[MUD-Dev] Dynamically changing room descriptions

[Jon A. Lambert]

On 14 May 99,, Travis Casey wrote:
>
>   This is a small, nondescript stone room, with walls lined by shelves
>   of books.  A table stands against the far wall, with glassware, a
>   book, and a small cage on it.  There is a tapestry on the north
>   wall, which appears to show a series of scenes depicting a battle.
>   A towering demon, with flames rippling off his body, stands in the
>   room.  A mouse is in the cage on the table.
> 
> This description feels odd.  Why?  Because chances are that the demon
> would be the first thing you'd notice coming into, and that once you'd
> seen the demon, you'd be too busy to notice details like the mouse and
> exactly what's on the tapestry.

Yes it do feel odd.  It's funny though, because I used to do this for 
humorous effect in FTF sessions.  Describing the demon as an 
afterthought, "Oh yeah, and by the way, there's a towering demon, with
flames rippling off his body, glaring angrily at you.  He cracks his
six-headed glass shard encrusted whip hungrily."
 
> My idea, then, is to give each element in the description an
> importance rating.  The description could then be manipulated so that
> the most important things are described first.  The code could also
> show a limited number of things at a time -- either by having a fixed
> number of things that someone can take in at once, by dropping
> elements with importances much lower than other things in the room
> (e.g., nothing that's less than half as important as the most
> important thing in the room gets described), or both.

Excellent ideas.  We've touched on this a little bit in another thread
on distance and size perception.  Here's an example scene:

There are four persons seated at a card table playing hearts surrounded 
by a crowd of onlookers, say twenty or so.  One of the players, myself, 
has a mouse on his shoulder.  Among the crowd is a gorgeous red-head of 
amazon-like proportions, a twelve foot giant with a horsefly on his nose, 
and a three foot gnome.  The entire party is located in the dusty main 
street of a small village.  On the north side of the street is a cafe 
with a sign in the window advertising 'All you can eat for 3 grotzees'.  
A waitress gazes out of the greasy window.  On the south side of the 
street is a four-story hotel.  Walking on the hotel's third-story ledge 
is a darkly-dressed cat burglar.  The village is surrounded by a 20 ft. 
wooden palisade; and nestled within snow covered mountains. 

Challenge:
Come up with a method of describing this scene from the vantage point of 
myself, the fly, the giant, the mouse, the gnome, the waitress and the 
cat-burglar. 

Such a method might take into account distance perception, foreground
to background, elevation, size, and ATTENTION.  

Any of the card players would be tuned into seeing the hand they are 
holding, the table, and the three other players in good detail.  The 
crowd as a whole might form the blurry backdrop, with some noticeable 
standouts.  I'd most likely not miss Xena's red-headed sister.  ;)

The waitress would see a blurred vision of a crowd gathered in the 
street, probably the least perceptive of the humanoids. 

The cat burglar might have the best perspective of all, yet miss the 
standouts in the crowd (giant and red-head) and the small mouse and fly.
Yet the cat burglar might be way to preoccupied with negotiating the 
ledge to notice much at all, especially the beautiful mountain view.
Then again, if he was just relaxing on the ledge (not working) he might 
grok the full detail of the scene.

Perhaps everyone but the giant would miss the fly or someone studying 
him.  If the fly was worrying the giant, he might not notice much else
other than the fly.
 
> Thus, in the example above, the demon would be described first -- and
> quite possibly might be the *only* thing that would be described!  If
> the players want to see more, it would be possible to make commands
> that do that -- e.g., look.  (This could also help resolve the old
> problem of "how much is too much in descriptions" -- you only see the
> most important stuff unless you stop and look.)
 
Agreed.

> Some more random thoughts...
> 
>  - This could be combined with giving each description element a
>    "visibility."  The visibilities would be tested against some
>    attribute (possibly with a random factor added in) to determine
>    whether or not things can be seen, and then importance would be
>    used as described above to order the visible items and decide if
>    some of them are unnoticed.

What attributes make sense here?  Distance, size, color, character's 
perception, etc.  And speaking of character perception, what if my gentle 
giant in the above scene was like Lenny from 'Of Mice and Men'?   He 
might only be able to perceive the things that are "pet-able", the mouse 
on my shoulder or the red-head's long tresses might be the primary or 
sole items within his perception, much like your demon example.   

 
>    This allows for things that are easy to see, but that characters
>    aren't likely to make note of (e.g., "this is a nondescript room")
>    and for things that are hard to see, but that will draw one's
>    attention if they are seen (e.g., "there is a small chalk mark of
>    an arrow pointing west on the floor").

That chalk mark would be far more noticeable in an empty room, yet be
almost as good as invisible, in a room loaded with fine furniture and 
colorful wall hangings.

> 
>  - For more fun, an invisible character might have low visibility, but
>    high importance ("you notice a shimmering in the air").  You could
>    simulate a "do not notice me" spell by leaving visibility alone,
>    but giving the character's description a very low importance.
 
How about disguise and familiarity?  You might see a rather homely old 
woman pushing a cart, while I might see Bob in hose and a wig. 

>  - Importance could have a slight random variation to it -- thus, if
>    two things are of nearly equal importance, sometimes one would be
>    described first and sometimes the other.

Yes.  You might glance briefly at a character and get a generic 
description, but totally miss that red 666 tattooed on their forehead the 
first time.  But once you noticed it, would you miss it again?  
 
>  - Items added to room descriptions by functions (e.g., the
>    weatherdesc() function mentioned in another post) could have
>    variable importance.  Thus, if it's raining heavily and thundering,
>    that might be one of the first things listed in most outside room
>    descriptions.  However, if it's a nice day, the gentle breeze might
>    be listed last or not at all in many room descriptions.
> 
>  - Whether or not a new or changed element in the room is noticed could
>    be determined using its visibility and importance, relative to what's
>    already in the room.  Thus, you generally won't notice a mouse
>    entering the room.  You might not notice a servant carrying in
>    trays of food at a banquet.  But you'll almost certainly notice
>    that Brenda just starting sprouting fur and fangs next to you!

I wonder what sort of mess you'd get if you added character facing into 
the mix?  Suppose you and Brenda are walking through woods alone on a 
moonlit night, and she conveniently positions herself slightly behind 
you, rather than next to you. :P

 

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--*     Jon A. Lambert - TychoMUD Email:jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com             *--
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