I'm pretty sure that non-pk levels kept getting added at one point to help disperse idlers. Unfortunately, they still tend to congregate despite the number of no-PK areas available. I imagine that moving the PK and no-PK areas around would help break things up a little.

John Conway's Game of Life takes place on a two-dimensional grid, and places like Burger Refuge don't really fit so neatly into that model so it would need some minor adaptation. Interestingly enough, it's rules specifically mention over-population and under-population.

Rules of John Conway's Game of Life (via Wikipedia):

1. Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population.
2. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
3. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by over-population.
4. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction

A potential adaptation:

• Let a cell signify a level.
• Let a live cell signify a level that is a PK area.
• Let a dead cell signify a level that is a No-PK area.
• Let a neighbor signify any of the levels that are linked to the present level.
• Let a cell necessarily be alive if it reaches some arbitrary threshold of players.
• Exclude areas dedicated to special activities (spar rooms, towers, arena PK, archery, etc).
• Implement a drowning timer in PK areas.

So let's say rules are applied with this precedence whenever a no-PK level with no special purpose hits an arbitrary threshold of players (N):

1. Any special-activities levels (spar rooms, towers, arena PK, archery, etc) are treated as no-PK levels insofar as these rules are concerned, and are otherwise handled independently.
2. Any levels that meet or exceed some arbitrary threshold of players (N) remain or become a PK area.
3. Any PK level with fewer than two linked PK levels becomes a no-PK level, as if caused by under-population.
4. Any PK level with two or three linked PK levels remains a PK level for the next generation.
5. Any PK level with more than three linked PK levels becomes a no-PK level, as if by over-population.
6. Any No-PK levels with exactly three linked PK levels becomes a PK area, as if by reproduction

If this were implemented, it should be done in a way that tracks what happened because it would make for an interesting industry article. Also, don't forget to drown idle swimmers in PK areas.  

XD i thought it said John Cenna  

Posted by deadowl

If this were implemented, it should be done in a way that tracks what happened because it would make for an interesting industry article. Also, don't forget to drown idle swimmers in PK areas.

Interesting concept overall. Removing the automatic disconnect might be required here, in order to make it function properly.


Drowning people sounds fun

I have the feeling there would be a surge of pk areas and less safe ones, though.  

Posted by 4-Lom

Interesting concept overall. Removing the automatic disconnect might be required here, in order to make it function properly.


Drowning people sounds fun

I have the feeling there would be a surge of pk areas and less safe ones, though.

Well, there would probably be more nopk areas actually (or you could invert the rules and get more pk areas). You can play with the concept here: http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/

The act of adding a yellow square would be like a level becoming overpopulated in the model I gave. A level would necessarily have to reach the threshold population before becoming a PK area or other PK areas becoming spawned. A step can happen some arbitrary occasion (when a timer hits 0, when a level becomes overpopulated, when someone says some magic word, etc). Unfortunately, it's a grid, so it can't really model inside levels. Inside levels would typically stay nopk unless they became overpopulated themselves with the modified version of rules I gave.

Drowning ganis already exist.

So anyway, one effect would be that you could gather a posse and then go as a group to a noPK level to surprise some idlers.  

They removed PK from the pond by Angel clan, and in front of Graal city gate.  

This is a pretty amusing solution. Do you think it'll actually behave in the same chaotic way as game of life even though it's not on a flat grid? Have you tried running a simulation?

If I was doing something like this I'd probably just randomly roll for PK areas; which would make it trivial to change the ratio of PK:noPK areas. At the cost of removing the possibility of a bunch of gamers coming together to do math trying to manipulate the game space.  

Posted by mallard

This is a pretty amusing solution. Do you think it'll actually behave in the same chaotic way as game of life even though it's not on a flat grid? Have you tried running a simulation?

If I was doing something like this I'd probably just randomly roll for PK areas; which would make it trivial to change the ratio of PK:noPK areas. At the cost of removing the possibility of a bunch of gamers coming together to do math trying to manipulate the game space.

The rules are the mostly the same. The definition of cells is different. The rule that player concentration would trigger an active cell is different. It would behave similarly on the overworld depending on where people congregate (i.e. there would likely be a number of more persistent on cells). I haven't actually done a simulation of Conway's Game of Life with persistent cells. I can say that inside levels without many people in them would mostly stay noPK because they mostly have only one neighbor. Inside levels with a lot of players would likely trend their respective outside levels to be PK areas.

I've supplied a Javascript function (below) I wrote to emulate Conway's Game of Life (on a grid) a while back if anyone's interested. I've written a boundless version, too, but that's not really applicable to this scenario.

How to emulate:

1. Provide a two dimensional JS array of map areas you'd expect to persistently have a high number of players.
2. Get the result of the next generation by feeding it into the function.
3. Overwrite the result to account for the persistently high population centers.
4. Repeat from step 2.

PHP Code:

function nextGen(cells){
  return cells.map(function (row, a) {
    return row.map(function(alive, b) {
      var ia, ib, neighbors = 0;
      for (ia = -1; ia < 2; ia++) {
        if (typeof cells[ia + a] == "undefined") continue;
        for (ib = -1; ib < 2; ib++) {
          if (typeof cells[ia + a][ib + b] == "undefined") continue;
          if (ia || ib) neighbors += cells[ia + a][ib + b];
        }
      }
      return (alive && neighbors == 2) || neighbors == 3 ? 1 : 0;
    });
  });
} 


The real question is how this would shift player concentration over time due to PKing activity. I would expect once an area becomes a PK area, players will then distribute themselves among the closest noPK areas that don't have significant physical boundaries to the original area, but it would be hard to emulate because of those physical boundaries.  

Posted by deadowl

The real question is how this would shift player concentration over time due to PKing activity. I would expect once an area becomes a PK area, players will then distribute themselves among the closest noPK areas that don't have significant physical boundaries to the original area, but it would be hard to emulate because of those physical boundaries.

Most players don't know about level edges. It would be hilarious chaos, I think.  

please make just the burger refuge area pk pls  

Posted by 4-Lom

Most players don't know about level edges. It would be hilarious chaos, I think.

Could throw up a message from an NPC police officer stating that there are too many people to maintain the peace and to disperse for safety or something like that.