[MUD-Dev] Command interface for Coordinate based world

[Nathan F Yospe]

On Wed, 22 Mar 2000 adam at treyarch.com wrote:

:On Wed, 22 Mar 2000 WriterDL at aol.com wrote:
:> As near as I can tell there needs to be a way to set heading, speed and 
:> possibly facing.  It should be possible for the user to look in a different 
:> direction while moving, stop and turn around, take a sharp left while 
:> running, etc.  Right now I have just taken the normal N, E, S, W, NE, SE....  
:> keywords, added the verbs 'run', 'jog' and 'walk' and gone at it..  my 
:> question is, is this too little control?

:> I can see a system where the user types:

:> >Heading 280
:> >Speed 5
:> >Facing 300

:> But I think that would get old *real* fast and also isn't nearly as 
:> transparent as the normal interface.  I'm also having a problem with facing.. 
:>  in my hope to avoid numbers, I have 'look right', 'look left' and 'look 
:> ahead'.  Again, not enough control?

:I think the problem with this is that it is too low-level.  One of the things
:that I like best about a text interface is that in many ways, it allows
:a much more human level of control than the equivilent graphical one.
:One a mud, I can type "get the large red sword" and expect to pick up the
:large red sword, regardless of whether it is on the table, on the floor,
:or hanging on the wall.  My character handles these details for me, and
:I can concentrate on broader goals.  On a graphical mud, you are (usually)
:required to navigate over to whever the red sword lies, and then identify
:it somehow in 3space without actually naming it, hopefully not missing and
:accidentally picking up the barrel on one side of it or the pair of pants on
:the other side of it.

What is the extent of your command interpreter / parser / whatever?  I
remember you being comparable to me in ambition...

:So to extend this to movement, I would expect that the user would want to
:start out with the normal directional commands, and then be able to point
:themselves at targets as they show up.  In some cases, it might even be
:automatic.  Here's an example:

:% look
:You are on a road running north and south.  Nothing but open plains are
:visible in every other direction.
:% walk n
:You start walking north.
:% jog
:You increase your pace to a light jog.
:%
:[time passes]
:A building comes into view on the northwest horizon.
:% look building
:You turn your head northwest to view the building.
:The building is a large stone structure with several smoking chimneys.
:% go towards building
:You turn to face a building to the northwest and continue jogging.
:%
:[time passes]
:A large cloud of dust appears over the west horizon.
:You turn your head west to view a large cloud of dust.
:The cloud is a pack of hungry ogres headed right towards you!

:etc.  In this case, there might be another cloud of dust over the east
:horizon as well, but the player wouldn't see it because their attention
:is facing the other direction.  Obviously you'd need to support "look around"
:(scan?) as well as "look north" or "look cloud".

Searching the archives, I've found a couple of my own posts on this:

http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/1999Q1/msg00661.html

There are others, but I like this one.



--

Nathan F. Yospe - Born in the year of the tiger, riding it forever after
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~yospe  nathan.yospe at isearch.com yospe at hawaii.edu
Don't mind me, I'm just insane... there's someone else here in my brain.




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