Steve,
It's true Simpolicon wasn't interactive. I was just talking about the
basic mechanics of the economy. That to me was a real innovation. It
sounds like Ultima is a lot more developed, but I didn't include all
the subtle details of Simpolicon either, because it's been a while and
I don't remember it that well.
Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>
Your description of Ultima sounds a lot like a simple text-only
computer game that a professor of mine at Chabot College was using in
his classes. It was called Simpolicon, for "simulated political &
economic model." Every player was given a country with a certain
number
of people and certain types of natural resources: riparian land, iron
ore, farm land, etc. The countries each existed in a vacuum. The goal
was to allocate your resources efficiently to maximize and balance
production so that your population increased and prospered. Everything
was made by combining two or more other types of things, and
everything
you had was measured in units. For example, X amount of people + Y
amount of riparian land would produce Z amount of fish. New things
could be combined to create yet more advanced technology. Every "year"
you would choose how many units of people, land, animals, and so on to
produce. It sounds like Ultima used a very similar approach.The simulation you describe sounds like simple equations which a single
player manipulating their parameters. Such equations make
(questionable) assumptions about how millions of people act as a whole.
In Ultima Online, no such assumptions are made. Every transaction is
between two real humans. What's fascinating is that so many humans and
transactions are involved, that you can actually study large scale
(macro) behaviors without making questionable assumptions and with the
ability to study it in great detail as you potentially have complete
knowledge of the state and history of the system.-- Steve
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