I was actually thinking of commands for looking or shooting through exits, but I guess you could do the same with portals, as they're conceptually much the same thing.

I think Scandum's points have been missed and misunderstood so far, largely because people are using the same term ("roomless") but mean different things. He's not saying that Diku rooms are great, or that you can't escape from them. He's just looking at the challenge of creating solid, and practical, spacial game mechanics from a "room-centric" perspective.

From a "room-centric" viewpoint, you can take any RPG world ever created and point out how it actually implements "spacial nodes" that you can then loosely call "rooms" in the same way that Diku rooms can be called "abstract spacial nodes of varying size" (I just call them "places").

In a so-called "open-ended" world, the reduction to nodes could take the obvious shape of artificial obstacles blocking all paths except the right one (as in most Diablo maps) or the less obvious shape of Oblivion's wilderness vs. dungeon hybrid approach, where even the wilderness is bound by mountains and chasms, and "cheats" via portals.

"Spacial nodes" need to exist in every world because we can't, and we shouldn't even try, to mimic the endless divisiveness (and endless dullness) of movement in real-world space. Because of that, we can say that there is no such thing as a "roomless" world, and we'll be completely correct, from a "room-centric" perspective.

Now, if by "roomless" you mean "different from the traditional MUD room implementation", then the term can obviously apply to a huge chunk of games out there. You're welcome to use it, all the while keeping in mind that you really mean "5-out-of-infinity shades more spacially realistic than Diku".

If you feel that the "room-centric" perspective doesn't do justice to the complexities of a "roomless" game you know of or maybe have created, think of that game's world in terms of the reductionist spacial units/entities/rules it has had to define, and you will quickly see that, in a very real way, you have merely traded one set of restrictions for another. For example, in your roomless world, someone can fire a straight arrow shot 50 feet to their victim, but then they have to walk 50 boring feet to get to its corpse. In a traditional Diku world, the shot takes place in an imaginary, unregulated, abstract room/space, but then so does the walking, which can be great for casual gameplay.

So, in summary, I would have to disagree with any viewpoint that going "roomless" automatically means more freedom. Unless by freedom you mean the freedom to choose what kind of challenges your spacial rules will present to your game design. "Roomless" worlds are not automatically more free anymore than they are automatically more fun.

The only thing I can think of that you get "for free" is more math :)

I don't know who has said that roomless muds (by which I mean a mud like God Wars 2, or I guess WoW, Diablo, etcetera) automatically means more freedom, but I do know that this type of mud is much better at gameplay that involves distance, range, freedom of movement, etcetera. Obviously this is just my opinion but it's a reasoned one based on playing muds for a long time, so whatever that's worth. I don't dispute that rooms have other advantages.

A freedom you cannot use because of complexity or openess is only frustration. If you cannot play without a graphical map, I think you already left the world of text game.

The term "room-based" is pretty well established, and has been in (relatively) common use among mud developers for at least 15 years. While there is some variation in the specifics of room-based implementations (for example TinyMUDs usually let you name your own exits), they all follow the same concept of abstract encapsulated nodes representing parts of the world, with movement consisting of jumping from one node to another.

If you've read Raph Koster's article "Are MUDs and MMORPGs the same thing?":


The first three are room-based, while the last is roomless (or coordinate-based).


I'm not sure if you're deliberately trying to take my comment out of context, or just misread what I said, but I will assume the latter. When I said "you get behaviour like the above for free" I was specifically referring to the features I quoted directly before that statement, both of which (in a room-based model) require you to add additional code for passing different types of data between the nodes. If your world isn't split into nodes, you don't have to write extra code to pass data between them.



I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but if you're suggesting that roomless muds require graphical maps then that's simply not true. In fact a sizeable percentage of my players are blind, and can't use maps. Several of them have said they find my mud easier to navigate than a room-based mud, because they don't need to memorise complex routes and they don't get spammed with text when moving around

We had similar experiences with visually impaired players. They were able to get a good feel for where they were by hearing one line of text.

