[MUD-Dev] Re: Support for remote NPCs

[Nathan F Yospe]

On Thu, 9 Jul 1998, Joel Kelso wrote:

:Nathan F Yospe wrote:

:> languages are too unsophisticated for my needs", but... well, think of this
:> as a case of definition. A programming language needs to be able to define,
:> among other things, the state of the world. That's unacceptable.

:Well a guess that's true for a _programming_ language.  But a "world
:constructionlanguage" (or in fact a set of related languages) would be really
:handy.  A language
:for assembling (or defining) bits of the world from components would be all the
:more useful if you could define your own structures and embed bits of code in
:it where
:necessary.

Only if there were a way to do such a thing that was compatible with what I
use for a world model. I have assemblies and behaviors, but nothing that an
experienced programmer would consider a language. Or maybe, nothing a semi-
experienced programmer would consider a language.

:> PC here, a university account there... give PCs incentives to install these
:> NPC executables and run them... and I end up with a lot more capability for
:> simulated NPC inteligence. Add to that the tokenization of language... with
:> the fact that the NPC can eventually learn to talk to PCs... and perhaps in
:> time some of them will pass Turing tests.

:Do you have an intermediate "event language" for events such as sights
:andsounds in the MUD, which NPCs can use directly, or do NPCs have to
:parse the descriptions that human players get ?  If you're not really
:interested
:in natural languge learning (or MUD description text learning), this might be
:a bit of a shortcut.

Both NPC AIs and PC clients recieve the bulk of their data as tokens. I can
point you to the archives, and to Physmud++, my server, for some details. I
don't pass text through, except as a proxy for client to client. I may have
cause to dispense with some of that in the future as well. :P
--

Nathan F. Yospe - Aimed High, Crashed Hard, In the Hanger, Back Flying Soon
Jr Software Engineer, Textron Systems Division (On loan to Rocketdyne Tech)
(Temporarily on Hold) Student, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Physics Dept.
yospe#hawaii.edu nyospe#premier.mhpcc.af.mil http://www2.hawaii.edu/~yospe/