[MUD-Dev] Room Generation

[Nathanael Dermyer]

First off, I've never posted, but have read this list on and off for
almost a year now.

And I've gone through the archive in a vain attempt to find something
about my question.

On the mud I admin on (an LP Mud, running aamylars 03.02.01 at 128, on a
tw lib) we have a "virtual" room system where you feed a compiler a
file containing a map, a list of what the symbols in the map mean, and
the appropriate code to create the files.  When the area initializes,
it builds virtual rooms (meaning no actual file exists on the disk,
only in memory).  The problem here, is when the map is large (meaning
bigger than say, 15x15) the virtual compiler blows the max_eval.

The max_eval is not the problem.  I don't like virtual areas.  Plus
the areas I typically create only have several similar rooms, so
virtual areas are actually kinda worthless to me.  What I'm wondering
is if anyone has some sort of mechanism (perl script, C program, VB,
whatever) that will accept some sort of map file and a list that
defines what each map symbol means, and spews out individual room
files.

Sample map file: (it'll have to be viewed with a non-true type font to
look right)

  O-F-O-S
  |\| |X
  O-F-S-O
     \|/
  F-S-S-O

and then the define file would merely say that for a symbol O, use
such-and-such description/monster generation, for symbol S, etc and so
on and so forth.  The |-\/X denote exits to/from rooms.

Has anyone done anything sort of like this?  I'm in the middle of a C
book, so perhaps by the time I finish I'll know enough to kludge
something out that works how I need it to.  I'd rather have something
*now*, though, being the impatient type!

Nathanael
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev