10 Dec, 2009, shasarak wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
This sounds like an idea I've been kicking around for many years whereby the commands n, s, e and w are almost completely abolished in favour of navigation by landmarks. This would be tied to a MUD that doesn't use rooms but instead places objects in (potentially 3D) space. If you type "look" then rather than giving you a description of the current "room" the MUD does a dynamic line-of-sight calculation and gives you a description of any objects that are close enough to be visible. Objects, here, include not just movable items and mobs but items of scenery as well. For practical purposes you need to take account not just of how far away an object is and whether there is anything between you and it, but also how visible it is; so large objects cross the "noticeability" threshold at a greater distance than small ones, while something like a fire on the top of a hill would be visible from a very long way away at night. You also have to worry about sound and scent propagation; so you might hear a waterfall in the distance a long time before you see it.

You then navigate mostly by moving between designated objects. So "go to hill", or "go to house", "go to blasted oak" or "enter green door". The MUD would track movement to quite a fine degree, so if you pick up an object it would model you walking towards it first, and track what position you were in and which direction you were facing as a consequence.

"Resume" would allow you to continue heading in the direction you were previously going.

In appropriate areas you could also opt to "follow road" or "follow corridor" or "follow river" , and you would then set off along the road and continue moving until either you manually stop or you reach a junction, at which point you would then choose which way to proceed. (There needs to be some sort of option as to whether you stop at every junction or keep going until you explicitly stop).

Directions would be normally be relative rather than absolute. So instead of being told "there is a river to the north" you would be told "there is a river ahead and to your left", with the direction changing if you face a different way. Commands would work the same way (so "turn right", "take left fork", "follow road left", "follow river downstream" rather than "go north").

While moving you would be informed about the more noticeable landmarks as you went along ("ahead and to the right you see a ruined cottage…" "you are now passing the ruined cottage on your right…" "in the distance to your left you see a horse and his rider galloping along the skyline…" etc.) You might then decide to stop and examine the cottage up close, or enter it.

You'd have different rates of movement, depending on encumbrance, whether or not you are mounted, etc. so that there could be meaningful chases, and tactical decisions about how much gear to carry, etc. ("You are riding at a gallop. About 50 years behind you, Shasarak is galloping after you. He is gaining slowly.")

If in the middle of open country with no obvious landmarks you would have the option to set off in a specific compass direction ("go north") but "north" in that context would be merely a guess rather than an absolute direction; so a ranger might actually be heading within a couple of degrees of north, while a "townie" might well actually be heading east but think he's heading north (unless he has a compass and a map).

I'd also add in the ability to follow directions on a map, and for players to learn the route between places ("follow map to Oasis of Bright Water") with the degree of familiarity and travelling conditions affecting the chance of getting lost en route - you're more likely to get lost in the dark or in a snowstorm, less likely in daylight or if you know the route well.

The advantage of this system is that I think it actually imitates the way people really do move around. You don't say to someone "head along there, then turn north", you say "head along there then turn left at the church".

The disadvantage is that anyone other than a total newbie would probably log off in disgust the second that they realised they couldn't use the commands "n", "s", etc. to move around.
:sad:
10 Dec, 2009, donky wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
shasarak said:
This sounds like an idea I've been kicking around for many years whereby the commands n, s, e and w are almost completely abolished in favour of navigation by landmarks. This would be tied to a MUD that doesn't use rooms but instead places objects in (potentially 3D) space. If you type "look" then rather than giving you a description of the current "room" the MUD does a dynamic line-of-sight calculation and gives you a description of any objects that are close enough to be visible. Objects, here, include not just movable items and mobs but items of scenery as well. For practical purposes you need to take account not just of how far away an object is and whether there is anything between you and it, but also how visible it is; so large objects cross the "noticeability" threshold at a greater distance than small ones, while something like a fire on the top of a hill would be visible from a very long way away at night. You also have to worry about sound and scent propagation; so you might hear a waterfall in the distance a long time before you see it.


I imagine that like many other ideas, this is one that many have had. We also had it in my MUD back around 2000 before it died.

We got so far as to have the world working, 3D terrain with basic physics (gravity, unclimbable slopes), water levels, drowning and more. There was even an embedded VRML client that allowed visualisation of the world through our web server. We never actually got around to the populating of the world and doing the landmark-based travel system.
10 Dec, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
Sounds like an unfortunate but common case of designing a fancy system without an actual game to populate it. It's kind of too bad but happens often when you enjoy building the system more than the world. I wonder how many other very neat ideas were eventually abandoned for reasons like this. :thinking:
10 Dec, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
It would be interesting to see a MUD which used a wholly landmark based movement system, although personally I think I'd find it disengaging to the point where I couldn't play. While I have no doubt it's a great game, this is the one thing that's prevented me from ever playing GW2 for more than a few minutes. The thing I find most disconcerting I think is starting movement in a direction or to a point and then the movement continuing without any further input. I just don't feel that I'm in control of my character and that completely breaks the immersion for me. It may just be what I'm used to of course, but I do wonder if there is something more immediate about navigation using compass directions in a room based system that is missing from a more complex navigation based system.

