14 Feb, 2011, Ssolvarain wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
Reading the android thread over there had me thinking about how much easier it would be if I could set up my mud client to work like an FPS game.

WASD for movement, mouse button 1-5 assignments for fast mob/object context-sensitive interaction, hotkeys for skills. It goes against the grain, but I think most people today are more familiar with this style of button mapping than our old n/s/e/w look mob consider mob kill mob look in mob get all mob sac mob. A hook into the game itself would let the client distinguish between living and dead mobs, shopkeepers, doors, chests etc. etc. Including a tooltip window, you'd be able to display exactly what mouse button does what, or maybe automatically display a mob/objects look/consider/examine information.

My main issue with playing muds is how long it can take to do simple tasks, usually the gathering of information or the unlocking and opening of doors. If I could access helpfiles instantly just by hovering over the "help" menu itself, or kill, loot and dispose of a mob in as few as 3 clicks of the mouse… I think I might actually play them a little more seriously.

Anyways, this isn't really going anywhere. I just thought it was a cool idea.
14 Feb, 2011, Runter wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
I think it's not a bad idea. I'd toss out the wasd part and just use the action-keys idea, myself, though.
14 Feb, 2011, Ssolvarain wrote in the 3rd comment:
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I was a big fan of zmud's numpad movement. Instantly hopping from room to room was sweet.
14 Feb, 2011, Runter wrote in the 4th comment:
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I should also mention that for mobile uses the advantage of action-keys is great.
15 Feb, 2011, sankoachaea wrote in the 5th comment:
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Yarly, I don't see how this differs much from what is already available. MUSHclient allows for key-mappings just like you're talking about (by default, on the numpad) but it could just as easily be mapped to WASD (of course, is W/S->North/South or Up/Down?) In fact, when grinding on Achaea, I play with one hand. I can fit directionals, targeting, attacking, shielding, looting, observing (map and room), etc. all on the numpad.
Ssolvarain said:
Including a tooltip window, you'd be able to display exactly what mouse button does what, or maybe automatically display a mob/objects look/consider/examine information.

My main issue with playing muds is how long it can take to do simple tasks, usually the gathering of information or the unlocking and opening of doors. If I could access helpfiles instantly just by hovering over the "help" menu itself, or kill, loot and dispose of a mob in as few as 3 clicks of the mouse… I think I might actually play them a little more seriously.

I've been working on a MUSHclient fork with wxWidgets to do those clever little tooltip things you're discussing. Other than that, most everything mentioned can be scripted from the client side (on just about any MUD) and MUDs offering GMCP/MXP make it very easy.

I'm not sure about tooltips in Mudlet but that might make it onto the to-do list. If there's a big desire for this kind of functionality in a MUD client (I'm hearing a lot of this lately) then I really might start working on QML for Mudlet.
15 Feb, 2011, Runter wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
I think it differs cause we're not talking about a convention through a specific client. We're talking about fact-of-life commands that change based on the context they're used in. In this case, the commands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.

Although I see little value in the wasd thing, myself.
15 Feb, 2011, Ssolvarain wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
It's just a very familiar thing in graphical games these days. It's been adopted for most first/third perspective games, and that includes pretty much every MMO out there. It wouldn't hurt to offer an out of the box setup that people can feel comfortable with, rather than wrangling with a client they don't know yet to work a game they're not sure they want to play yet.

My only real issue with the whole thing is it'd make typing commands impossible… would require a workaround of one sort or another, like toggling off most of the hotkeys.

Typos begone! Free birthday booze ftw :3
15 Feb, 2011, Davion wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
do_alias(ch, "d east");
do_alias(ch, "a west");
do_alias(ch, "s south");
do_alias(ch, "w north");


Then you don't have to worry about having a 'movement' mode and a 'chat' mode.
15 Feb, 2011, sankoachaea wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
You could just as easily assign all the hotkeys to active only when the <some key> is pressed or vice-versa.