This is an interesting point. What I found playing ranged combat in God Wars 2 for example (without a map of any kind) is that you internalize the relationshipsbetween you and your target(s). As anyone with much experience in mud combat knows no one stops to read every single word of text. Much of it is pattern recognition and keyword selection (assuming you're not just running triggers of course). The same kind of thing works for rather complex spatial relationships between actors in a roomless mud.

Of course a graphical map is a handy aid, just like it is in a room-based mud.

One stupidly simple way to give the same "feeling" as rooms to a purely coordinate based game (in text), is to simply "hang" descriptions over a range of coordinates. As you move, you simply print whatever "description" is found at your coordinate. If you're clever, you can suppress printing of the descriptions until the description changes, which gives players the feel that they are moving through space more naturally.

You don't need ANSI maps or anything else, you need your builders to understand how to describe terrain in a useful way (or make it automated), and you need to place occasional landmarks or other clues. The old classic signpost that says "Smurfville (East 5 miles)" and "Cliche City (North 3 miles)" tell the player how to get to far away places. Local descriptions that say things like "The road winds down to the east, curving northward around a stand of trees." also tells the player how to navigate locally.

The key there is, you have to get out of the DikuMUD mindset of having "exits" as seperate things. The description needs to inform the player about where they can go, which often is whichever cardinal direction they feel like going… but if they can't go north because of a steep cliff or a wall, mentioning that in the description is important. It's good practice in a room based MUD too, but you can be lazy and get away with letting the exits handle it for you, as many do. :(

No, the latter are not "nodes" in the sense being discussed here. It has absolutely nothing to do with scale, it's all about the way space is modelled.

Imagine a website where the information is spread over multiple pages, and you navigate between those pages by clicking on hyperlinks. It doesn't matter how much text is on each of those pages, the point is you have to click on links to jump between them.

Imagine another website where all of the information is displayed on one page. There are no links, you just scroll up and down.

Now image that the websites represent worlds. The first website splits the world across separate pages, with each page representing a section of the world, while the second website displays the entire world on a single page.

I quite liked Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I assume it's at least partially node based, and it'd be interesting if a MUD added the same functionality, and even took things one step further by adding more complex interaction with objects. More interesting than creating spatial deserts.

Actually, after thinking about this… yes it does. You KNOW sound only carries a certain distance, and that distance is still your radius of rooms to check. If a entity's coordinates are outside that bounding box, they can't hear it at all. Things that block sound may, in fact, make things inside that radius still not hear it, but you only need to check paths that lie entirely within that radius. If your path finding algorithm ever walks outside the bounding box, that entire path can be culled.

For sound though, your path finding might be different. A classic path will account for echoes and whatnot, bouncing around corners… but you may also need to check straight-line propogation, Perhaps a cone. But in any case, you won't ever need to check rooms outside the given radius, which is presumably MUCH smaller than an arbitrary path might be.

(Not harping on this, BTW… I think it might further optimize your solution for specific senses)

I did not say roomless mud where harder to navigate in, (it all depends on the implementation). But let's talk about sound. Our brain is made to filter things and only care about perticular sounds. Sometimes we will concentrate on something we usually filter etc. (same for vision, we do not see our own nose, while it is in direct sight :)) Wanting to cram all that in a text mud will spam you.
so at one point you have to put limits, hence no need for infinite line of sight or sound propagation from everything above a few rooms etc etc.

Yes, you need limits in every mud. Rooms are one way of filtering text, but they're not the only way.

If you look at arendjr's posts, he was talking about filtering text based on altitude, distance, line of sight, concealing fog, volume (for sounds), and so on. That sort of filtering is better suited to a roomless model.

