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<H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] Character evolution</H1>
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<LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#null,net">mud-dev#null,net</A></LI>
<LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: [MUD-Dev] Character evolution</LI>
<LI><em>From</em>: Caliban Tiresias Darklock <<A HREF="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</A>></LI>
<LI><em>Date</em>: Thu, 04 Sep 1997 11:19:12 -0400</LI>
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<PRE>
Chris Gray wrote:
>
> I've never been a read admin, but I've done lots of quest programming.
> From that point of view, I would applaud the solution and fix the problem.
> Actually, I might even deliberately leave a hole in the problem so that
> others could do the same thing, perhaps with a bit more thought/planning.
As opposed to a read/write admin? Hmmm, chmod bits on the admin
levels.... mmmmm... ahem. Sorry.
Something I've considered here and there is the possibility of hiring
mobs to do things. When I play MUDs, I often find that I have all this
money piling up, and nothing I can do with it; so I was thinking, why
not allow people to pay some amount of money to a mob and give it a
number of commands? I mean, if you're the medieval equivalent of a
multi-billionaire, why should you have to do everything yourself? There
would also, of course, be the obvious 'cheat' of hiring some low-power
NPC to go do something which is trivial but tedious, and then when he
returns with the appropriate task completed you could kill him and get
your money back. The problem could be further aggravated by having some
NPCs be untrustworthy; you hand them a bunch of money, and they
immediately run off or attack you (depending on relative power levels)
with the general thought of 'hey, that dork just gave me a pile of money
-- I could [go get a beer | kill him and take the rest too]'. This is a
good application of alignment, also, as a mob's alignment could affect
its chances of taking each given action. Using the AD&D system, a 'good'
player would be more likely to run off whereas an 'evil' creature would
be more likely to attack. The 'law' and 'chaos' distinction could affect
the creature's likelihood of actually going out to complete the assigned
task.
This is just a thought which I'm fleshing out as I go along, and it may
have serious drawbacks. But I'm leaning toward something similar to what
Ultima has generally done: an NPC has a certain series of motivations
and a general routine which can be triggered by various things. This
could be abstracted by a 'goal' field, which would contain a list of
motivations and potential conditions, like
if hungry
if have_food then
eat_food
new_condition
else
get_food
endif
endif
proc get_food
if food_here then
take food
condition hungry
else
if in_town then
go_tavern
else
wander
condition hungry
endif
endif
end proc
(I know, it's awful BASICish. I'm trying to overcome my aversion to
BASIC in order to get myself up to speed on VB programming in the near
future, as my company has several nice positions in the programming
trenches available, but they're all in VB and they have no need for C++
ATM.)
I know mobprogs can handle some of this, but I'm looking for a way to
make this elegant and efficient, which isn't easy.
</PRE>
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<LI><STRONG><A NAME="01080" HREF="msg01080.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Character evolution</A></STRONG>
<UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA (Chris Gray)</LI></UL></LI>
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<ul><li>Thread context:
<BLOCKQUOTE><UL>
<LI><STRONG>Re: [MUD-Dev] Character evolution</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM>
<ul compact>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00924" HREF="msg00924.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Character evolution</A></strong>,
Travis Casey <a href="mailto:efindel#io,com">efindel#io,com</a>, Mon 01 Sep 1997, 00:31 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01063" HREF="msg01063.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Character evolution</A></strong>,
Travis Casey <a href="mailto:efindel#io,com">efindel#io,com</a>, Thu 04 Sep 1997, 00:08 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01117" HREF="msg01117.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Character evolution</A></strong>,
clawrenc <a href="mailto:clawrenc#cup,hp.com">clawrenc#cup,hp.com</a>, Sat 06 Sep 1997, 00:10 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01080" HREF="msg01080.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Character evolution</A></strong>,
Chris Gray <a href="mailto:cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA">cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA</a>, Thu 04 Sep 1997, 14:38 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01082" HREF="msg01082.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Character evolution</A></strong>,
Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Thu 04 Sep 1997, 15:16 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01081" HREF="msg01081.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Character evolution</A></strong>,
Maddy <a href="mailto:maddy#fysh,org">maddy#fysh,org</a>, Thu 04 Sep 1997, 15:07 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01098" HREF="msg01098.html">[MUD-Dev] Character evolution</A></strong>,
##Make Nylander <a href="mailto:thenewt#use,usit.net">thenewt#use,usit.net</a>, Thu 04 Sep 1997, 21:41 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01153" HREF="msg01153.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Character evolution</A></strong>,
Brandon J. Rickman <a href="mailto:ashes#pc4,zennet.com">ashes#pc4,zennet.com</a>, Mon 08 Sep 1997, 06:54 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01166" HREF="msg01166.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Character evolution</A></strong>,
Chris Gray <a href="mailto:cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA">cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA</a>, Tue 09 Sep 1997, 06:01 GMT
</LI>
</ul>
</LI>
</UL></BLOCKQUOTE>
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