Hello everybody!
Not so long ago I read a German article on Game Dead (HERE in full length) about Red Dead Redemption Online, in which the wildlife loss has been examined. In particular, the point that the spawn rate could be to blame, that there are simply not enough supplies, immediately reminded me of my studies and reminded me of a school lesson that I designed in this regard.
It is particularly interesting here that both chemistry and mathematics are closely linked. The chemist Alfred Lotka and the mathematician Vito Volterra both researched so-called population dynamics quite independently. For example, Mr. Volterra was asked why more predators were caught by fishermen in the Atlantic during the First World War.
The results of both researchers have gone down in history as Lotka-Volterra rules and could actually describe the following scenario in the game in our example:
1. The players are the predators, the wild animals the prey.
2. The spawn rate describes the "birth rate" of the bears.
3. Each predator takes care of the prey on contact.
Assuming that there is an initial population of wild animals first, the number of predators will probably also increase (because more players want to enrich themselves with wild animals). The more robbers there are, the less prey there is, because more prey is killed by today's gamers. A change would now occur in nature. If there is little prey, the predators also decrease (e.g. because there is no more food or difficult to find).
The prey population would recover, because the fewer predators there are, the more prey can live undisturbed. This in turn would ensure that there are more robbers again because there is more food for everyone. Ideally, there would be a balance that always fluctuates in one direction or the other.
But how is that in the game? Well ... less prey does not necessarily mean that there are fewer robbers, because the players do not starve as robbers in the game. Maybe some jump off because it's too hard to catch what. But nobody really wants to miss out on the revenue or the challenges (like hunting moose). The number of predators remains high while the prey cannot really recover.
What am I getting at? On nothing! This is simply my interpretation of what happened in Red Dead Redemption Online. Whether it's really another environmental statement from the developers or not, but I think it's very cool how much it reminded me of my time at school/university.
How are you all doing? What have you experienced recently that directly reminded you of your school days? Write it in the comments!
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GameMaking-Mathe-mögender Dizzy