I think this is similar to a graphical game with a point and click movement interface, as opposed to WASD style movement. Given that most graphical MMORPGs have moved away from point and click movement in favour of WASD, would this supposedly more realistic navigational movement be a backwards step for MUDs?
10 Dec, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
I haven't played the newest wave of graphical MMORPGs, but if I remember correctly Dark Age of Camelot let you double-click on a target and start walking toward it, which isn't so different from landmark navigation, but you could also move around using WASD.

I wouldn't be opposed to a game that let you do both, and see little reason why you couldn't. I suspect that many people would eventually transition to pure landmark navigation anyhow as it is far, far easier when you don't have a full, immediate, constantly-updating graphical view of your surroundings. But, this would allow you to appease people who (by habit or preference) like the "immediate" movement mode.
10 Dec, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 26th comment:
Votes: 0
Orrin said:
It would be interesting to see a MUD which used a wholly landmark based movement system, although personally I think I'd find it disengaging to the point where I couldn't play. While I have no doubt it's a great game, this is the one thing that's prevented me from ever playing GW2 for more than a few minutes. The thing I find most disconcerting I think is starting movement in a direction or to a point and then the movement continuing without any further input.

GW2 doesn't use a wholly landmark-based movement system - you can use cardinal directions as well. Type 'north' and you'll start moving north, a short time later you'll stop as you reach the next plot. That's actually no different to the delayed movement you use on your own mud, except that the delay depends on terrain and you can stack multiple movement commands.

Orrin said:
I think this is similar to a graphical game with a point and click movement interface, as opposed to WASD style movement. Given that most graphical MMORPGs have moved away from point and click movement in favour of WASD, would this supposedly more realistic navigational movement be a backwards step for MUDs?

No, I think it's still a step forward. The movement system used by most muds is more comparable with the approach used by the really early graphical games like Dungeon Master and Bloodwych.
10 Dec, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 27th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
I suspect that many people would eventually transition to pure landmark navigation anyhow as it is far, far easier when you don't have a full, immediate, constantly-updating graphical view of your surroundings. But, this would allow you to appease people who (by habit or preference) like the "immediate" movement mode.

I tend to think the opposite is true; that a landmark system works best when you do have a full immediate updating view of your surroundings, simply because you can see clearly where you're going. I expect a large part of it is personal preference and habit of course.

KaVir said:
GW2 doesn't use a wholly landmark-based movement system - you can use cardinal directions as well. Type 'north' and you'll start moving north, a short time later you'll stop as you reach the next plot. That's actually no different to the delayed movement you use on your own mud, except that the delay depends on terrain and you can stack multiple movement commands.

Maybe I'll investigate it again then. The last time I tried to play I am sure I remember being directed to target a landmark and move towards it using a command to begin walking. Also, whether it's the same or not isn't really the point, what matters is that it can feel very different to the player. I'm actually not a huge fan of delayed movement anyway, it's only in our MUD because my partner is an RPI guy and they love that stuff apparently.
10 Dec, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 28th comment:
Votes: 0
Orrin said:
The last time I tried to play I am sure I remember being directed to target a landmark and move towards it using a command to begin walking.

Yes, the hints will suggest you type "goto dojo" (for example) rather than "south", "south", "south", "east", "east". But both work, so if you really prefer the latter you can use that instead.

Orrin said:
Also, whether it's the same or not isn't really the point, what matters is that it can feel very different to the player. I'm actually not a huge fan of delayed movement anyway, it's only in our MUD because my partner is an RPI guy and they love that stuff apparently.

Well it's that way in GW2 because you are literally moving across the landscape at the specified speed. Those used to the near-instant room-jumping offered by most muds seem to find it quite strange, but I'm surprised you'd find it disconcerting as the end result shouldn't feel much different to your RPI-style delayed movement.
10 Dec, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 29th comment:
Votes: 0
Orrin said:
I tend to think the opposite is true; that a landmark system works best when you do have a full immediate updating view of your surroundings, simply because you can see clearly where you're going. I expect a large part of it is personal preference and habit of course.

But if you don't have an updated view of your surroundings, how are you supposed to know which directions to go?

