[MUD-Dev] Dynamically changing room descriptions

[Travis Casey]

A brainstorm I had while replying to another post in this thread...
apologies if the idea has already been brought up -- I haven't been
able to read everything coming in to the list the last few days.

One problem that comes up with some of the methods I've seen proposed
for dynamically generating room descriptions is that things come in a
fixed order.  If, for example, the basic room description always comes
first followed by a description of objects in the room, with monster
descriptions coming afterwards, you might wind up with oddities like
this:

  This is a small, nondescript stone room, with walls lined by shelves
  of books.  A table stands against the far wall, with glassware, a
  book, and a small cage on it.  There is a tapestry on the north
  wall, which appears to show a series of scenes depicting a battle.
  A towering demon, with flames rippling off his body, stands in the
  room.  A mouse is in the cage on the table.

This description feels odd.  Why?  Because chances are that the demon
would be the first thing you'd notice coming into, and that once you'd
seen the demon, you'd be too busy to notice details like the mouse and
exactly what's on the tapestry.

My idea, then, is to give each element in the description an
importance rating.  The description could then be manipulated so that
the most important things are described first.  The code could also
show a limited number of things at a time -- either by having a fixed
number of things that someone can take in at once, by dropping
elements with importances much lower than other things in the room
(e.g., nothing that's less than half as important as the most
important thing in the room gets described), or both.

Thus, in the example above, the demon would be described first -- and
quite possibly might be the *only* thing that would be described!  If
the players want to see more, it would be possible to make commands
that do that -- e.g., look.  (This could also help resolve the old
problem of "how much is too much in descriptions" -- you only see the
most important stuff unless you stop and look.)

Some more random thoughts...

 - This could be combined with giving each description element a
   "visibility."  The visibilities would be tested against some
   attribute (possibly with a random factor added in) to determine
   whether or not things can be seen, and then importance would be
   used as described above to order the visible items and decide if
   some of them are unnoticed.

   This allows for things that are easy to see, but that characters
   aren't likely to make note of (e.g., "this is a nondescript room")
   and for things that are hard to see, but that will draw one's
   attention if they are seen (e.g., "there is a small chalk mark of
   an arrow pointing west on the floor").

 - For more fun, an invisible character might have low visibility, but
   high importance ("you notice a shimmering in the air").  You could
   simulate a "do not notice me" spell by leaving visibility alone,
   but giving the character's description a very low importance.

 - Importance could have a slight random variation to it -- thus, if
   two things are of nearly equal importance, sometimes one would be
   described first and sometimes the other.

 - Items added to room descriptions by functions (e.g., the
   weatherdesc() function mentioned in another post) could have
   variable importance.  Thus, if it's raining heavily and thundering,
   that might be one of the first things listed in most outside room
   descriptions.  However, if it's a nice day, the gentle breeze might
   be listed last or not at all in many room descriptions.

 - Whether or not a new or changed element in the room is noticed could
   be determined using its visibility and importance, relative to what's
   already in the room.  Thus, you generally won't notice a mouse
   entering the room.  You might not notice a servant carrying in
   trays of food at a banquet.  But you'll almost certainly notice
   that Brenda just starting sprouting fur and fangs next to you!

This seems like a fairly obvious idea, now that I've thought about
it... has anyone else suggested it, and/or is anyone already using it
in their mud?

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)




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