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In room movement? Update

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Posted by

David Haley USA (3,881 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #15 on Wed 04 Feb 2004 05:30 AM (UTC)

Message

On the other hand, if you leave your system "optimistic", and enough players figure this out, pretty soon you'll have created a nice community of cheaters and cheap players. Why do you think games like Star Wars Galaxies had to cut so many cool features?

About the two players with the same first letter, I wasn't quite talking about it that way. Imagine you are in a group, and you come across an *enemy* group where every has the same first letter. This would be done on purpose, to confuse people. They obviously don't really care since they know who they are, as you said; however, YOU don't know which one of them is which! So you're the one who ends up getting slighted, because you can't tell apart the archer from the mage from the cleric on the tactical map.

How do you know the monster will catch you and kill you? Maybe the monster will, because it doesn't have to think and type fast. In fact, I'm not the least bit worried about monsters. I'm worried about players. Remember, the AI doesn't have to see, react, think, type.

Basically, if you do this system and are happy with it, more power to you. It's true that it's a very cool feature, and one I've wanted for a long time. My experience as a MUD coder and administrator, however, has taught me to put no faith at all in player's being fair; if they can exploit it, they will. Even if it's just one to begin with; that one will bring friends, and pretty soon (just like bacteria actually, hehe) it's growing faster than you know. Anyways, personally I wouldn't implement the system until all my questions have been answered - in fact, many of the questions I'm asking you come from personal trial and error. But like I said, if you're happy with it and want to go forward, more power to you.

And if you think about it, code-wise it's really not all that difficult. It's just associating a two-dimensional array to every room, and having some kind of flag indicating whether a player is in tactical mode or not. Of course, it's not a walk in the park either; but things like an economy system are a lot harder to grapple with.

David Haley aka Ksilyan
Head Programmer,
Legends of the Darkstone

http://david.the-haleys.org

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Posted by

Nick Gammon Australia (23,169 posts) Bio Forum Administrator

Date

Reply #16 on Wed 04 Feb 2004 05:47 AM (UTC)

Message

Quote:

I hope I am not breaking the rules to post so much stuff here that is not actually coding, but merely ideas and hoping for help with the code itself.

There is no problem discussing this here.

I have been thinking about this too, and at present put it into the "too hard" basket, partly because what you are discussing is merging the concept of a text-based MUD with something more graphical where you can move around inside a room.

However, conceptually it is a nice idea.

- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com

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Posted by

Greven Canada (835 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #17 on Wed 04 Feb 2004 06:56 AM (UTC)

Amended on Wed 04 Feb 2004 06:57 AM (UTC) by Greven

Message

I can think of a solution to the group with the same letters: since you said that everything will be shown as usual, this means you still have the list of people written out in text with their title and such. You can simply append either the distance from them to you or their map coords(only while you are in tactical, I would think). Since you don't HAVE to pay attention to this, it can be ignored if there is a Conan, Hurcules, and Atlas in the attacking group. However, if its Tish, Tup, and Trogdor the Burninator, and you don't know which T is which, you can look at the written descriptions. This might be a solution to this specif problem.

Nobody ever expects the spanish inquisition!

darkwarriors.net:4848
http://darkwarriors.net

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Posted by

Gadush (92 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #18 on Wed 04 Feb 2004 12:06 PM (UTC)

Message

After thinking on the multiple first letter problem, I came up with this:
Another command. (hee hee)
Location command, when typed with argument of a name, outputs that character's letter in yellow for a few updates to the map.
So, if you see G on the west side, G on the right, and G in the middle, and you know they are Gollum, Gandalf, and Georgebush, you type location Gollum, and the G in the center shows as yellow. Now you can tell who is who.
Gadush

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Posted by

Meerclar USA (733 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #19 on Wed 04 Feb 2004 01:32 PM (UTC)

Message

More realistic (and useful) would be to color code the messages of each person in the room with the same symbol and color the symbol to match it on the tactical map. I don't know how many real fights you've been in but I promise you, a trained fighter doesn't lose track of a potential opponent they start the fight knowing about.

Meerclar - Lord of Cats
Coder, Builder, and Tormenter of Mortals
Stormbringer: Rebirth
storm-bringer.org:4500
www.storm-bringer.org

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Posted by

Gadush (92 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #20 on Wed 04 Feb 2004 03:35 PM (UTC)

Message

That is a good suggestion Meerclar. I personally like to limit color, as too much color seems distracting. But that is a personal preference, and actually would be best to allow the player to specify how much color to show. I think having only the character's name (or short description if they are not known) in the matching color in their action messages would work great. In other words,
"Gandalf(appearing in blue) waves his hands and a bolt of lightning zaps you!" and you see the blue G on the screen.
Thanks for the input. That is a much better way to differentiate.
As for real fights, I try to avoid them. They hurt. But I have been in a few, sadly. (This does not count sparring/tourneys in tae kwon do, which is way different) If it is one on one, sure, it is pretty easy to keep track. But if you step into a room and two guys jump you, unless you are in a movie, you can very easily lose track of who is doing what. Not saying you can't recover, just that you can at first lose track.
Anyhow, thanks very much for the great idea.
Gadush

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Posted by

Gadush (92 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #21 on Tue 01 Mar 2005 12:02 AM (UTC)

Message

Hi everybody,
Wow, been a long long while since I posted here. I just wanted to let anyone know who's the least bit interested in seeing a system like this one implemented into an open MUD.
Rauvyon.com port 7075

The codebase is where I originally saw this system of tactical movement. Check it out to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

Gadush

ps zMud or the like is highly recommended.

