17 Feb, 2012, JohnnyStarr wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
donky said:
Nice work, any chance of a youtube vide of an area being created? The screenshots are very interesting, but if a picture shows a thousand words, a movie shows a thousand gazillion.. or something.


That's a good idea. I'll try to get around to it once I have a stable release.
19 Feb, 2012, quixadhal wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
Interesting.

How difficult would it be to change the scripting to allow for different data formats? Most people here would probably like it to handle several Dikurivative formats, which seems fairly straightforward. A few of us would be pretty happy if it could also generate LPC from templates. :)
19 Feb, 2012, Kline wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
Interesting.

How difficult would it be to change the scripting to allow for different data formats? Most people here would probably like it to handle several Dikurivative formats, which seems fairly straightforward. A few of us would be pretty happy if it could also generate LPC from templates. :)


I wrote a program to do such conversions with the ability to be easily extended and the "future plans" of adding many more formats than the two that were important to me at the time I wrote it. It's here in the code repository somewhere, or, just get your fork on.

I think I started adding framework to do ROM2.4b6 or so but then got distracted by something else. So even if he only gets one output from Excel there are still other means to convert it, though I agree it would be nicest to have it done properly at the time you author it :)

The biggest challenge is how to deal with affects / flags / fields / etc that aren't supported in one base vs another. I ended up dropping anything that didn't have a good 1:1 (or very close) conversion and generating warning messages.
19 Feb, 2012, Cratylus wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
JohnnyStarr said:
Well, there you have it. I will upload the finished project once I have worked out all the kinks.


Release early. Release often. Let us at the goods.

Vigud said:
Consider this example:
You're in room #1, and you can go south to room #2 or you can go east to room #3. From room #2 you can go east to room #4 and going south from room #3 will take you to room #5. Rooms #4 and #5 are two distinct rooms.

How are you going to make Excel show that?


I think this sort of building should be discouraged. It makes it difficult to to use cross-room mechanics.

For example, suppose you assign each room x,y,z coordinates so that players can
track each other, or break through walls and wind up somewhere logical, or have a "blink"
spell that teleports them somewhere close, or lets them sense the direction and distance
of an evil creature. Irrational directions as described above interferes with a system that
lets you logically locate game elements.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
19 Feb, 2012, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
For example, suppose you assign each room x,y,z coordinates so that players can track each other

You track marks that was left on the ground, so whatever system used I do not see your problem
Quote
or break through walls

That would only work if you have a pure metric system and not a arbitrary room sized base one, and anyway you can just choose to make some wall unbreakable in those case where it 'could' be a problem.
Quote
or have a "blink" spell that teleports them somewhere close

What is the problem with that ?
Quote
Irrational directions as described above interferes with a system that lets you logically locate game elements.

cause magic is rational…
19 Feb, 2012, Cratylus wrote in the 26th comment:
Votes: 0
Rarva.Riendf said:
Quote
For example, suppose you assign each room x,y,z coordinates so that players can track each other

You track marks that was left on the ground, so whatever system used I do not see your problem


Not that kind of tracking.

Rarva.Riendf said:
Quote
or break through walls

That would only work if you have a pure metric system and not a arbitrary room sized base one, and anyway you can just choose to make some wall unbreakable in those case where it 'could' be a problem.


I don't think you understand. I'm not looking to avoid a problem. I'm trying to enhance functionality. Manually finding each instance of irrational exits is somewhat less convenient than simply encouraging rational ones.


Rarva.Riendf said:
Quote
or have a "blink" spell that teleports them somewhere close

What is the problem with that ?


Well, let's say you're in a cave with only one exit, and that exit is to a room with a dragon. You might want to direct
your blink to some OTHER adjacent room, despite it not having a linked exit. If your rooms are part of a logical
grid, you can have this kind of thing happen.

