Resets and repops

[Nathan Yospe]

On Fri, 21 Mar 1997 claw at null.net wrote:

: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.

Interesting. Similar to my spy-eyes and cameras... The catch is, I attatch
a Character to anything capable of "seeing"... and when the view is being
displayed, the Player gets plugged into that Character, recieving input
via its filters. Of course, then we have the camera that displays
remotely. This gets a Transmitter - one of those AIs that I mentioned as
having the property of activating an Area.

: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.

Again, either stuff you into the Character, or drop in a Transmitter.

: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.

*grin* Transmitters. Or, occasionally, 0 size, 0 weigth bodyless
Characters carrying Transmitters hanging along for the ride.

:'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).

class Bot <inherit GenericIO, implement Active> :
  . . .
end Bot

(From the internal programming language... I'd use C++ or Java syntax,
but many things are not implemented in precisely the same way. Not to
mention I wouldn't want them _expecting_ things to work just because they
work in C++... I have not got the time to implement a fully safe compiler
for an advanced language. There are several classes that can be inherited
from, along with every new synthetic class... but no class can be created
without inheriting from _something_ (much like Java). GenericIO makes it
a safe class for use in IO sockets... like a player, or an AI... Active
makes it activate areas it is in.)

:> ...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.

Hmmm. Easilly avoided as a problem, seeing as I already have a PC species
made of steel and silicon. Anything can be constructed of any material,
but it then obeys the rules of that material.

:>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?).

I adhere to the "Anything generated by a Player is a proxy for that
Player" method... when a Player sends an object (say a spell, for
argument) to a distant local, if the Player cannot sense the result, we
have a Schrodinger's cat situation... if the Player has enabled any
sensory awareness of the result, there is a Proxy involved.

:>[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>

You share, you gotta expect we're gonna snatch. *grin* Besides, have you
never adopted one of our ideas? (If he claims no, I'm gonna be insulted.)

: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.

*Grin* I had this in an early model of my Graphical platform... but
decided in the long run that it added an element of cheesiness.

:>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...)

Heh. I'm programming extensions for a 4D database server... ugly, ugly,
ugly external module interface, not to mention the load time, which means
small segments are in the 4D language... bloody **** of a language.
Globals! #@%%^#@ globals everywhere!

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Nathan F. Yospe - University of Hawaii Dept of Physics - yospe at hawaii.edu