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Posted by Zeno USA (2,871 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #22 on Tue 01 Mar 2005 02:32 AM (UTC)

Amended on Tue 01 Mar 2005 03:47 AM (UTC) by Zeno

Message

Surprised I never responded to this topic...

Something similar to this system is also on Dragonball Lost Time (Now known as The Dragonball), where I happen to be a coder at.

thedragonball.wolfpaw.net 1202

Looks a bit like this in a room:

 P X E X X
 X X X X X
 X X X X X
 X X X X X
 X X X X X

Builders can edit the length, width, and even height.

Or using "fillers" something like this can be done:

 X X E X X
 X X P X X
 X X X X X
   X X X  
     X

Fillers can be placed anywhere, so the room is fully customizable. The P is a player, E is exits, and X are blank spots. Colors are also used. We have yet to finish the actual "height" of this system.
Hmm here's a decent log of it:
http://zenorebirth.ath.cx/mudlogs/une.html

DBX:R also had a system a bit like this. See my log:
http://zenorebirth.ath.cx/mudlogs/xr.html

Zeno McDohl,
Owner of Bleached InuYasha Galaxy
http://www.biyg.org

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Posted by

Tinkle (2 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #23 on Fri 04 Mar 2005 07:46 AM (UTC)

Amended on Fri 04 Mar 2005 08:00 AM (UTC) by Tinkle

Message

Here is an Idea based on Zeno's last post:

Since the maps are all going to be farely small, and the screen is wide, use a key, like this

$ X # X X $Topper the slayer
X X X X X #Trogdor the Burnerator
X X & X X &You
@ X X X X @Thor
X X X X X

Then, in combat messages, put the symbol next to the name, like
#Trogdor's Burneration does UNSPEAKABLE things to $Topper.

And the user could have an option to use color.

I think that the looking up of symbols might be a bit awkward for players at first, but it would be easy to get used to.

Using the first letter of names not only allowes players to effectively cheat, but could severly impare players when fighting mobs. How often do you get aggied by a large group of mobs with similar, if not identical names. Using symbols would actually make it easier to tell whats going on in that case, not harder.

If I haven't made myself clear, I will gladly offer an example.

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Posted by

BrigandKing (23 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #24 on Mon 06 Nov 2006 01:12 AM (UTC)

Message

I read this and was thinking about something in that should be easier and more simplistic. I used to play a mud that had ranks in a room, they called them UDs , units of distance. it was only really 2 dimensional. You could advance and you could retreat. And when you typed tactical you would get.

Bob is 2 UDs in front of you.
The 1st Orc is 5 UDs behind you.

Mainly they put this in so that casting classes actually relied more on casting as well as made missiles useful.
All the weapons had different ranges, such as daggers and hand to hand had to be in the same rank, and a regular sword could hit 1 rank away and two handed weapons/pole arms hit 2 ranks away, and of course missiles and thrown hit them all.

You could decide the number to advance and retreat up to your max. You max movement rate was determined by race/dexterity. There was even an extra delay for retreating since it was implied you were backing up. Anyways that mud had very good PvP against mages and fighters, since the mages could back up or advance up out of range to have the time to cast their spells. In that game the spell damage happened after the casting delay.

Anyways I was wondering how to do that kind of tactical system. I am adjusting my spells not to be front loaded damage like in that game as well as having the spell disrupted by a strong enough hit while casting. And making long delays for higher level spells. It's always irked me that in most muds the casting class has to stand within hitting range of melee to attack them. which is why i played that game for 6 years.

I'd appreciate suggestions.

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Posted by

David Haley USA (3,881 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #25 on Tue 07 Nov 2006 12:44 AM (UTC)

Message

This system seems to be an ok simplification. (It's actually just one-dimensional.) The problem I have is that I'm not sure how you would compute relative difference. If I'm 5 UD from you, and 5 UD from Bob, does that mean that you and Bob are in the same square? Well... not really.

I suppose you could place the entire room on a one-dimensional axis and give people a coordinate, but then you get into trouble such as where to place people who enter the room.

Should they be put at point 10? Well, what if there's combat, and two people have moved over to points 20 and 22? Then the "border" of the room is way out there, not at point 10.

This is one of my greatest frustrations. I think that we are so very close to having a workable position system, it's just that having to display and manipulate it using only text makes things very difficult.

David Haley aka Ksilyan
Head Programmer,
Legends of the Darkstone

http://david.the-haleys.org

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Posted by

BrigandKing (23 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #26 on Tue 07 Nov 2006 11:36 PM (UTC)

Message

Well in that game the default was center and different rooms had differnt distances but the most was 11 total, 5 in front, 5 behind.

5
4
3
2
1
Center
1
2
3
4
5

and movement from room to room kept you in that rank. although certain portals doors gates would revert you back to center since it was considered the doors were static and you could only come out in one place, and they didn't have the code to put the door anyplace else. I'm not worried about moving along another axis on the ground, once i get altitude in that will be more than enough movement in my opinion. I honestly believe too much range of movement will make the missile users and casters too powerful. I don't want characters to have to chase NPCs or PCs for 30 minutes, since if you want to avoid a fight you can just dance away when ever you see someone coming to you. By having the range limited on movement and having weapons hit different ranges you can catch up if you time it right or guess how many spaces they will move up or back. It will also allow for some combat choices. when I get weapons to where I want them, you'll have to use tactics depending on what class/race you're fighting to what the terrain is.

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