What makes you think so? Because I'm limiting myself to rooms (yes, I realize it's a limitation, but one I'm glad to have), I don't need to calculate line of sight for every individual character or item. The things like fog don't even need any spacial information, just a modifier on the rooms. I'm actually quite happy with how it works :)

Experience. I spent a few years trying to implement similar functionality into a room-based model before scrapping the lot. It's possible, but it feels clunky and it's a lot more work.

Here's an example from Nathan Yospe's Physmud++. Imagine how you'd try to represent the same information with rooms:

> look

The flat green plain stretches away into a distant ridge of hills to your right. Sixty meters to your left, a crop of trees springs up, thick and forbidingly twisted. The strange, flat grass crunches under your feet, releasing a pungent scent. Ahead, thirty meters off, a twisting blue stream makes its slow, twisting way out of the small dark forest. Sparse clouds drift by overhead. Something streaks by overhead with a roar. A cluster bomb explodes ten meters off ahead to your right! A piece of turf flies by, but misses you.

> run

You start running toward the stream.

> run forest

You turn toward the forest, running as fast as you can. A roaring sound reaches your ears. The forest is thirty meters away. Something roars by overhead, leaving the impression of a silver streak in your eyes. A whistling sound reaches your ears. An impulse makes you dodge left, and a reddish object streaks by your right ear. The missile starts to climb, but impacts into the forest. You keep running. The forest is ten meters away. You dodge as branch as you reach the edge of the forest. You stop, winded, to catch your breath. You are just within the edge of a small, gnarled forest. Ahead and to each side, crooked black branches tangle together, making it impossible to pass without considerable effort. Mushrooms grow out of the mulch and rot at your feet, and there is a damp smell to the air. The sun filters through the treetops, almost entirely gone by the time it reaches you.

> look plain

You turn around and stare out through the edge of the forest. The plain stretches out into the distance. Far ahead, the flat green plain stretches away into a distant ridge of hills. Thirty meters ahead and to the left, a twisting blue stream makes its slow, twisting way out of the small dark forest. Far off to the right, a fence surrounds a complex of buildings.

> hold rifle

You pull your plasma rifle out of the leather holster across your back and cradle it in your arms.

> reload rifle

The current bolt has a full charge. You don't need to reload.

> hold grenade

Shifting your plasma rifle into one hand, you detatch a sonic grenade from the strap across your chest and prime it. A pack of about twelve Logran drones is approaching from the direction of the complex of buildings. They are about 300 meters away.

> focus logran

You adjust your optical cybernetics to focus on the pack of Logran drones. There are fourteen of them. Magnification is at x300. The pack is led by a class three hunter. The Logran drones are carrying laser rods. The Logran hunter c3 is carrying a rail cannon. They are heading in your direction. They are about 250 meters away.

@KaVir: While your approach certainly looks good, and indeed looks difficult to achieve with rooms, it's also aimed more at open, wide spaces rather than closed confined spaces with many physical, well, rooms. I'm modelling a skyscraper, so I doubt you can apply your scenario to mine that easily.

I have buildings, towers, underground dungeons, etc, as well.

That is not the point I was trying to make. I will try to be clearer.
There are info I do not care about most of the time, but sometimes wish I have it. The signal/noise ratio can be very high.
I imagine you would have one windows with sounds, one with all moving element, with triggers so you only have some put to your attention.
You can listen to multiple sounds at once, music, identify someone walking (from its step pace), filter out the sirens outside etc , the brain can identify a hundred objects at all time in one look.
And since you cannot have the computer automatically decide for yourself what is relevant. You will have to code trigger, having multiple windows one to sort through moving objects one to filter out sounds etc)
In the end, the text you can actually humanly parse is so little, that you could have your engine stripped down a lot and just shows that. At this point, not sure that all the maths used to generate realistic infos that will be scrapped in the first place worth it.

I may totally love it if I see an implemantion that makes a good use of it though. (and one that actually need such a realistic engine)

I don't doubt you do. As I will have some open spaces as well. The question is: If the vast majority of your world was confined and in-door, with many, many physical rooms and corridors, would you still believe roomless is the best way to go?