[MUD-Dev] Time travel and Logging

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

"Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

>In some mud implementations it may be certainly necessary to log 
>conversation. For instance conversation may cause state changes in mud 
>objects (NPC reactions, auditory events to open doors, activation of 
>equipment, etc.).

I don't think this is a very good argument. You can adjust the design.

>I would doubt his logs are human readable, no?   The interesting potential
>side-effect of backwards time travel does pose some technical problems.
>For instance, the observing object originally took no part in the 
>original events.  The replay mechanism would have to account for this
>and add the observing object to all the local event chains.  I wonder how
>or whether perception of the character would be translated into the
>viewing object.  For instance, would a character notice a hidden/invisible 
>character that he hadn't noticed when he passed through a location
>a few days earlier?  Or would he, by observing as a third party, generate a 
>new chance to detect this or see it automatically?  I would also assume
>that the replay engine(s) would be a separate state machine of it's
>own separate from the 'real' mud and that time travel events wouldn't
>be logged. 

I think you are pointing at an important problem with JCL's system.
It becomes more apparent in a graphical system.  Where is the
time-traveller observing from?  What happens if something moves to the
time-travellers position?  What happens if the object in observation
is moving?  Is the timetraveller moving in world coordinates, or local
coordinates?  Can the timetraveller open doors?  If not, can he walk
through doors?  Can he move at all?  Is he moving in "now" time, but
observing in "past time" ?  How can you achieve this?  By providing
two maps?  What if the viewpoint was inside a mountain in the past?

It is all possible to solve, but requires some extra coding
effort. Gfx engines usually provide the surface, objects may be
empty...

Ola