<< Heya all,
I'm just about to start working on a system
whereby mobs in the mud have a life of their own. They
will go shopping, eat and sleep, goto work, etc etc. >>
TimeTraveller's had this for quite awhile..and it develops more and more as
time goes on. Essentially, right now, at least... the only life is in towns.
Shopkeepers are 'people' ,who run on the MUD's clock. At 6:00am, or within
15 minutes give or take of that time, the shopkeepers in Verdona awake, and
yawn and such... sometime thereafter, they stumble to their store... most of
them have apartments above their shop, but there are a few married couples
who have cabins in the woods in which they sleep, dine..and greet eachother.
Instead of opening at that point, they walk through town to the Tavern, where
they greet the bartender and eat breakfast. They go back to their shop until
lunch, and then do the same thing they did for breakfast. For dinner, they
visit the tavern or a resturant (depending on the wealth and prestige of the
NPC), and then head home for the night.
During this time, as well as selling items... the shopkeepers will hold
conversations with PCs that they meet - this becomes even more developed when
a mystery is in the same area, and shopkeepers and the other dynamic NPCs are
able to give clues or hinder the PCs.
Jouir de' Ile, an island in our world, features the same concept - except in
here, the shopkeepers and citizens take a bus that the players as well take
to get from one spot to another. Much more realistic, considering that Jouir
de' Ile is in the 'present' realm of our world.
Granted, this does make their lives rather monotonous... they do the same
thing daily.
<<
The above section will be slowly added, to start with
however I want to add realistic mob to mob combat. So
if a fox walks into the same room as a rabbit it will
attack it. If a Drow rading party walk in on a Dwarven
Patrol, a battle will begin. Etc etc >>
We also have this - but to a very small extent... I'd rather see players
killing the mobiles than mobiles killing the mobiles. This is a matter of
spec_procs... or possibly, you could assign classes to NPCs: CLASS_PREDATOR
(wolves, owls) would attack CLASS_PASSIVE (rabbits, deer, mice)...
CLASS_DROW and CLASS_DWARVEN attack eachother constantly... there's a section
on adding NPC classes on Ceramic Mouse if this sounds like a good idea to you.
<< Has anyone done anything like this before? If so do
you have any recommendations as to what I should be
careful of/keep a watch out for? >>
Crashes? ;) Or... if you're using scripting, be careful that players don't
hinder the shopkeepers from continuing with their lives. I've had players
who (I sware, just to annoy me), time speaking with mobs until just before
the mobs would transist to going somewhere else... they'll start asking the
mob questions about a mystery, which then keeps the NPC from continuing with
it's script.
<< My ultimate aim is to have my world function without
any PC input. A player could just sit there and watch
the world go by if he/she wanted. Also it will mean
that PC's can join NPC adventuring groups and follow
them into battles. I plan to have a border town
between my good race and evil race areas which is
continually fought over by mobs. PC can then join
in and help their races take and keep the town. >>
That's *very* complex... and I imagine you'd have to do alot of personal
watching over, having your IMM/GMs controlling it often... because you
obviously don't want the same battle every few MUDdays. I've known places
where an Imm would basically host battles... an invading 'black' army would
invade the town... these fighters controlled by a team of GMs/Imms helping
out... kinda like a constant quest, I guess.
Overall, it's totally a concept of how much effort you're willing to put in,
and how much time you have to work this. Really, alot, nearly everything
actually, is possible - your imagination becomes the only limit in this kind
of thing.
---
B. Brown
WebMaster, CircleMUD WTFaq
http://developer.circlemud.org/docs/wtfaq/
GM Robert Deleard, TimeTraveller MUD
http://www.digital-genesis.com/~uasoft/
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