If I click anywhere on the screen other than the input line, certain hotkeys are enabled. If I click in the input-line, certain hotkeys are disabled. Works for that whole 'impossible to type commands' situation you mentioned.
15 Feb, 2011, Runter wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
I think it's only an issue where you're responding to up and down key strokes. Muds respond to lines of input. Not keystrokes (mostly.) So if you type "w" and it interprets it as "north" it doesn't stop you from typing "wield sword" without entering a different input mode. (Such is familiar in those mmos that do respond to up and down key events.)
15 Feb, 2011, sankoachaea wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
I think it's only an issue where you're responding to up and down key strokes. Muds respond to lines of input. Not keystrokes (mostly.) So if you type "w" and it interprets it as "north" it doesn't stop you from typing "wield sword" without entering a different input mode. (Such is familiar in those mmos that do respond to up and down key events.)


Did you read the OP?
15 Feb, 2011, Runter wrote in the 12th comment:
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Yes, I sometimes read over stuff too fast. If this is a thread about modifying mushclient to be like a first person shooter, then yes, I withdraw all of my comments from discussion. ;)
15 Feb, 2011, Ssolvarain wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
Someone's sappin muh thread! D=

And it's more than the wasd, of course. You'd need code from the mud for the client to read objects, yar?
15 Feb, 2011, jurdendurden wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
Ssolvarain said:
I was a big fan of zmud's numpad movement. Instantly hopping from room to room was sweet.


Yup, numpad for movement is the way to go IMHO.
15 Feb, 2011, sankoachaea wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
Ssolvarain said:
And it's more than the wasd, of course. You'd need code from the mud for the client to read objects, yar?

Not necessarily, though without any help from the MUD it would most likely require a LOT of client-side scripting to work correctly. If every container in the game can be referenced as 'bag' or 'chest' then it wouldn't be too hard, but if containers have different, unique identifiers than it would take a lot more work. On Achaea, even without making use of GMCP and such, it's not too difficult. Most containers are 'pack' 'chest' 'pouch' 'bag' or 'hat'. Let's use a tooltip for example; when I mouse over an item, I get a tooltip with various options: if it's in my inventory, that list would be wear/wield/to-pack/drop/give/etc.. if the item matches one of the possible 'bags' then the tooltip would reflect that with: open/close/take-all/etc.

This sort of system works well until you run into a 'safe'. Without the MUD telling us that a safe is a container, there's no way to handle it with the existing system short of adding 'safe' to the list of containers.

Are you much familiar with MXP?
16 Feb, 2011, Ssolvarain wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
I am vaguely familiar with it. I know it's used for compression, and allows protocols of some sort to be used. Mainly just what I gathered from KaVir and Plazmi when they were discussing the Bedlam app.

I'm also aware of the general abilities of most mud clients, I just really enjoy using GMUD over anything else for personal reasons. I found Mushclient's mouse interaction very interesting, but it came across as kind of clunky, I think due to the name limitations you mentioned above, sanko. I also dislike moving from keyboard to mouse, or vice versa. It's stressful to have to do it repeatedly.

Mainly, this was prompted by one of my pipe dreams. It's foolish and naive, but mebbe one day I'll lay it out for you all to snicker at.
16 Feb, 2011, KaVir wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
Ssolvarain said:
I am vaguely familiar with it. I know it's used for compression, and allows protocols of some sort to be used.

You're thinking of MCCP (MUD Client Compression Protocol). MXP (MUD eXtension Protocol) provides a markup language with support for things like clickable links, inline images, 24-bit colour, gauges, windows, fonts, etc.

I believe sankoachaea is referring to the use of clickable links in object names. I do this as well - if you type "look" you can click an object to target it, then again to pick it up, then again to wear it, etc.

Ssolvarain said:
I also dislike moving from keyboard to mouse, or vice versa. It's stressful to have to do it repeatedly.

So did I, in fact I refused to add links for a long time. But…it works. Particularly in combination with my GUI plugin, as you can already navigate by clicking on the map or clicking on avatars, so you've often already got your hand on the mouse. And when you've got an inventory full of objects with similar names, being able to click on one to select it explicitly is actually kind of nice.
16 Feb, 2011, sankoachaea wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
I believe sankoachaea is referring to the use of clickable links in object names. I do this as well - if you type "look" you can click an object to target it, then again to pick it up, then again to wear it, etc.

That's exactly what I was referring to. Depending on the MUD, the client used, and the player's willingness/ability to script, some really nifty things can be done without major changes happening to the MUD. Being able to click objects to do things is nice. Or even being able to hotkey+click objects to perform different actions is nice. (Anyone play a Serpent on Achaea?)
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