16 Feb, 2011, Runter wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
For one, the experience of making the current Faceboook app taught me that layering in a cross-browser compatible way (i. e. pleasing IE) can be very labor-intensive. I really don't want to do the whole UI in Flash just to have cross-browser compatibility…


The culprit always does seem to boil down to being IE 6. :p
16 Feb, 2011, Dean wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
Quote
For one, the experience of making the current Faceboook app taught me that layering in a cross-browser compatible way (i. e. pleasing IE) can be very labor-intensive. I really don't want to do the whole UI in Flash just to have cross-browser compatibility…


The culprit always does seem to boil down to being IE 6. :p


Is it bad that I no longer care about IE 6 users?
16 Feb, 2011, plamzi wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
Dean said:
Runter said:
Quote
For one, the experience of making the current Faceboook app taught me that layering in a cross-browser compatible way (i. e. pleasing IE) can be very labor-intensive. I really don't want to do the whole UI in Flash just to have cross-browser compatibility…


The culprit always does seem to boil down to being IE 6. :p


Is it bad that I no longer care about IE 6 users?


For the record, I'm having problems not with just 6 but also 7 and 8. I think it has to do with the way z-index is being inherited. Since all non-IE browsers render the layers consistently well, I blame the IE team. The only thing they've done consistently is take a creative license with web standards. Don't get me started…

You know what they say: "Internet Explorer is the best browser for downloading other browsers."
16 Feb, 2011, Runter wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
I think pretty much everyone I know in web dev thinks the world would be better without IE. (Assuming those users had access to another browser instead)
07 Jun, 2011, Nathan wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
As a partial aside, I've always though it would be cool if you could somehow generate an image or 3d representation of what the text says. Of course, this has the inherent problem of requiring some kind engine that has some "ai" to make decisions about what is meant OR alternatively limiting yourself to keywords and aliases of them.

If something halfway between easy and ideal could be accomplished in that respect and you didn't mind alotting the room image/text more space it could prove interesting; especially if the image could provide visual equivalent of any text hints somehow (like possible door locations, etc). Naturally they should be as subtle as possible and not obvious like DDO/WoW. Of course, this is tilting toward graphical mud/mmo-esque, but that seems to be what is had in mind in this case.
07 Jun, 2011, Runter wrote in the 26th comment:
Votes: 0
Nathan said:
As a partial aside, I've always though it would be cool if you could somehow generate an image or 3d representation of what the text says. […]


Human brain? :p
07 Jun, 2011, Scandum wrote in the 27th comment:
Votes: 0
It'd be easier to generate a description of a 3d representation. One interesting project would be to take a 3d physics engine and create a dynamic description engine as an alternative front end to the graphical one.
07 Jun, 2011, Nathan wrote in the 28th comment:
Votes: 0
Okay, I should have seen that coming. Really though, the idea of being able to turn good skills at describing something into a decent visualization is what I'm suggesting. Just because I could use my brain doesn't mean graphics are entirely undesirable.

Runter said:
Nathan said:
As a partial aside, I've always though it would be cool if you could somehow generate an image or 3d representation of what the text says. […]


Human brain? :p
07 Jun, 2011, Nathan wrote in the 29th comment:
Votes: 0
Any ideas on how that would work? I assume all those objects would need base descriptions and the description would have to intelligently combine them.

Scandum said:
It'd be easier to generate a description of a 3d representation. One interesting project would be to take a 3d physics engine and create a dynamic description engine as an alternative front end to the graphical one.
07 Jun, 2011, duwnel wrote in the 30th comment:
Votes: 0
Ooo… Got me thinking…

It's fairly easy to generate a 3d representation (a picture, so it's said, being worth a thousand words), and this usually relies purely on mathematics, and some enumerated representation of the image to display (that is, a reference to some image). Since there are discrete numbers representing the options of images to represent the area, a similar number of discrete textual representations could be used. I'd dare say something akin to KaVir's coordinate based map (on GWII) could relatively easily be adapted to show an appropriate image for a place.

My thought:
Three coordinates, X, Y, and Z, representing latitude, longitude, and altitude. Some value is used to represent the rough area, which can dictate what XYZ represent (much like the climate of a real map is dictated by the region). Depending on how far you want to take it, you could end up with a dynamic weather changing the scene. When you enter a new coordinate area, you'd get the current description, while the weather and such change and give updates during the pulse.

You could even pull this all together to some success with a flash/flex client using vector/SVG graphics too… Just some random thoughts. I'd love to explore it more, but back to my honeymoon :)
07 Jun, 2011, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 31st comment:
Votes: 0
duwnel said:
Ooo… Got me thinking…

It's fairly easy to generate a 3d representation (a picture, so it's said, being worth a thousand words), and this usually relies purely on mathematics, and some enumerated representation of the image to display (that is, a reference to some image). Since there are discrete numbers representing the options of images to represent the area, a similar number of discrete textual representations could be used. I'd dare say something akin to KaVir's coordinate based map (on GWII) could relatively easily be adapted to show an appropriate image for a place.

My thought:
Three coordinates, X, Y, and Z, representing latitude, longitude, and altitude. Some value is used to represent the rough area, which can dictate what XYZ represent (much like the climate of a real map is dictated by the region). Depending on how far you want to take it, you could end up with a dynamic weather changing the scene. When you enter a new coordinate area, you'd get the current description, while the weather and such change and give updates during the pulse.

You could even pull this all together to some success with a flash/flex client using vector/SVG graphics too… Just some random thoughts. I'd love to explore it more, but back to my honeymoon :)



Once you do that, put in it it the whole earth from google earth, then we can have muds with the whole world described :)
Would be fun indeed. Dunno if too big a world is actually wanted though, as it would be mostly empty.
And the reason a hero is known is because people have seen what he did.
08 Jun, 2011, duwnel wrote in the 32nd comment:
Votes: 0
Rarva.Riendf said:
Once you do that, put in it it the whole earth from google earth, then we can have muds with the whole world described :)
Would be fun indeed. Dunno if too big a world is actually wanted though, as it would be mostly empty.
And the reason a hero is known is because people have seen what he did.


Nothing says it has to be that excessive. Massive worlds are massive because of the appearance of a free-roaming experience, but every world has boundaries how you define those boundaries is up to you. Is a coordinate 1-inch or 3-feet (roughly one human step). Or is it simply a relative distance between two objects ("an arm's length away")?

How you approach it is up to you. But you raise an interesting point: why the hero is known. Or rather, what makes a hero. For that, I suggest this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
08 Jun, 2011, Scandum wrote in the 33rd comment:
Votes: 0
Nathan said:
Scandum said:
It'd be easier to generate a description of a 3d representation. One interesting project would be to take a 3d physics engine and create a dynamic description engine as an alternative front end to the graphical one.

Any ideas on how that would work? I assume all those objects would need base descriptions and the description would have to intelligently combine them.

That about sums it up. Figuring out the difference between a wand, spear, staff, bat, staff, or stick is gonna be tricky, unless there are only generic objects. The biggest downside would probably be that the graphical interface would have a disproportional number of users, meaning that any successful hybrid would sooner rather than later neglect the text interface, and probably drop it if it ends up being mainly used for botting.
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