And so we were motivated and we're constantly looking for how and when we would make what we were originally called, Multnomah, I'm Richard Garrett, the creator of ultima online and we spent three years creating a masterpiece feature that the players destroyed the moment the game went live.

是以，我們很有動力，我們不斷地尋找如何和何時製作我們最初的名字，Multnomah，我是理查德-加勒特，ultima online的創造者，我們花了三年時間創造了一個傑作功能，玩家在遊戲上線的那一刻就破壞了。

Yeah, the year is 1995 when we are building what became ultima online in earnest.

是的，這一年是1995年，我們正在認真地建立後來的ultima online。

The best pcs you could get generally, we're running a Pentium maybe had, you know, 10 megabytes of memory inside.

一般來說，你能得到的最好的個人電腦，我們正在運行的奔騰也許有，你知道，裡面有10兆字節的內存。

And it was also right when the very first ever three three D graphics cards were being shipped but a very primitive version compared to what we have today.

而且當時也正值第一批3D顯卡出貨，但與我們今天的產品相比，是非常原始的版本。

Star Long.

星長。

And I knew that this was the moment to strike because we knew that we were moving from expensive rare dial up to ubiquitous direct connection to the internet fairly quickly.

我知道這是出擊的時刻，因為我們知道，我們正在從昂貴的稀有撥號電話迅速轉向無處不在的直接互聯網連接。

There were a few things we realized we needed in the game and a few things we thought would really help the game.

有幾件事我們意識到我們在遊戲中需要，還有幾件事我們認為會對遊戲有真正的幫助。

For example, I think correctly, early on we determined that in the long run, our small team, we assumed and hoped would be too small to continue to create content nearly as fast as the players would be able to consume it since we knew we would eventually lose that foot race, we decided to try to build some automated systems to help fill in that gap.

例如，我認為正確的是，在早期我們確定，從長遠來看，我們的小團隊，我們假設並希望會太小，無法繼續創造幾乎與玩家能夠消費它一樣快的內容，因為我們知道我們最終會失去這個腳步的比賽，我們決定嘗試建立一些自動化系統來幫助填補這一空白。

And one of those that we created was what we called the virtual ecology.

而我們創建的其中一個就是我們所謂的虛擬生態學。

The map itself, the terrain and the vegetation on the terrain would actually grow and create food for one set of creatures in the game, which I broadly call the herbivores.

地圖本身、地形和地形上的植被實際上會生長，併為遊戲中的一組生物創造食物，我大致稱之為食草動物。

So the deer and rabbits would roam the countryside and they would multiply to a degree that would come into balance with the rate of vegetation that was produced in any general area.

是以，鹿和兔子將在農村遊蕩，它們的繁殖程度將與任何一般地區的植被生產率相平衡。

So you find more deer and rabbits and the forests and grasslands and fewer of the mountains, the deserts.

是以，你會發現更多的鹿和兔子以及森林和草原，而更少的山脈和沙漠。

And we would spawn the carnivores up in the mountains or farther away, more remote places and they would wander around looking for meat to eat, which generally would be the herbivores.

而我們會在山上或更遠的地方催生食肉動物，它們會四處遊蕩，尋找肉食，這一般是食草動物。

And if they emptied out the population of sheep and rabbits, they want everything to eat and so they couldn't reproduce.

而如果他們清空了羊和兔子的數量，他們就會想要所有的東西來吃，這樣他們就無法繁殖了。

And so therefore they would come into a natural balance.

是以，他們將進入一個自然的平衡。

Also, when a herbivore found a piece of vegetation, iii a tall piece of grass, they would consume it and it would become a short piece of grass.

此外，當食草動物發現一塊植被，即一塊高大的草，它們會將其吃掉，然後變成一塊矮小的草。

In fact, that was one of the beauties to watch is to watch, you know, the rabbit just going around mowing the grass for the goats and the deer running running around slowly mowing the grass and then running out in one area and then identifying in some distant area, another place to go graze, just like real animals do.

事實上，這也是觀看的魅力之一，你知道，兔子只是四處為山羊割草，而鹿則跑來跑去慢慢地割草，然後在一個區域跑出去，然後在遠處的某個地方確定，另一個地方去吃草，就像真正的動物那樣。

The real trick was how to make sure that that balance, then how did that interact with carnivores, who could wipe them out, but then wouldn't care for the grass.

真正的訣竅是如何確保這種平衡，然後如何與食肉動物互動，食肉動物可以消滅它們，但又不會關心草。

So the grass will become, you know, er, basis again.

是以，草會變得，你知道，呃，又是基礎。

And conversely, you know, players could kill either the herbivores, which we thought in our minds eye, they wouldn't do very much because there wasn't much value in those herbivores.

反過來說，你知道，玩家可以殺死食草動物，我們認為在我們的心目中，他們不會做得很好，因為那些食草動物沒有什麼價值。

And instead we assume that they would tend to fight the carnivores, not only because the carnivores would be attacking them, but also we had created quests to where the pelts of the carnivores were worth more.

