08 Jan, 2009, Hades_Kane wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
So as I strive to continue to improve my game which started out as ROM 2.4 beta, one of the things I've taken to trying to do is either remove the stuff from the codebase I see no use for, or take those things and actually make them do something.

As an example, I've removed material from mobs, while taking the material value in objects and converted them to a list of flags, each of which has different properties when taken into consideration weight, some of the dice values, cost, etc. I believe the weight of an object is what determined whether it was "metal" in a spell like heat metal, but I've changed it to read off of the material value, we have a 'magnetic field' which affects fighting with metal weapons, Lycanthropes can't wear silver and are harmed more by silver weapons, etc. I actually went in and made the remainder of the 'parts' that was never made in the codebase so that way you'll actually see tails, and tongues, or eye stalks, etc. I'm still trying to figure out some use for the 'vorpal' flag that isn't just a clone of what sharp does. Those are just a few examples off of the top of my head, there's plenty more.

There is a ton of bloat in the codebase, particularly with numerous aspects of OLC. Now, I don't know if a lot of this stuff was intended to eventually serve some purpose, or if it was just added in as an aesthetic, but it is my goal, eventually, to have a completely comprehensive OLC/Building guide for my MUD that explains exactly what every bit of what you encounter in the OLC editors actually do. I, in fact, still run across things that I'm not sure what they do, if anything, and upon taking some time I come to realize, they don't actually do anything. I want to have a guide that can point to everything in OLC, and I want every bit of it to have some use. If I wrote a comprehensive OLC guide for stock ROM, it's absurd how many things could simply be labeled as "this has no affect on the game, what so ever."

That brings me to the 'form' flags. I went in and made the instant_decay flag actually do what you might think it should… upon dying, a mob's corpse instantly decays. Today, I went further investigating form flags, and came to realize that it seems that only edible and poison actually do anything, and the rest of it appears to be useless bloat.

I'm considering just having a different way to handle edible, poison, and instant decay, and just removing the form values altogether. The other thing I'm considering is finding ways to actually make those do something.

I guess the point of this post, aside from ranting about all of the bloat in ROM, is to ask, has anyone actually modified their codebase to make the form flags do anything? Before I remove them, I thought it might be fun to see if anyone else has made any use, and what kind. Maybe something someone posts will give me some inspiration on what to do with them as opposed to just getting rid of it altogether.
08 Jan, 2009, BleaS wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
While I cant answer your intended question, I can suggest possibly taking a serious look at what they're doing for RaM and offering what coding experience you have for that to ensure that the outcome creates the intended result. You could then, in theory, depending on how custom your code base is already, modify RaM to a release you want and devise a system for transferring the data from your old MUD to your new one and work from there. It could be bulky and a lot of work, but if you're in it for the long haul, it's a possible option that maybe you haven't considered? I don't know, trying to help, you likely know more about the coding than I do and you're not a newbie poster but it seemed pertinent to point out if you're frustrated with the "bloat" of ROM.
08 Jan, 2009, Skol wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
Hades, I did quite a bit with it, one was instant_decay (same as you, make it vape on death, poof). Another was Sentient, since I actually have intelligence etc matter, if they aren't sentient they come out with 6 or 3 (or less) int depending on race. 1-3 is considered like barely animate (skeletons etc), 3-6 is like animals generally. Anything under 7 can't talk, just grunts, under 4 and it just looks around funny. FORM_UNDEAD also makes them idiots (unless you alter perm stats, I make it so it rolls stats when it does create_mobile, also you can set perm stats on any given instance of a mob, so you can override racial stats for unique ones).

Then I have 'can_see' for dark rooms/infravision check for FORM_MAMMAL and a few others, otherwise it assumes 'cold' and you don't see them with infravision.

That's about it so far, but thanks for giving me more on my TODO list hehe.
08 Jan, 2009, Hades_Kane wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
BleaS said:
While I cant answer your intended question, I can suggest possibly taking a serious look at what they're doing for RaM and offering what coding experience you have for that to ensure that the outcome creates the intended result. You could then, in theory, depending on how custom your code base is already, modify RaM to a release you want and devise a system for transferring the data from your old MUD to your new one and work from there. It could be bulky and a lot of work, but if you're in it for the long haul, it's a possible option that maybe you haven't considered? I don't know, trying to help, you likely know more about the coding than I do and you're not a newbie poster but it seemed pertinent to point out if you're frustrated with the "bloat" of ROM.


I appreciate the suggestion, but we've been at modifying this code base for several years now, and for the most part have the base customized to anything we would want. It could probably be released as its own derivative at this point. There is certainly a lot of bloat to be frustrated with, but I'm hoping this is the last issue to address.


Skol said:
Hades, I did quite a bit with it, one was instant_decay (same as you, make it vape on death, poof). Another was Sentient, since I actually have intelligence etc matter, if they aren't sentient they come out with 6 or 3 (or less) int depending on race. 1-3 is considered like barely animate (skeletons etc), 3-6 is like animals generally. Anything under 7 can't talk, just grunts, under 4 and it just looks around funny. FORM_UNDEAD also makes them idiots (unless you alter perm stats, I make it so it rolls stats when it does create_mobile, also you can set perm stats on any given instance of a mob, so you can override racial stats for unique ones).

Then I have 'can_see' for dark rooms/infravision check for FORM_MAMMAL and a few others, otherwise it assumes 'cold' and you don't see them with infravision.

That's about it so far, but thanks for giving me more on my TODO list hehe.


Those are some interesting applications. And no problem about giving you more to do, I'm constantly adding stuff to my 'todo' almost everyday it seems, so I'm more than happy to inflict that on someone else :p

Anyone else do anything with their's?
09 Jan, 2009, Hades_Kane wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, I'm certainly leaning toward deletion at this point.

Anything we've come up with on my game that I think would be useful could probably be done in another way, either by basing on race or an act flag or two :p

I would still be interested to see if anyone else has done anything with it or not. Also might not be a bad thing to stir some ideas up for the RaM project.
09 Jan, 2009, Igabod wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
I was under the impression that setting form_reptilian is one way to auto-set which parts the mob has. Like for form_reptilian it would set eyes brains guts tail claws scales etc. and for form_avian it sets the feathers wings legs eyes beak and all that good stuff. I realize I listed some parts that don't actually exist but they should. Anyway, if I'm mistaken about it already doing this, you could set it up to do that with little effort. I've actually considered expanding on the current forms in the past but never actually got around to it.
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