then players should go along, just
to increase the overall firepower of the raid. This means that sides
can take over cities, and they can lose cities. If the players don't
keep up with the game and make forays into enemy territory to
disrupt their supply and keep their numbers down, they will end up
losing. Players should also spend their time gathering resources
(yes, it's boring). I might even let them be blacksmiths, and have
it so that skilled players are the best source for armor and weapons
for units, making those kinds of trades useful for everyone.

This seems like a good way to go with an RTS because of several
issues that came up when I tried to do this in terms of small groups
having their own armies, along with some of those "on my honor"
alliances with other people. It mitigates the problems of leaving
armies behind while you're offline. It also helps the problems of
having all of your possessions destroyed in a single raid by a small
group with a grudge. It will also keep one side from dominating too
heavily too quickly, if the cities and outposts are hard enough to
take over. Finally, it overcomes some of the problems of "grief
players" who decide to go back on their word and make you lose
everything.


I'm curious what kinds of directions other people are taking with
this, since the issues aren't as simple as making an RTS that lasts
an hour and then resets.

John


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