[MUD-Dev] Breaking down the walls

[Matt Chatterley]

On Wed, 12 Jun 2002, Brian Lindahl wrote:
> Matt Chatterly wrote:

[Snip]

>> Has anybody here tried Roguelike style views in parts of their
>> textbased Muds?

> Many Diku MUDs have created Rogue-style views in their addition of
> a Wilderness area, although, each square represented a room, so
> the only moving object on the map was the player's token.

I didn't know this. I might have to investigate. :) Market research
can often be valuable, and is something I've done very little of,
recently.

> Rogue-style views aren't exactly efficient enough, from what I've
> seen at this point in time, to allow for hundreds of users to be
> running around, each one calculating their own complex line of
> sight. If this was, however, done on a client (the calculations),
> perhaps this would be a feasible option.

True. The other thing which occured to me as a problem was that of
displaying such a view over a standard telnet type client. Short of
constantly blasting the whole display down the line
regularly.. well.. I'm stumped. Using a custom client things are a
lot easier of course, but then this spawns the whole issue of custom
clients and so on, and so forth ..

> Personally I'd rather not adopt a Rogue-style view, as it
> seperates the connection a player has to his or her character,
> making role-playing even harder for those who have trouble being
> absorbed into their character.

Very true. I'm not terribly fond of the rogue-type view idea on
paper, although I may implement a way to use it as an option (or a
way to check it, for instance, to consult the map of the lands which
you carry in your pack, seeing your current position marked, and so
forth).

> As far as a descriptional system, I've opted to use incremental
> updates for my locational movement and nodal polygonal region
> system. For example, as you get nearer to an object that you are
> focused on, you may recieve several descriptions of it. Key to
> this description system is an object's focus on another object and
> the fact that you will never recieve all the information that you
> have access to. Each motion, activity, sound, etc. that an object
> or the environment can produce has a focus level. Depending on how
> intent your focus is on a given object at any point, you may or
> may not see these motions, hear the sounds, or see the
> activities. I'll delve into this more if you'd like, but I think
> I've articulated my system clearly enough.

I think I understand. :) basically, the information received by the
player depends on just what they are paying attention to at the
time. Thus a character whose main focus is simply 'run away very,
very fast over the fields' is far less likely to take in the details
of the scenery than one who is simply strolling along and drinking
in his luxuriant surroundings.

The last thing which I want to do is to create a wilderness
environment around 'areas' (which might as well be viewed as
'levels' or 'dungeons' in a more conventional CRPG), which is simply
a big space in which to get lost, and in which one cannot often
expect to meet other characters. :P

--Matt

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