Resets and repops

[Adam Wiggins]

> > ...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.

Crystalline Tree?  Wazzat?
We refer to model-breakers as undead dogs.  Reason being that when we first
started screwing around with our mud (not having near the ambitions we
do now, only desiring to write a mildly amusing but totaly non-original
mud, silly us) I said one day:

Me: Okay, guess I'll toss in the race 'undead.'
My Co-Imp: Hmm.  <pause> What about undead dogs?  What kind of attacks
do they get?  What sort of body-type?
Me: Um... <stares stupidly for several moments> uh, I'll make it a flag.

Obviously this isn't much of a 'model' but it's this sort of thing that
one finds oneself doing without input from others.  You don't think of
alternatives, you just go for the obvious (obvious probably because that's
the way you've seen it done before) without considering.  Of course, as
soon as you throw your idea at someone they can frequently spot the glaring
hole in it very quickly, just because they are seeing it from a fresh
angle.

> >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?).

Sounds like you need a layer of abstraction which interprets all "do
something interesting with this object" calls (ie damage, heal, change
form, anything even mildly active) which quickly loads up the real thing.
And, at this point, are you really saving much time or space?

> 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.

This sort of thing (dividing any given area into factions) always rules.
You get instant dividing lines between otherwise unaquainted players,
which makes getting into the game that much easier.  Ie, three mages,
all new to the game...but when two of them cast water spells (which
somehow damages nearby fire-invokers) and one cast fire spells (which
works vice-versa), you have an instant bond between the first two
and an instant animosity for the third one.  Lines like this (race,
gender, political preferance) kinda suck in real life but they're a hell
of a lot of fun on a mud.

> >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...)

Sounds like fun.  I 'get' to work with Win95 + DirectX all day long.
After rebooting both my code machine and my debug machine a dozen times
a day, it's somewhat refreshing to come home and type 'uptime' on
my Linux machine and see 104 days.