[MUD-Dev] Re: several messages

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <Pine.SOL.3.95.970510220704.7717B-100000 at sun-cc203>, on 05/10/97 
   at 03:19 PM, Ling <K.L.Lo-94 at student.lut.ac.uk> said:

>On Fri, 9 May 1997 clawrenc at cup.hp.com wrote:

>> Aside: I've been really hoping to get some more RP type members in
>> here.  I suspect we tend to get more than a little buried in the
>> technical aspects of the games and lose sight of the RP underpinnings
>> (me especially as I don't RP at all).

>The list has been a bit too tekkie for me lately.  Even though I
>actually understand it all, I still have to say:  Ugh! :)

Just be glad you weren't around for the great spoof vs Affect vs
affect capability/design debates.  That one ran for months (and is one
we should get back to at some time).

Historically the list has more or less only had one or two (often
closely related) topics running at a time.  Thus now we have plot
systems and parsing running _and_ RP game design (3!).  As the list
membership grows I expect that the number of simultaneous threads will
also grow.  Its starting to show signs of that ability now.  

>> As a start on such, given a coordinate space say, (and no, the user
>> won't ever see X,Y,Z coordinates) the question is how to parse and
>> handle prepositions.  I know the LIMA MUDLib can do it -- anybody here
>> familiar with it, or want to dig into it?

>Most of that is in the driver.  There's this amazing little function
>called parse_sentance() which does all the handling for the mudlib. 
>I'm taking a peek at it right now, here's a cut and paste of the code
>for the put verb, I'll break it down into pseudo code if anyone
>wants:

...deletia...

>That oughta shed a little light on it.  Personally, I'm going to draw
>a pentagram around the CPU and keep the candles burning.

While that source shows a very basic implementation it doesn't
demonstrate any ability to handle the sorts of ambiguity that ChrisG
and I have been discussing.

>I imagine random plotlines more along the lines of Syndicate.

Not familar with that one.  Describe?

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...