[MUD-Dev] Dynamic Descriptions

[Bernard Graham]

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 07:23:16 +1100, Tess Snider <malkyne at gmail.com> wrote:

> And, that, I would say, is an important point, if this is a topic
> that interests you.  If you are going to make these things
> mutable: 1.) It should be important to the typical player's
> experience in some way that they are mutable, and 2.) it should be
> *conventional* for these descriptions to change -- so that your
> players come to expect change, and know that they should pay
> attention, just in case.

That is a very good/interesting point.  You are saying that these
changes in the descriptions should somehow have "value" for players.
If they pay attention to it, it could in some way benifit them...?

Maybe something like if the player realizes that it is going to
rain, and it is also very cold, there is a chance it might start to
hail soon, hence he should find cover quick enough before the hail
comes down and he looses some health.  Or something like that?

Another idea is something like certain kinds of mobs only appearing
when it is fullmoon, cold and only between certain times in the
night.  Then you would know to be careful once you realize what time
of the night it is and that it is fullmoon.

Anybody has more ideas like these?

Does anybody think it is possible to completely build up a dynamic
description for a room based completely on its
properties/attributes, and still be able to make it sound proper?
If there is any such system I think it would greatly benifit
starters of new muds where the biggest hurdle (in my opinion) is
creating all those rooms and having to make descriptions (mostly
static text) for them.

Two of the things I am now working on, which is very related to each
other, are the dynamic creation of worlds, which may include zones
of cities, forests, mountains, deserts, swamps, etc.  The other is
creating the descriptions for these.

With "dynamic creation of worlds" I mean that I want to generate a
whole continent by only giving the engine a set of parameters.  Then
it generates the continent complete from caves inside the mountains
to sewers in the cities.  I am completely sure that this can be done
(it might be a hell of a lot of work to create such an engine
though).

If anybody has ever seen something like this or played with it and
have some pointers or ideas I'd like to hear them!

Bernard
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