Not trying to argue with you, actually: I think that these complexities are one of the major obstacles in creating games with detailed spatial positioning, where relative position really matters for, e.g., combat tactics.
10 Dec, 2009, donky wrote in the 30th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
Sounds like an unfortunate but common case of designing a fancy system without an actual game to populate it. It's kind of too bad but happens often when you enjoy building the system more than the world. I wonder how many other very neat ideas were eventually abandoned for reasons like this. :thinking:


Our project was an experiment. We brainstormed, discussed, argued and implemented. Sometimes, what was prototyped was purely in the interest of the programmer. Other times, it was the result of discussion. If it worked, we incorporated it into the game engine. Eventually this resulted in the aforementioned 3D world that someone could telnet into and walk around, experiencing the physical constraints that we had modelled. We had the web-based ability to visualise the world, which we were prototyping as a world editor. But the best part of it was that we knew we could brainstorm a whole raft of interesting ideas and that we saw a lot of them come to fruition. The project ended when everyone finished university and moved onto working for a living. I would call the experiment a success.

Interesting ideas are all very well, but it is one thing to have them, and another altogether to have them implemented.
10 Dec, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 31st comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
I think that these complexities are one of the major obstacles in creating games with detailed spatial positioning, where relative position really matters for, e.g., combat tactics.

I think a graphical mini map would be really useful in that situation, and presumably wouldn't be too difficult to implement in a coordinate based system.
10 Dec, 2009, donky wrote in the 32nd comment:
Votes: 0
Orrin said:
It would be interesting to see a MUD which used a wholly landmark based movement system, although personally I think I'd find it disengaging to the point where I couldn't play. While I have no doubt it's a great game, this is the one thing that's prevented me from ever playing GW2 for more than a few minutes. The thing I find most disconcerting I think is starting movement in a direction or to a point and then the movement continuing without any further input. I just don't feel that I'm in control of my character and that completely breaks the immersion for me. It may just be what I'm used to of course, but I do wonder if there is something more immediate about navigation using compass directions in a room based system that is missing from a more complex navigation based system.


In our case, we were intending to have a realistically sized world. The landmark-based system would have been an alternative to the underlying standard movement commands, in order to make it playable. We also wanted to experiment with characters continuing actions while the player was offline, so the best example of a use case would have been starting one of your characters off on a journey to another city, while you were at a lecture or spending the weekend with friends and family.

A MUD solely comprised of interesting locations, and having only a landmark based movement system, would provide a completely different experience. Not one of interest to me.
10 Dec, 2009, donky wrote in the 33rd comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
I haven't played the newest wave of graphical MMORPGs, but if I remember correctly Dark Age of Camelot let you double-click on a target and start walking toward it, which isn't so different from landmark navigation, but you could also move around using WASD.


And similarly EVE Online, you can click in any direction in space and your ship travels forward in that direction. But the primary method people actually move is abstract. At the lowest level of in-solar system movement, you might approach or orbit an object, whether that object is scenery or a living object. At the higher level, you can set a destination solar system and the auto pilot will take you there (your ship still has to travel while you are logged in and watch) automatically jumping through star gates and perhaps even docking at a destination space station.

In fact, I would call the autopilot level a true landmark based movement system. And to some extent, also the in-solar system level, for instance where you click on the icon of a remote space station you are not close enough to see, and you are automatically warped and docked there (again while you sit watching your ship travel).

David Haley said:
I wouldn't be opposed to a game that let you do both, and see little reason why you couldn't. I suspect that many people would eventually transition to pure landmark navigation anyhow as it is far, far easier when you don't have a full, immediate, constantly-updating graphical view of your surroundings. But, this would allow you to appease people who (by habit or preference) like the "immediate" movement mode.


Based on how it works in EVE Online and also how we planned to utilise it in our project, I would be inclined to believe that in a game where a landmark based movement system comes into its own, the "immediate" mode becomes almost pointless. The only reason to use it extensively would be out of obstinance, at a cost of being unable to really play the game. The only real practical use left would be movement around the proximity of the character, in much the same way that in EVE you can double click in the direction of something to get nearer to it (if for some reason you wouldn't right click on the icon and approach it).
10 Dec, 2009, Runter wrote in the 34th comment:
Votes: 0
Currently in my project I have it so you can path to things you can see. Although, I'm interested in designing the movement system in a way that lets people path to certain landmarks they can't see. I'm just not sure under what circumstances I should allow that pathfinding. Perhaps once uncovered/explored. Perhaps when the option hasn't been toggled off or on.

The problem is it doesn't really solve the underlying problem—Even if it alleviates it a bit. There needs to be a more intuitive way to move around complex dungeons without confusing or annoying spacial-based movement. An idea that I've been tossing around is making the player automatically path down a winding trail until it comes to a cross road, or they stop. Logically this would separate the two ways of moving on my game: moving towards things and taking forks in the road.

Also, I've tossed around the idea of players in the same party being able to path to each other even when not in line of sight. Perhaps they would need to create a temporary landmark of some kind? A flare? A magical beacon?

