[MUD-Dev] Different approaches?

[Dani Dumitrescu <recuperating#home,com>]

Hello everyone,

I was just wondering if anyone has ever tried any completely different
approaches to MUDs. I mean, every MUD (that I've heard of anyway) puts
the player in control of one character. Has anyone ever tried making the
players run their own country say, or something along those lines?

I'm asking this because I've been kicking around the idea of trying my
hand at a sort of MUD/PBeM halfbreed, if you will. The MUD part is the
live interaction of players in a multiplayer environment, while the PBeM
part is the actual game mechanics. I was thinking along the lines of an
Atlantis PBeM type game, where each player can recruit troops, own land,
etc.

However, in thinking about it, I've hit a wall. Multi-players. In a
perfect world there wouldn't be any, but...

This would be especially harmfull in this type of game since it would
revolve around player-to-player conflicts (not like PK where it can be
optional or controled), and players would own assets (land for example)
that other players would have access to (not like eq which goes into
limbo with the player when s/he logs off).

I know what you're thinking, maybe I should leave it to the PBeMs, but I
have some ideas that would only work in a multiplayer environment, and
IMHO would be pretty cool. Namely, have players be able to directly
control any of their people (you can send a spy to the neighbouring
kingdom, or you could become that spy and directly go there yourself,
sort of like an immortal 'switch' command).

I would love to hear any comments, ideas, criticism...whatever...

Dani Dumitrescu



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