[MUD-Dev] Ideas for dynamic worlds

[J C Lawrence]

On Sat, 11 Dec 1999 10:43:13 -0800 
Chimera  <chimera at SoftHome.net> wrote:

> I want a grid-based system too, but I admit that I have not
> thought about using layers. I think the problem with mountains can
> be solved by assigning height to each layer. The parser would then
> take into account only those grids that are in the line of sight
> (on a plane parallel to the grid the user is on). A side effect
> (which may not be undesirable) might be that users can look down
> and up as well as straight ahead.

Have a look at:

  http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/1998Q1/msg00895.html

I've done ranged vision using a coordinate based system, as
discussed in:

  http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/1997Q3/msg00527.html

With the last paragraph being the one I did:

  Order the list of ranged objects by range, group them with the
  list by proximity, group the proximate groups by angular visual
  proximity (ie direction), order the resultant groups by interest
  level (volcanoes are interesting, fleas farting are not), cut off
  all groups beneath a minumim interest level, generate text moving
  from the highest interest group on down.

This also applies to your dynamically generated description that you
reference later in your message.  There's a fair bit of coverage of
this in the archives.  Nathan Yospe in particular did a heck of a
job dynamically generating decent text from particulate matter.

> Regarding roads, I've decided to use compass directions for
> simplicity's sake. It would be nice to have "follow road"
> commands, but my main concern is that with increasing population
> the calculations will bog down the server.

I use compass directions and objects.  You travel in a compass
direction or toward a particular object (which results in following
if the object moves).

> Your idea to construct rooms out of objects is one that I'd
> thought to implement as well. Instead of writing descriptions for
> rooms, builders will place furniture and stuff according to their
> tastes, and a parser will handle what users see according to their
> position, lighting, etc. Unfortunately this will also place quite
> some strain on the server.

Not necessarily.  If you're aggressive enough early enough on
excluding candidate objects along with pre-calculating static
entries (eg weather state, environmental conditions etc) you can get
pretty cheap.

> Another thing I'd like to do is make the objects themselves
> composites of other objects -- a shovel is composed of a pole and
> a metal head, the pole is composed of wood... 

Again, Yospe did some interesting stuff here.  Its been a while tho
-- hit the archives.

--
J C Lawrence                              Internet: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                            Internet: coder at kanga.nu
...Honorary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...


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