[MUD-Dev] Unique items (was: Graphic MUDS/Ultima Online)

[coder at ibm.net]

On 16/02/98 at 05:52 AM, Adam Wiggins <nightfall at user1.inficad.com> said:
>[coder at ibm.net:]
>> On 28/01/98 at 11:55 PM, "Brandon J. Rickman" <ashes at pc4.zennet.com> said:

>> In an absolute sense, not true (perception is another matter).  Consider:
>> 
>>   Bubba picks op indeterminate key.
>>   Bubba puts key into hiding space in back of cave.
>>   Bubba tosses known-CK tossed into ocean.
>>   Six years pass.
>>   Bubba tells Boffo about key at back of cave.
>>   Boffo opens CK with said key.

>First of all, how do you differentiate between a key thrown into the
>ocean being lost (as it sits at the bottom of the ocean, untouched, for X
>time units) from the key in the back of the cave being lost, which is
>also untouched for X time units?

I'm not certain that a distinction actually *needs* to be made.  Certainly
I am unable to convince myself of a scenario where the distincion is
necessary.

However this raises a key and very fundamental point which strikes deep.  

I've been a champion of the game world in effect being a simulation which
can be studied and examined as an organic system without players or other
internal viewers per se.  One of my original intentions for the
time-travel capabilities we've discussed earlier was to use it as an
administrative tool to check for and guarantee correctness (I've recently
come to suspect that I have a nasty bug in my language implementation that
invalidates almost its entire design).  With a world dynamically generated
from rules sets when viewed, there is no implicit history to generate
except for that minor set which has been viewed at that point in time.  A
narrow window to use to check for correctness at the best of times.

Moving to this indeterminate system loses that possiblility.  As a
builder, instead of creating a simulation into which you drop players, you
are now creating simulators which in turn create simulations into which
players can drop.  Its a rather large difference.

>Putting that aside, it still seems a strong argument for resolving this
>on object creation.  Ideally the key in the cave above is lost, but the
>character has a chance of locating a key with the same properities
>(unlocks the same lock(s)) nearby on the ground, hidden in a
>squirel-hole, or in the cave itself.

Given an object heirarchy where, say, the CK key was a child of other
similar keys, this would seem simple:  Merely create a localised
probability for finding an ur-object for one of the CK's parents for the
area about the cave.

Wooo boy.  I thought my original idea of probability fields would be
interesting, and potentially of far greater impact than I suspected, but
this essentially transforms the entire world into a macro-probabilistic
field.  Nothing actually exists per se, its merely a realised probability
set with a temporary and indefinite lifespan.  Einstein's dice anyone?

>> A good argument can be made that such logical rigour is not necessary. 
>> Perhaps a fairy swiped the original unknown key at the back of the cave
>> and replaced it with the CK key when nobody was looking?  Who knows the
>> logic of fairies?  This is probably a winning argument on the basis that
>> players just won't care.

>I doubt that - it has a pretty profound affect on the game.  

True, the effect is profound, but also pervasive and uniform.  Is that
combination enough to make the ocassional (and usually rare) logic flaws
happily ignorable?  Are the potential logical impossibilities that are
sufficiently invasive to get up in arms about

Scenarios please!

>However,
>players may not *mind* (which is different from caring, in this context). 

Accepted. 

>It's players will take to carrying around bags of
>indeterminate keys for whenever they encounter a locked door.

True -- sort of.  Not all keys are known to open any actual lock.  Some
are definitely red herrings.  I suspect that known-identified objects of
any sort will likely be somewhat prized.

>> >At t+100, the chances might be: ocean 50, seaside 40, arctic 20, plains
>> >5, mountains 5, desert 2, dragon hoard 2, global 1.
>> 
>> >Of course at any time the key might be rediscovered.  The hope is that
>> >the rediscovery will be at worse an unlikely (but not absurd) event.
>> 
>> Exactly.  I like this.

>You could also take it a step further and apply a radius to the object's
>generation.  Hopefully you'd get an effect of finding the key in the cave
>above just outside, or at least somewhere in the local vicinty (although,
>not always - six game years should be enough for it to have drifted
>almost anywhere).  By the same token the key thrown into the ocean should
>"wash up" or appear in a fish along the same coast that it was first
>tossed in. At some point in time the radius becomes large enough that it
>encompasses your whole world.

Yes, yes, and yes.  

>This would work in addition to the stuff above - the object, if it were
>made of gold, would have a larger chance of appearing in a dragon's
>hoarde fifty miles from the site it was lost than a similar hoarde on the
>other side of the world.  This allows players to apply some common sense
>to locating lost objects, if they knew roughly where they were lost.

Yup, which is where my probability fields would come in in spades.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...