Resets and repops

[claw at null.net]

On 21/03/97 at 07:24 AM, cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA (Chris
Gray) said: >[ChrisL]

>:>Not bad; my only problem with this is that if there's any sort of
>:>mechanisms by which the player can learn about their world without
>:>actually going places, this starts to break down.  The most obvious
>:>example is the spell locate object.
>:
>:Other good candidates:
>:
>:  Built in rumour systems
>:  Newspapers
>:  OBE (Out of Body Experience)
>:  Scrying
>:  High altitude overview (for those with 3D)
>:  Indirect viewing ("typical" magic eye objects, or your clairvoyance).
>:  Remotely controlled/possessed mobiles.
>:  Demon riders on mobiles.
>:  'Bots.

>I'm not sure how to interpret the last 3 examples...

Indirect Viewing: the ability to view a remote location via an object
located there.  The standard example is The Magic Eye, which can be
dropped anywhere, and a magical spell or matching viewer object
(implementations vary, I've seen both) used to "see" whatever can be
seen by TME.  Classier TME's have a built-in history function so that
the TME can be queried for anything it has seen in the last XXX time.

Remotely controlled/possessed mobiles:  Very similar. 
Enchant/charm/possess/zombie-ise/whatever a mobile, send him where you
will without moving your own character (cf Heinleinian Puppet Master)
with the ability to see and hear everything the mobile does.

Demon riders on mobiles: An affect such that everything the mobile
sees/hears is reported back to you, but you have no control over the
motion or behaviour of the mobile.  Often implemented by putting a
0-size, 0-weight object in the mobiles inventory which relays all IO
to you.  Of course I do it with spoofs.

'Bots: Julia and that lot.  Self-animated programs written in the
internal language which progress thru the MUD achieving some effect
(as distinguished from clever (dumb) client scripts (ala IRC) to fully
animate a logged-in character without human control).  Standard
examples are guides, helpers, reference clerks and auto-mappers
(release the 'bot on the MUD and it returns with a compleat map of all
rooms and their connections).  Some MOOs have been harassed by
advertising 'bots which wander about spouting how much more wonderful
some other MOO is.  Some 'bots are basically mobiles, and can be
viewed as variations on all the above.  Other 'bots are a local (often
stationary) collection of objects which use all the tricks like magic
eyes, demon riders, scrying, cloned pet mobiles etc to do whatever
they want to do without endangering themselves (useful for escaping
DT's and the like).

> ...but as for the
>others, none of those exist (yet) in my scenario. A wizard could
>create any of them, however. So, this suggests some changes.

Hehn.  I like coming up with ideas that break models.  The Crytalline
Tree is one we should probably revisit.

>Another solution is to establish a convention that says that distance
>viewers should check for and call a specific action on locations they
>are viewing. That action could cause the viewers to see the missing
>NPC's, without actually having to create them. (Dirty trick, I know!)

Sounds like a neat one to me.  Forgery is fine, as long as you can
guarantee that the forgery is indistinguishable from the original.  eg
What happens when you summon a mobile that is a forgery?  If you don't
do summons, and I seem to recall you don't, try something like a
magical spell which can be delivered to a distant room (fireball? 
charm?  transmogrify?).

>[TrashCollectors]

>Kewl! This one I'm going to have to seriously consider, although
>likely not as detailed, and I don't have a mana concept to deal with.

<mutter>  <mutter>  Another bloody idea stolen.  <mumble> <mumble>

Actually if I do go for the full 3D graphical business (and dynamic
VRML is speeding up apace), I've been thinking about stealing the
coloured mana concept from Magic: the Gathering.  It should add a nice
touch of flavour to the system, especially if I also keep the sign
concept.

>Unfortunately, my next release is almost 100% dealing with issues of
>the client, and not any scenario stuff. I'm spending boring time
>messing around with scroll bars, text clipping, etc. Ick!

<sigh>  You can't write sexy code all the time.  <sigh>

<blubber>

I'm buried in acceptance testing of a market data delay server.  So
far we're up to 5,000 messages per seconds (whee!) which is way over
spec, but they just changed the environment on me and I can't keep the
thing up for more than 2 seconds before it goes into a frantic core
loop.  (Yes!  You too can generate 100 core files per second!  Yes! 
You too can eat disk space faster than you ever imagined!  Yes!  It
gets faster when you kill the synch daemon...)

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...