[MUD-Dev] Room-based vs. coordinate-based

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <01IK40LS7M3690PX67 at nova.wright.edu>, on 06/15/97 
   at 03:31 PM, S001GMU at nova.wright.edu said:

>From: clawrenc at cup.hp.com

>>In <01IK0ROHGSBM90PQJB at nova.wright.edu>, on 06/13/97 
>>   at 09:29 AM, S001GMU at nova.wright.edu said:

[Shoehorn, 2 people and 15 tiny objects.... ]

>>>I'd be tempted to add a scale to each neighborhood.  The scale would 
>>>be a range of object sizes allowable within that neighborhood. 
>>>anything too big or two small gets shuffled into a neighborhood of
>>>the appropriate scale, creating a new one if none exists.  
>>>Neighborhoods of differing scale can overlap eachother with no real
>>>problems.
>>
>>The problem is that scale does not denote suitability for receiving a
>>message.  Should the player currently inhabiting the body of a flea
>>not receive the mesage while the troll he's biting will receive the
>>message?

>A tiny creature has a vastly different range of vision from a giant
>creature (in general... yes I know there are exceptions on both
>sides).  A flea on the rabbit that got pulled out of the hat may only
>know that suddenly it is  light out rather than dark, and a dragon in
>the next room may not even notice that those puny mortals are doing
>much of anything.  What you see is entirely a matter of scale.

The exceptions that you reference are what define this as an invalid
model.  We cannot safely define the suitability of an event for an
object as a function of the object's size.  What's worse, we can't
even define the suitability as a function of size, and then add in a
special-case function to track the exceptions -- it just gets too
nasty.

>>I don't see that scale offers a value here.

>I disagree.  :)

Now this not to say that neighborhoods should not segregate their
members on the basis of some criteria so that two neighborhoods which
occupy a single coordinate range may each contain objects the other
does not.  *That* I think is a profitable avenue to explore.  Its
using scale as the criteria that I don't see as workable.  

>>>Are there any glaring problems with that?  I've had some difficulty 
>>>following exactly what you guys are talking about, but that probably
>>>stems from not really reading the first couple of messages too
>>>thuroughly. Will have ot go back and re-read those.  ;)
>>
>>Marian asked a similar question.  I'll attempt to recap later today or
>>tomorrow.

>Thanks.  :)

Its now obviously later than that tomorrow.  I'm still trying to
scrape time together for a summary.  I hope by tomorrow.

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...