Rarva.Riendf said:
Quote
Irrational directions as described above interferes with a system that lets you logically locate game elements.

cause magic is rational…


I don't code with magic. Perhaps this response from you explains a lot more about you than you intended.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net



19 Feb, 2012, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 27th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
I don't code with magic. Perhaps this response from you explains a lot more about you than you intended.

indeed.
I have a 'do not use this room for random room spell' flag :)
and the magical maze are flagged 'not mappable' as well
20 Feb, 2012, Ssolvarain wrote in the 28th comment:
Votes: 0
Building irrational exits for no good reason is silly. I can think of a few good reasons to do it, though.
20 Feb, 2012, melopene wrote in the 29th comment:
Votes: 0
This is very cool, and likely super useful for Circle. OP mentioned possible conversion for use with ROM, so I thought I would mention that I do still host copies of Arcanum 2.0 and 2.8, which is a GUI-based area builder for ROM and its derivatives.

It can be found at http://www.nacave.com/anaea/building at the bottom of the page.
20 Feb, 2012, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 30th comment:
Votes: 0
Ssolvarain said:
Building irrational exits for no good reason is silly. I can think of a few good reasons to do it, though.

I am curious of the 'few', the only one I know of are magical mazes as a player, and never seen any other occurences.
20 Feb, 2012, JohnnyStarr wrote in the 31st comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
Interesting.
How difficult would it be to change the scripting to allow for different data formats? Most people here would probably like it to handle several Dikurivative formats, which seems fairly straightforward. A few of us would be pretty happy if it could also generate LPC from templates. :)


From the activity of this thread, I'm starting to realize how useful this project will
be to the community. Because of this, I'm starting to redesign a few components to be
more flexible.

Due to the undertaking this sort of flexibility requires, I may require some help along the way.

I'm going to make an evaluation of my current code to determine what I would like to delegate.

Crat said:
Release early. Release often. Let us at the goods.


I haven't decided what type of licensing / restrictions (if any) to enforce yet. I'm not
overly concerned with credit but I would like some control over how the finished results will
look if I put my name on it.
20 Feb, 2012, JohnnyStarr wrote in the 32nd comment:
Votes: 0
Here's a glimpse at the Mobiles editor.

Keep in mind, this is still very young in development:



Now you can edit just like rooms:



20 Feb, 2012, Ssolvarain wrote in the 33rd comment:
Votes: 0
'Magical' is a strange way to put it.

You can use them as shortcuts. If an exit in the eastern wall shifts immediately and goes north, then you can have an east link to room 2 and a south link back to room 1.

Whether or not you choose to do that is a matter of personal style.

Other examples would be the use of portal exits, wraparound overhead maps, and the effects of too many drugs.
20 Feb, 2012, JohnnyStarr wrote in the 34th comment:
Votes: 0
Excel has a lot of cool shape features. Adding an arrow notation is trivial:



If you wanted to add "short cuts", you would just edit the rooms accordingly and add an arrow
shape to keep track of your changes.

Once again, the purpose of this editor is to cut down time while building, and having a constant
above world view of your area for reference. There might be a way to automate arrows and whatnot. The
few seconds it would take to draw the shape yourself isn't really worth the time it would take to write really
tricky vector code.
20 Feb, 2012, plamzi wrote in the 35th comment:
Votes: 0
Ssolvarain said:
'Magical' is a strange way to put it.

You can use them as shortcuts. If an exit in the eastern wall shifts immediately and goes north, then you can have an east link to room 2 and a south link back to room 1.

Whether or not you choose to do that is a matter of personal style.

Other examples would be the use of portal exits, wraparound overhead maps, and the effects of too many drugs.


On a very broad level, a great reason to use 'illogical' exits is so that you can have a dense/rich world as opposed to a sprawling world full of mostly travel rooms. For instance, the classical room system allows you to have a 100 room house area inside a 50-room city area without worrying about "collision". In 3D games, this important effect is accomplished by turning a door into a "portal" to a new zone. But MUDs get it for free, without having to treat the user to a "loading…" screen.

I have never played a chessboard-style MUD world with no room overlaps. But my guess is it would naturally have to have a lot more filler and travel time. When I hear people advertise their 1M or 2M room worlds, I don't feel excitement pangs.
20 Feb, 2012, Runter wrote in the 36th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
But MUDs get it for free, without having to treat the user to a "loading…" screen.


I think it's not a good analogy since the loading screen is completely client side and has nothing to do with the backend implementation. It's possible a mud client would also hit a loading screen as it has to rebuild some type of graphical representation after a player enters said portal.

