[MUD-Dev] Re: Introduction System

[J C Lawrence]

On Mon, 17 Jul 2000 07:06:58 -0700 
birgit schulte <birgit.schulte at philips.com> wrote:

> --<cut>-- 
> Note: This message was written via the list web archives.  There
> is no guarantee that the claimed author is actually the author.
> --<cut>-- 

Yipee!

> On Fri, 14 Jul 2000 22:57:26 -0700 Colin Coghill
> <C.Coghill at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
 
>> I'm curious as to how such systems would handle two unintroduced
>> players in the same room, who happened to have the same
>> description.
>> 
>> Do players have any way of differentiating between two short
>> red-haired dwarves who haven't yet been named/introduced ?

> On a LPMud where I was active the chars had addionally to the
> immediately visible attributes an appearance-value, which was set
> to a random value between 0 and 100 at character generation, and
> was only indirectly displayed (by a string hinting at the
> appearance).  So as long as this appearance was different, you'd
> be able to tell one short red-haired dwarf from the other. If you
> wanted to disguise as someone else, you accordingly needed to hit
> that appearance-value exactly to be taken as the person you'd like
> to imposter.

This could get interesting:

  Instead of using a 1-100 range, use a much larger value set, or
  even a collection of value sets.   Say 4 bits per value set (16
  values) with 8 value sets in a two-word integer.  If you want more
  types or larger sets, just increase the widths.  Heck, just use an
  8bit char per value set -- makes the arithmetic faster and
  simpler.

  Now use those value sets to map basic characteristics.  Say, all
  the basic body types/species are enumerated in one value set, all
  the hair colours in another, the skin tones in a third, the ages
  in a fourth, etc.  The idea is not to make an exact mapping, but
  arrive at integer values which loosely *represents* that
  character's current appearance.

  Now, upon meeting an arbitrary character, scan the recorded
  character value sets and compare them to the value set before the
  player. If there's a match within N%, ouput a message ala:

    There's an oddly familiar dwarf here.

  You can then plug in various nearness percentages, history/age
  factors (long time since you've seen Bubba == harder to recognise
  him for even identical value sets) etc.

This also gives an initial handle on approaching disguises in a
semi-intelligent manner as it allows easy support of both
intentional and unintentional disguise factors.

  Bubba has a terrible fright and his hair goes white.  He is now
  commonly mistaken for Boffo whose hair was always white.

--
J C Lawrence                                 Home: claw at kanga.nu
---------(*)                               Other: coder at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga/nu/~claw/        Keys etc: finger claw at kanga.nu
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--


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