相反，我們認為他們會傾向於與食肉動物戰鬥，不僅是因為食肉動物會攻擊他們，而且我們還創建了任務，讓食肉動物的皮毛更有價值。

And so we assumed that that was sort of the leapfrog target that everyone would take on the same way we rationally were playing the game, we thought frankly the service didn't work at o so many levels.

是以，我們認為那是一種跨越式的目標，每個人都會採取與我們理性地玩遊戲一樣的方式，我們認為坦率地說，這項服務在那麼多層面上都沒有發揮作用。

What we discovered the moment the game went live was that players ran over the world like a swarm of ants that consumed every living thing as fast as it was possible to spawn it, they killed every creature.

我們在遊戲上線的那一刻發現，玩家們像一群螞蟻一樣跑遍了整個世界，他們以最快的速度吞噬著每一個生物，他們殺死了每一個生物。

So as soon as a deer or a rabbit or a wolf showed up on the map, the nearest person to it killed it skinned it took its meat and took its hide instantaneously and the fact that the wolf was worth more than the deer or the rabbit was irrelevant just the fact that it was fun to kill, have been enough for them to eradicate all life all living things on the surface and we spent the next few months trying to figure a solution out by either decreasing the value of the deer, of the rabbits or increasing the spawn rates to try to make them be so plentiful.

是以，只要地圖上出現一隻鹿、一隻兔子或一隻狼，離它最近的人就會立即把它殺死，剝掉它的皮，拿走它的肉，而狼比鹿或兔子更有價值的事實並不重要，只是殺它很有趣。在接下來的幾個月裡，我們試圖通過降低鹿和兔子的價值或增加產卵率來解決這個問題，以使它們變得如此豐富。

The players couldn't kill them all.

球員們不可能把他們全部殺死。

We actually could not keep up with the rate that the players would massacre anything and everything that moved.

我們實際上無法跟上球員們屠殺任何移動物的速度。

So we actually changed the fiction of the game and introduced a hack, going back to ultima one where in ultima one, the way you defeated the Dark wizard mundane was by destroying the gym of immortality and you broke it into shards.

所以我們實際上改變了遊戲的虛構，引入了一個黑客，回到了《最後通牒》第一部，在《最後通牒》第一部中，你打敗黑暗巫師世俗的方法是通過破壞不朽體育館，你把它打成碎片。

And so we decided that that moment also splintered the world into copies in these shards and that was the fiction for shards which are now used by other MOS and even database operators around the globe who don't have anything to with gaming and have no idea where the word shards came from.

是以，我們決定那一刻也將世界分割成這些碎片的副本，這就是碎片的虛構，現在被其他MOS甚至全球的數據庫運營商使用，他們與遊戲沒有任何關係，也不知道碎片這個詞從何而來。

So we knew we'd go past 100,000 players.

所以我們知道我們會超過10萬名玩家。

However, we really had no idea that it would quickly ramp to a million.

然而，我們真的沒有想到，它將迅速攀升到一百萬。

It was also obvious immediately that we had this problem with the virtual ecology because this proverbial swarm of ants was unstoppable.

也很明顯，我們的虛擬生態有這個問題，因為這個諺語中的螞蟻群是不可阻擋的。

We could thin the population in certain areas, but we couldn't do that on the main map.

我們可以在某些地區稀釋人口，但我們不能在主地圖上這樣做。

The main map needed everyone to be present.

主地圖需要所有人都在場。

After months of attempting to rebalance or re envision this virtual ecology, sadly in the end, we literally just ripped all the code out of the game.

經過幾個月的嘗試，重新平衡或重新設想這個虛擬生態，可悲的是，最後我們真的只是把所有的代碼從遊戲中扯出來。

And the saddest part of all of this is that outside of people hearing the story directly, like I'm telling you right now, none of the players ever even knew it was there.

而這一切最可悲的部分是，在人們直接聽到這個故事之外，就像我現在告訴你的那樣，沒有一個球員甚至不知道它的存在。

The the lesson of the virtual ecology was to us that testing the game in house is an entirely inadequate test.

虛擬生態的教訓對我們來說是，在家裡測試遊戲是完全不充分的測試。

In contrast to the reality of being in the hands of players, not only our players going to face the experience differently, they will think about it differently than we do in house, but also by sheer numbers.

與現實中的球員相比，不僅我們的球員會以不同的方式面對經驗，他們會以不同的方式思考問題，而不是我們在家裡做的，而且在數量上也是如此。

They will crush or test things in a very different way in a virtual world where you give the players swords and weapons to commit mass murder.

他們會在一個虛擬世界中以一種非常不同的方式粉碎或測試事物，在這個世界中，你給了玩家劍和武器來進行大規模的謀殺。

I think that a virtual ecology is going to be going to prove very difficult.

我認為，虛擬生態將被證明是非常困難的。