Also, I disagree with the notion you can't have a logically linked world and portals in addition to it. So it's a bit of a false dilemma I think.
20 Feb, 2012, plamzi wrote in the 37th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
Quote
But MUDs get it for free, without having to treat the user to a "loading…" screen.


I think it's not a good analogy since the loading screen is completely client side and has nothing to do with the backend implementation. It's possible a mud client would also hit a loading screen as it has to rebuild some type of graphical representation after a player enters said portal.

Also, I disagree with the notion you can't have a logically linked world and portals in addition to it. So it's a bit of a false dilemma I think.


Hmm, first, if you look a bit more carefully at the wording, I was trying to convey that any world checking for "collision" is going to have to create a transition (portal, or another effect, a transition that usually takes some time, even if nothing is actually being loaded) just to signal to the user that they're about to be cheated spatially. Of course you can have a MUD world built just like a modern 3D game, no-one is saying that. What I'm saying is that in a classical MUD world, you don't have to worry about such things, unless you want to. It's up to you how seriously you want to take collision, but the more seriously you take it, the more you go down a certain path, and at the end of that path will be the need to signal to the player whenever you bend the rules of physics that you've decided to stick to. Otherwise, you'll be opening yourself up to questions like "why does this work in this way, and that doesn't".
20 Feb, 2012, Cratylus wrote in the 38th comment:
Votes: 0
I find the apparent allergy to logical exits really odd.

Coupla debunks:

"You need illogical building for a magical maze"

It's one way to do it, sure. It's not necessarily the only way, and it's easy enough to have rooms which magically exit to non-adjacent rooms while still being logically next to other rooms.


"Logical building means sprawl and filler and travel"

I haven't noticed it. Visit Dead Souls Dev and let me know if having logical placement makes areas tiresomely large.


"It would be really a lot of work to change my mud into this and I'd like to seem like keeping my rooms as-is is the correct choice based on something other than my personal preference."

Hey, I hear ya. Besides, if you're already doing it twisty style and it suits you, fine. I think that if yer starting out, though, it's really worth considering going logical in order to "future proof" your mud.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
21 Feb, 2012, plamzi wrote in the 39th comment:
Votes: 0
Cratylus said:
I find the apparent allergy to logical exits really odd.


Actually, my allergy is to using the word "logical" as synonymous with "non-overlapping". What it is is one way to construct a virtual world. Overlapping rooms can be just as "logical" if you accept that rooms are "locations" and not "co-ordinates", and that the "real" distance between two rooms can vary. A substantive zone can have a lot more locations than a travel zone, thus condensing content naturally without having to resort to the "portal" gimmick. I don't advocate either way. Personally, I think both approaches have their up and downsides.

Cratylus said:
"Logical building means sprawl and filler and travel"

I haven't noticed it. Visit Dead Souls Dev and let me know if having logical placement makes areas tiresomely large.


Are you enforcing non-collision across zones or only within zones? If only within zones, and if you make good use of the Z-axis, I suppose it's possible to limit bloat. It's possible for a fat person to be more agile than a slim one. It's just not the norm.
21 Feb, 2012, Cratylus wrote in the 40th comment:
Votes: 0
plamzi said:
I don't advocate either way. Personally, I think both approaches have their up and downsides.


Ok then.

plamzi said:
Are you enforcing non-collision across zones or only within zones? If only within zones, and if you make good use of the Z-axis,


I don't really know what this means. On the same contiguous planet you'd expect rational coordinates, so if you're talking about avoiding conflicts only within small parts of it, I'm not sure I get the point.

plamzi said:
I suppose it's possible to limit bloat.


I think you have an exaggerated sense of the "bloat" involved. In practice what logical building does is cut in half the number of rooms available to you in an intersection. That's pretty much it. Instead of the shop AND the bank occupying the same northwest corner of a town intersection, you walk an extra street room to get to one of them. It's not exactly an endless series of travel commands in the blistering desert sun.



plamzi said:
It's possible for a fat person to be more agile than a slim one. It's just not the norm.


I suppose it's debatable whether FUD is advocacy or something else.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
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