Just a bit of musing

[Nathan Yospe]

OK, I'm not sure how many of us are back up here... and I'm not sure if
this is even going to get through, as I've been having very slow response
times for this list... but here goes on a little free pondering.

A thread on rec.games.mud.admin has recently turned to combat interaction.
The thread is, unfortunately, dominated by the diku types, who have rather
limited perception when it comes to combat, and who, in trying to propose
beyond the room visability, have trapped themselves into a complex system
to establish three dimesnional positioning and standard vision passing of
rooms. As crude as their suggestions have been, the concept of a MUD based
on free space instead of rooms has been clinging to my mind. What do you
guys think of this? It would not be hard to code, conceptually, but the
tendancy to spam the player would be great, and the creativity of writing
styles might be somewhat hampered in trying to allow player specific
perception of surroundings. One scheme I have been playing with: This
descends from the concept of my graphical MUD project.

X - node
O - object (character or item)
D - description
B - blocking description
S - screening description

D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D
D B D D D D D D D O D D D D D
D D X D O D D X D D D D X D D
D D D D D D D D D S D D D D D
D D B D D D S D D D D D D D D
D D D D O D D D D D D D D D D
D D D D D D D D D D O D D D D
D D X D D S D X D D D D X D D
D D B D D D D D D D D D D D D
D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D

A blocking description would block things "behind" it, using the 2D
crystal latice matrix transforms to determin "behind"ness. Screening hides
the things behind it to varying degrees. Multiple objects can occupy the
same location, but have volume concerns. A "node" corresponds to a room,
and could concievably have size variation, though that is not necessary to
the design. The nodes portrayed here have scope 5x5.

   __    _   __  _   _   ,  ,  , ,  
  /_  / / ) /_  /_) / ) /| /| / /\            First Light of a Nova Dawn
 /   / / \ /_  /_) / \ /-|/ |/ /_/            Final Night of a World Gone
Nathan F. Yospe - University of Hawaii Dept of Physics - yospe at hawaii.edu