Resets and repops

[Nathan Yospe]

On Fri, 21 Mar 1997, Jon A. Lambert wrote:

:Please excuse the horrible word wrapping of my earlier posts. 
:We have mastered this now. 

*grin* Still bloody 80 characters. Mind knocking off a few more? Say 8 of
them?

:> From: Nathan Yospe <yospe at hawaii.edu>
:> On Wed, 19 Mar 1997, Jon A. Lambert wrote:
:> 
:> I have about four levels of programming. The lowest level requires a
:> restart of the MUD, though it has the nice advantage of being runnable
:> from within the MUD, contrary to Dikus (I have an emacs/pico/vi access
:> pipe for top level imms, and failed bootup protection, bringing up the
:> last viable mud core when there is a failed bootup, but not the mass of
:> areas, etc.) This is, of course, the C++ access layer. The middle levels
:> are integrated into the same language, which allows both low level (yes,
:> blackboxed) calls to C++ objects and indistinguishable calls to objects
:> designed in the lower middle level usage of the language. (Think library
:> vs application writers in C++) The highest level language is the scripting
:> language provided to animate Characters, usable for NPCs and PCs... a
:> quest writer could use this for all of his quest NPCs, and a Player could
:> use this for a script to keep his Character alive when he goes LD.
:>
:Yikes emacs/pico/vi.. I am aiming for a more user-friendly web editor
:interface. 

Er... web interface into the host computer(s)? In any case, if there is a
new text editor, it can be loaded up just as easily. (Yeah, I stole the
idea from Mel Smith, though I used a rather different implementation...)

:My server is also C++.  My high level language is an interpreted script.
:I have 

My server is C++. My high level languages are reduced to pointer tables at
bootup or activation.

:been investigating many others' language implementations since early January.
:I am new to compiler theory, but have taken a crash web course in it. ;-)
:I have begun to experiment with Lex and Yacc and find them to be very useful. 
:Do you know of any similar C++ utilities and if so, can you recommend any?

Lex++ and Yacc++. Or write your own. (Not recommended)

:> Hmmm. I use macroscopic event prediction to account for whatever happens
:> while an Area is Playerless. Then again, I've got a background in chaos
:> mathematics, thermodynamics, nanotech... I tend to think that way anyway.
:
:This is probably the reason I understand only half of what you have
:written (grin ..nanotech??).  My background is in western history and
:literature. 

Yeah, real nanotech. As in biomedical application of nanoscale solid state
physics, structural molecular chemistry, and molecular genetics. As in,
really small chemical compounds that act almost exactly like simple robots
in some ways, getting information in and out of cells, and making
modifications and repairs to the cell structure, the DNA, etc. That's my
field. The Chaos mathematics is leftover from my days in mathematical
physics, as is the thermodynamics.

:Though I have managed to get through Hawking's book twice and found it to be
:quite enjoyable reading.

Its OK. Kinda technically flawed, but then, I never agreed with the
microgravity model. The black hole radiation has been verified, and is now
known as Hawking radiation. *grin*

:Macroscopic event prediction!  This conjures up images of Asimov's 
:psycho-history which might be an interesting project in itself.

Heh. Well, yes, but in reverse. Then again, how else could we do it,
considering... we don't have a computer capable of generating a replica
quality human AI, much less an entire galaxy of many sspecies of AIs...

:In your event "catch-up" is there some delay in calculating the state of
:an area before players enter?  Does this longer and have more variation if the 
:down time of the area is longer?

There is a greater degree of variation in longer unused Areas... but the
delay is negligable, comperable, for example, to a Diku game loop with a
database size of 100 rooms.

:> :> Quite nice. How do you model the Deiatic charis
:> Attraction of the gods... the ability of a god to force attraction from
:> any mortal. Kind of a touchy issue.
:
:We have no plans to implement this.  At least not the level which
:would cause some offense.  I would not rule out physical possession
:or the more common occurrence of deities taking the physical form of trusted
:friends.      

Hmmm. Very toned down from the mythos..

:> Sounds like what I would expect from your Aether/Mass model. Yes, the
:> Aether laden witch would be lighter, potentially, than a duck. I want to
:> see an overly enchanted sword lift its owner into the heavens.
:
:But don't occurrences like black holes, time distortions appear random
:(but really predictable?).  Are you saying that your model can respond to
:short duration and completely unpredictable forces.  How does one model
:"free will" in a pure physics model?

"pure" physics has no free will... but that is not what I am after. If
your world model is consistant... meaning there are rules for Aether
interaction, however variable, random, or locationally keyed... it can
be modeled.

   __    _   __  _   _   ,  ,  , ,  
  /_  / / ) /_  /_) / ) /| /| / /\            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