[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is suppo

[Nathan Yospe]

On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, Chris Gray wrote:

:[Travis C:]

::								Hmm....
::perhaps messages from picking something up should say something like, "Joe
::picks up the second ball" in these sorts of situations?  A character
::dropping
::an item shouldn't rearrange the order of things -- the dropped item can be
::put on the end of the list.  Thus, picking up items is the only thing that
::can actually change the position of an item in the list.

:Idea stolen - I just went and added it to my scenario. I need another
:builtin function before I can do it properly - currently it will only
:add the English form of the position if the player specified one on the
:command. I need a "CountOccurrences", so I can cheaply tell if the item
:was the only one - no point in saying "first" when there is only one!
:Wait - I can just see if there is one in the list afterwards...

I list them in terms of "nearest in front" etc, for identical objects, and
in terms of distinguishing characteristics otherwise. If no specification is
given, I choose randomly, generally the nearest. This makes things _much_
simpler. Of course, I also allow X.objName and Xth objName, but there is no
guarantee that the Xth objName is going to be close enough to grasp. But the
trace variance is by radial distance, so the lower X, the closer the object,
in general.

::- A view of the world which varies for different characters.  This is only
::  somewhat a user interface issue, but I feel that it's easier to imagine
::being
::  a different race if the game can somehow give you the feeling of being
::  something other than human.	Basically, I'd like descriptions to vary
::  according to the character's senses, size, etc.  For example, where a
::human
::  character might get:

::    You're standing in a small, walk-in freezer, dimly lit by a single bare
::light
::    bulb.  A puddle of what looks like blood is steaming slightly on the
::floor.

::  A player who was playing a cat might see:

::    You're standing in a huge, cold room, lit by a single bare light bulb.
::A puddle
::    of what looks like blood is steaming slightly on the floor.  The room
::smells
::    of fresh blood.

::  Of course, this is much easier said than done.  I have ideas on how to do
::it that
::  ought to work -- the primary problem is that builders would need to write
::  more description than they currently do, and would need to mark the
::conditions
::  under which some parts of the description can be seen.

:Doesn't Nathan have something like this? Nathan? Or am I just remembering
:some wishes from previous discussions?

No, I had something like this. A sensory markup language, using tags along
the lines of <smell = 5> </smell>... later amended to use shorter tags, later
abandoned when I started parsing sensory information seperately and
assembling it all, elliminating the need for such markup.
--

"You? We can't take you," said the Dean, glaring at the Librarian.
"You don't know a thing about guerilla warfare." - Reaper Man,
Nathan F. Yospe  Registered Looney                   by Terry Pratchett
yospe at hawaii.edu   http://www2.hawaii.edu/~yospe           Meow