[MUD-Dev] Re: DBMS in MU*'s

[s001gmu at nova.wright.edu]

On Mon, 20 Jul 1998, Chris Gray wrote:

> [s001gmu at nova.wright.edu (Greg):]
> 
>  >Short of some titanic force, no unaided mortal will break the axe head,
>  >but the handle is quite breakable.  Now, another can of worms is opened
>  >when I ask, "uh.. what happens to the handle?  is it 2 distinct 'broken
>  >wooden axehandle' objects?"  I choose not to address that, atm.  :)  Words
>  >of wisdom from the peanut gallery?
> 
> You mean like, allowing disassembly being the first step, and breakage
> being the second step of a infinite path leading nowhere? :-) 

ya... that's why I chose not to answer it. 

> You either have to stop somewhere, fake it, or get generic. 

heh.  I'd say generic.  Faking it tends to fall apart after a while...

> The game value of allowing assembly/disassembly can be good. 

Yup.  I really like the idea.

> The game value of allowing
> that kind of breakage is likely less generally useful (how is it better,
> for the game, than just ending up with a single "broken axe handle"?)

I can see where breaking things can be of importance to the game.
Consider a wall betwixt you and the treasure of masive manlyness. 
Granted, I might be tempted to call walls a construction of bricks, but
then, do I really want to model EVERY brick?  I don't think so...  not
until memory gets to the range of $0.01/GB.  This thread feels like it is
pulling us back towards a thread quite a while back that JC was prominent
in, about grouping items, etc.

> If you want to go that path, consider modelling the axe handle as a
> rough cylinder of given dimensions. Breaking it produces a pair of
> rougher cylinders of appropriate dimensions. The breakability of a piece
> of wood is related to its smallest dimension (unless of course you want
> to get into issues of wood-grain).

I choose not to comment... :P  where to draw the line on what to model and
what to fake has yet to be determined for my project.  :)

-Greg