Chapters * Title * Contents * Introduction * Place * System * Design * Using * Future * Bibliography
Sections
* Future * Empirical * Additional_Features * History_Display * Voice * MMUD
A MMUD (Market MUD)
MarketPlace is designed to support a group of players who wish to come together for a few hours and play a game. The
original design proposed to allow the players to modify the games. The goal was to allow users to trace the effects of changes
in the underlying model on the behavior of the players. For example, changing the production functions so that players could
break even without specializing would presumably remove much of the incentive to trade.
However, if each game takes several hours to play it doesn't take long to see that designers aren't going to be able to try out
too many alternatives. If you want to offer design experiences some other model is required.
One possible answer is to structure the environment so that games last months instead of days, but their models slowly evolve
as they are played. People would play in it somewhat in the way they do in MUDs--multi-user textual virtual realities. Imagine
a version of MarketPlace where the elements of the game were broken down further. Rather than a fixed set of players,
factories, commodities, currency, auctions and pollution there would be:
* a world of objects that can be crafted so that they are more valuable (where the crafting of objects may have undesirable
side effects)
* other players which come and go over many months
* a discussion system
* a spreadsheet-like model analysis program
* a scripting system that allowed the creation of new facilities
Players could then build up commodities, auctions, currency and so on for themselves. The world would differentiate as people
grouped themselves. Different parts of the world could choose different kinds of governing arrangements. Comparisons might be
made about the benefits and drawbacks of the various approaches. Disputes between groups might break out into attempts to
"subtract value" from the opposing group's territory. All of these events could provide fodder to discussions about
politics and economics.
Greg Kimberly/gregkimb@gak.com