[MUD-Dev] Rooms, 3D arrays, etc.

[Ling]

I'm another person who's interested in this kinda thing (Hi Raz).

On Fri, 30 May 1997, Nathan Yospe wrote:
> On Thu, 29 May 1997, Raz wrote:
> :On Tue, 27 May 1997 08:19:34 PST8PDT, Nathan wrote:
> 
> :Hmm, so its a matter of defining a list of known element types and
> :properties...  They always give me the feeling that I'm missing certain
> :terribly important items from them =)
> 
> Well, they can always be added. Its not like a recompile is needed to add
> a new material type, or structure type. And I have a database of a few
> thousand materials at this point.

This is the stuff that scares me.  Going into the library and looking up
some base materials then making up the rest.  Time consuming anyway.  Be
worth it in the end I suppose.  I'll create Marshmallow World to see if it
stands up to real life.  Players must eat/bounce their way out.

> Well, its like this: you have your coordinates, and there is a tree off in
> the distance to your right. You type "run tree", and your movement is
> scheduled as a collidable event (which is checked in 4D for any
> collisions... in other words, if an anvil falls, it has to check to see if
> your head will be right under it when it lands) and you start moving for
> the tree at a run. Now, the tree might have been 27.85 degrees to your
> right and 34.6 meters away... but do you really want to have to deal with
> that? You could, of course, have turned "a tiny bit to the right" which is
> about ten degrees, or "a little bit ..." (20) of "a bit..." (30) The
> gradations are only exact in an open field with nothing to orient toward.
> You tend to face things, as much as possible.

This reminds me of vehicle combat on muds.  Esp Battletech MUSE and Star
Trek MUSE.  They both had wonderfully designed coordinate systems which
required exact numbers to be typed in.  Not that, as a pilot, one would
care about the precise heading.  I just wanted to position myself in the
forest or between the two ships and I spent most of my time picturing
things in my head.  It wasn't much fun.

I'm hoping to solve this by providing the players with set maneovres coded
into the conveyance computer.  A set of primitives could be provided,
allowing the player to invent more moves.  A basic programming language,
perhaps.  Should make dogfights more fun, I hope...  Players could swap
programs...  Rig them too... 

> :The only thing that stops me designing (okay, attempting to design) a
> :similar system is that it gives me the heebie-jeebies to move to a system
> :with no compass movement, and no easy-to-picture discreet spaces =)  Well,
> :not *me*, rather, my players.  Yep, I *know* that you've got to design the
> :game *you* want, but what I think is also an important consideration for me
> :is that I want to design a game which I will enjoy watching other people
> :play...  I don't know whether a text-based game of this nature will be too
> :alien... they'll see a text-based multiuser game, and they'll think MUD;
> :and then try walking north.

The bit that gives me the heebie-jeebies is movement in zero-g in a text
game.  Bad enuff trying to figure out what someone is doing in Descent,
let alone this.  I'm going to leave this sort of thing for the end...
It's probably not worth the hassle.

> :Thinking about it, I suppose it wouldn't be hard to keep compass movement
> :active; just make such a command move you a set distance in the specified
> :direction, having re-oriented the direction in which you face, then carry
> :on as normal.
> 
> OK, so now the guy has his compass...
> "Your eye on the compass needle, you begin walking north. Suddenly, you
> bump into something warm, smelly, and furry. Hot air carresses the back of
> your neck, and you look up the front of an angry demigrizzly."

Hmm...  Implant a compass into the guy's head.  Let characters refer north
relative to what north is on their mud map.  So if a character picks up a
map with north neatly drawn on it and the character is in the region, then
north would be a guess on behalf of the character.

How often do you think in terms of north/west/south/east? :)  It'll be
much easier to type: amble to van.  Further primitives are necessary to
fine tune things if the player desires:  take 3 steps backwards, etc.

> Best one I've ever come across was the whaleworld someone designed... a
> lifeform the size of a small planet, with atmosphere and all... giant
> black sunlight and magnetism eater, with its own populace. Took a bit of
> work to link the locations into the room system so that the threading and
> event system could work properly... something I hadn't expected came
> along, and I had to improve my model... but we ended up with a Character
> (and I switched into its body once, just to try it) that was also an
> entire area. With some occasional interesting quakes.

That's very cool. :)


  |    Ling				"Agrophobic homeless."
_O_O_  Freshwater fish since 1976