I dunno at this point for sure, but currently this is my number one priority. I'd be glad to hear other suggestions or comments.
11 Dec, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 35th comment:
Votes: 0
donky said:
Based on how it works in EVE Online and also how we planned to utilise it in our project, I would be inclined to believe that in a game where a landmark based movement system comes into its own, the "immediate" mode becomes almost pointless. The only reason to use it extensively would be out of obstinance, at a cost of being unable to really play the game. The only real practical use left would be movement around the proximity of the character, in much the same way that in EVE you can double click in the direction of something to get nearer to it (if for some reason you wouldn't right click on the icon and approach it).

I don't view it as quite so useless, but yes it would only be for local movement (you wouldn't journey across the continent/space system/other sufficiently large area by hitting "north" repeatedly). There are many reasons why one might do this, not the least of which is for combat tactics.

That said, since it's very hard to have a real-time mini-map in a text-based game, it's also very hard to get a good up-to-date picture of where everybody is. For this reason, I would suggest that even local movement, such as "circle around Bob" be implemented as statements of intention, not as literal movement commands. For example, you'd type "circle Bob", not "step west, step north, step east, turn around".

Runter said:
Currently in my project I have it so you can path to things you can see. Although, I'm interested in designing the movement system in a way that lets people path to certain landmarks they can't see. I'm just not sure under what circumstances I should allow that pathfinding. Perhaps once uncovered/explored. Perhaps when the option hasn't been toggled off or on.

I think that this would be a great application for a 'map' object that one could carry around; if (perhaps paired with a compass?) you had a map that showed (a) where you are, (b) where you want to go and © any path in between, you could path along any path visible on the map. As you explored, your map would be filled out automatically.

Runter said:
An idea that I've been tossing around is making the player automatically path down a winding trail until it comes to a cross road, or they stop.

What point is there in having winding trails if for all intents and purposes they are straight lines?
11 Dec, 2009, Runter wrote in the 36th comment:
Votes: 0
DH said:
What point is there in having winding trails if for all intents and purposes they are straight lines?


In my case, line of sight. Quite a difference in gameplay if along this winding trail you have vicious kobolds.
11 Dec, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 37th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
In my case, line of sight. Quite a difference in gameplay if along this winding trail you have vicious kobolds.

Oh, right. That makes sense then. I forgot about line of sight, which does make a big difference here.
11 Dec, 2009, Idealiad wrote in the 38th comment:
Votes: 0
Orrin said:
It would be interesting to see a MUD which used a wholly landmark based movement system, although personally I think I'd find it disengaging to the point where I couldn't play. While I have no doubt it's a great game, this is the one thing that's prevented me from ever playing GW2 for more than a few minutes. The thing I find most disconcerting I think is starting movement in a direction or to a point and then the movement continuing without any further input.


This is one of my favorite parts of GW2, because it gives me the feeling that I'm moving through space. I can't say the same of any room-based mud, where the rooms usually feel disjointed; I think room-based does well on spatial immersiveness when you're discovering secrets (finding the hidden door and so on) but not so well anywhere else.

With targeted movement, you can be engaged with an enemy while circling around or retreating. It feels much more natural to me.
11 Dec, 2009, Scandum wrote in the 39th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
That said, since it's very hard to have a real-time mini-map in a text-based game, it's also very hard to get a good up-to-date picture of where everybody is.

It's in fact incredibly easy. All you do is the following:

printf("\e
printf("\e[10;24r"); // set the scrolling region from row 10 to 24, assuming a 24 row screen, which leaves a 9 row static area.
// This only needs to be done once. Disable with "\e[r"
printf("\e7"); // save the current cursor position.
printf("\e[1;1H"); // move cursor to row 1; column 1 in the top left corner of the screen.
printf(map); // print your map now as you'd normally print it, which should be fairly inexpensive if you have MCCP.
// It's possible to only update text that changed with some smart coding.
printf("\e8"); // restore the cursor position.
[/code]

Simple as that, and all that's needed is a VT100 client like tintin++, zmud, and most telnet clients.
11 Dec, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 40th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
Simple as that, and all that's needed is a VT100 client like tintin++, zmud, and most telnet clients.

And it leaves in the dust people with clients that don't handle cursor control. I'm certainly not going to tell people to use tintin++ or another command-line client just to play a game, because that will turn off a lot of players right off the bat. It would be preferable to tell them to use a GUI-based client onto which you could tack a (pseudo-)graphical minimap display.

Second, I think that you spoke too soon when you described just how easy it was. You've now succeeded in putting a bunch of ASCII dots on the client's screen, but have you succeeded in conveying meaningful information regarding the tactical situation?
20.0/110