Re: radical departure


Subject: Re: radical departure
From: Taneli Niko Tikka (ttikka@icon.fi)
Date: Tue Nov 16 1999 - 15:45:01 EET


On Mon, 15 Nov 1999, joshua 'hook' corning wrote:

> We all ready have green wankers running around though they probably wear
> loin cloths. Have you read Aluna's desc on the Vram islands?

Heh, let them be. Any stronger players who wish to wipe them out can do
so, (and that is STRONG players).. it should be dynamic and possible.
 
> This is precisely the problem with forcing history and culture on the
> players. We have no idea what will work with the game and what won't.

We have VERY MUCH idea that it will work. We have years of experience in
RPGs and muds. Starting with a blank world after some devastation isnt
going to work.

> position? is it on a trade route? where is a good trade route? Is this
> to close to the giants of the mountains? Is it to far away from that
> friendly city to the north so if we are attacked will they be able to
> help? and it goes on and on and on. 

All these things are totally irrelevent to design into small detail. We
can just generate guidelines and let the results form themselfs. 

> will come up advantages and disadvantages will occure with the client
> interface. Players will use this and min max. the benefits. This could
> cause adverse effects to the societies we created in ways we can't begin
> to imagine. Gods and sages will be lost in the chaos trying to hold
> together our artificial societies and kingdoms. 

Hahhah this is totally twisted. Gods and sages dont have to support our
kindoms or empires, they do it themselfs. And there is nothing artificial
about them, npcs are just as real as are players. NPC picking up a stone
from the ground isnt any less real than a player doing it. Kindoms and all
we have created has leaders, has supporters, has masses behind the crow,
against the crow also. And this is the way it should be, dynamic
changeable starting setting that can twist into any direction, but with
common sense.

> game play the world we spent two years designing will appear nothing
> like we intended it to.

This is a totally twisted vision of how thigs would be going. 

> or an Orc should act. They WILL call them selves stupid names brake laws
> find ways to kill npcs by the thousands until only players exist. The
> world will do this on its own. Players will not want to be constantly
> told how to act and behave by the gods and will either not play the game
> or just do it when its 4 am in Finland. Do you want to be a god or a
> policeman.

None of this will happen in a scale that you describe it. It happens a
little and in some small things maybe a little more, but not in all-out
level.
 
> > If the world has no history.. myths, legends, artifacts etc.. nothing has
> > no meaning at all.. 
> 
> Our world has no meaning but we seem to do OK.

That is because people are sheep, they are afraid and they want to be
stupid sheep. This world of majik is different, here the players arent
sheep and that is why your idea would never work.
 
> Societies really do develop by self organization. Most modern
> anthropology and sociological books agree on this. Try reading the
> "selfish gene" or edward O Wilson's book "On human nature". What model
> do you attribute social origins and development to? 

One of the strongest needs of a person is to belong into some group,
organization or society. Everything starts on survival basics and primal
things like hunger, fear, cold, dark, etc.. there is almost TOTAL absense
of these things in majik. that is one of the major reasons why your plans
would never work. Starting with a blank world would be terribel disaster,
nothing would develop right and everything would be min/maxed twisted
shit. The game we have build for so long would crash into hellish chaos
very fast.

.m



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