James Tauber's Blog 2004/03/13
Free Markets and Ecosystem Simulation
Last night, Richard said that a lot of the world simulation aspects of Ultima Online had to be taken out because players didn't behave as expected. I have another theory.
The example he gave was that they originally set things up so that surrounding a village were sheep and deer and further out were wolves and dragons that ate those sheep and deer. The idea was that if players killed off the population of sheep and deer too quickly, the wolves and dragons would have to venture closer to the village and the village would cry out for a hero to kill the wolves/dragons. Hence the system itself would create the need for kill-the-dragon-type hero quests.
Unfortunately, players killed everything and so the system never had time to restore balance and so the concept had to be removed. Richard said there were lots of examples of this.
I wonder if the concept might have worked had human populations been susceptible to the same forces. It's a classic example where a free-market-like system won't lead to equilibrium because there are constraints which prevent the system from operating on each participant.
The moment you set up some 'protection' for one participant in the system, the natural balance will be lost.
So if you want to simulate plants and animals in an ecosystem realistically, you've got to include humans and allow for disease, famine and player death.
by James Tauber : Created on March 13, 2004 : Last modified Feb. 8, 2005 : (permalink)
SxSW: Day Two
Decided to take it easy during the day. Glad I did because I didn't get back from the short film screening until 2.30am tonight.
Went to the "I Am Stamos" party and caught up with Alex Eastburg (Writer/Producer), Rob Meltzer (Writer/Director) and Karl Preusser (Composer) all of whom I met at the Film opening party last night. Also met Robert Peters, John Stamos and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos.
The party included performance art that I could only describe as chinese acrobatics meets lesbian French maids (that'll bring some interesting Google searches to this site!)
After the party, went back to the hotel and did some more GEF programming before heading off again for the midnight screening.
There were nine films in total ranging in length from four minutes to seventeen. The overall theme was clearly the absurd. Most of the films got at least a laugh out of me - some were absolutely hilarious. My two favourites were I Am Stamos and Walkentalk (the latter an absolute must-see for fans of Christopher Walken). Interestingly, they were the two shot on film. Also worth seeing (although not quite as good as "I Am Stamos" and "Walkentalk") is The Frank International Film Festival, a mock video diary of a visit to the most exclusive Film Festival in the world.
by James Tauber : Created on March 13, 2004 : Last modified Feb. 8, 2005 : (permalink)