[MUD-Dev] Re[2]: [MUD-Dev] Dynamically changing room descriptions

[Travis Casey]

On Thursday, Thursday, May 13, 1999, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:

> On 10:37 AM 5/12/99 +0100, I personally witnessed Ronan Farrell jumping up
> to say:
>>
>>I am considering implementing a system where the room descriptions
>>and properties change according to the weather, time of year and day.

> Very common on WoD MUSHes, but they tend to use the internal language.
> Devise a way of inlining function calls with your descriptions; on MUSHes
> this tends to come out being something like

>    You are in a forest. [timedesc()] [weatherdesc()]

> Which would expand to

>    You are in a forest. The clouds pass ominously over the
>    moon and cast grim shadows. A light rain falls and the
>    ground is slick.

> This may be more trouble than it's worth if your framework won't easily
> support it. You also end up with the occasional weirdness:

>    You are in a forest. The sun shines brightly down and
>    gives you a warm happy feeling. You are in the midst of
>    a roaring thunderstorm which has blackened the sky and
>    threatens to tear the trees out by their roots.

This seems to me to be more a symptom of a bad implementation than
anything else.  Why should the timedesc() tell anything about how
things look or how you feel, and most especially, why should it be
able to conflict with the weatherdesc()?

Intuitively, I'd guess timedesc() to be a description of the time of
day (if I didn't have any help files for it or anything).  Something
like:

  It is now shortly after noon.

If I were implementing things, I'd make the weatherdesc() function
check the time and use it in creating its description of the weather.
For example, if it were raining heavily, you might see

  Rain splatters noisily on the soaking ground as heavy clouds
  obscure the sun overhead.  Thunder rolls in the distance.

or

  A sliver of moonlight breaks through the clouds, but you don't need
  the light to feel and hear the thunder and rain about you.

depending on the time of day.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
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