I'm planning some new code for the mud and I'd like the input of the (remaining! :P) players before I continue.

The idea is very simple: instead of having 20 rooms connecting Drakken Port and Caladon, a grid-based overland map is used instead. Here is an example:If you're familiar with other muds, you may have seen this type of thing coded elsewhere. Icesus is the one mud I think when I think of this type of system.


Details

The code would essentially work like this: you are walking around in Highport, killing crabs and Gamelon just like always. You decide you need to take a trip to Gnomebarrow. At the east gate of Highport, you type "go gate" and familiar room descriptions are switched to the grid shown above. You hit east several times until you're just south of Gnomebarrow. When you type north and move onto whatever symbol we would use for cities, you are instantly returned to the normal room interface describing the south gate of Gnomebarrow.

We could also make these automatic-entering-of-areas optional. Instead of walking the 20 rooms across Highport to get to the southwest gate, you could opt not to enter the city and move across the overland map on top of the city, arriving outside the southwest gate in about 3 moves instead of 20.

In addition, some line-of-sight code would help make travel more realistic. If you're flying or looking out across the ocean, you can see much further than in a dense jungle. Mountains would be particularly difficult to see through if you're land-bound.


Pros

If you're familiar with the other site I work on - kriona - you're aware I've already coded this type of system. It will be much easier to code this than starting fresh off the ground.

The functionality of the teleport will be greatly increased. If we have a grid of 200x200 spaces, we can simulate 40,000 rooms without having to create each individual one. This leads to my next two points:

1) The building staff will not have to waste time descripting long trails of otherwise uninteresting rooms. In addition, we'll be able to create zones of territory, meaning we can mass-set options on these pseudo-rooms (random encounters, mainly).

2) Islands, rather than being sets of rooms connected only by boat, would be now physically connected to the mainland. This means you could use the "fly" spell and fly over the ocean to reach some islands, rather than waiting for a boat.

In this manner we can simulate distance without 1) the effort going into creating rooms or 2) the time spent traveling across those rooms. Currently we simulate distance by having a large number of room between connected cities. If we could instead simulate distance in this manner, time spent travelling overland would be reduced.


Cons

The main con associated with this project would be that it is unfamiliar. This would be a huge change to a mud we are all very familiar with. Players would be required to relearn the paths between cities (say, Sigil and Highport) which could cause some confusion. However, I am not convinced this is enough of a problem to disregard the entire project. I feel that for this mud to continue being fun, it needs to change and evolve.

Other cons associated with this project are largely programming related, but can be overcome with enough time and research.



I'm interested in your comments on this type of system, whether it be "Man, this is a lame idea" or "Idea XYZ would be cool, you should code that too."

What about hidden rooms along trails? Say you want to get in to highport but its night and you want to take an alternate exit? Or hidden exits like to wolfhunters, dirth hills, etc etc. how would this work for exploring as well?

disaron wrote:

What about hidden rooms along trails? Say you want to get in to highport but its night and you want to take an alternate exit? Or hidden exits like to wolfhunters, dirth hills, etc etc. how would this work for exploring as well?

This will be preserved as much as possible - you are on the overland map, you move 2 rooms east until you're on the bridge crossing the river. You search, just like you would in the normal room interface, and find a hidden exit. When you enter the hidden exit, you're in unique rooms again.

Areas of the overland interface could be designated as "unique rooms only". For example, you're walking around and move into the Werewolf Woods. The mud designates this entire area as special, so it forces you to enter the unique rooms designed for this area.

Since Dirth Hills is full of hidden stuff, that area would pretty much remain the way it is. You'd be able to enter the map interface only after passing beyond the range of special rooms.

sounds interesting enough for me to try. U might also want to consider opening up port 3330 for a lil while and let players test out the interface itself to see if it'll be desiable. Well with only coding a small section of it for testing.

I think testing it would be a great idea. I like the idea of not spamming commands to walk from town to town.

zerk wrote:

sounds interesting enough for me to try. U might also want to consider opening up port 3330 for a lil while and let players test out the interface itself to see if it'll be desiable. Well with only coding a small section of it for testing.

That'd be a good idea. I'll periodically ask for people's input (those who are on) to test out different pieces of code.

I'll try anything once.

If I ever play that is.

luminaire wrote:

I'll try anything once. If I ever play that is.

Boo! If you don't play, your vote doesn't count!

Progress update!

I've made essentially all the changes to the structure of the mud that I need to. As the bunch of you who have already tested it know, the mud can now support an infinite number of overland rooms using very little memory. I just finished code to create access points (exits) to this grid, which will replace the current Highport / whatever gate entrances. The grid can be set to cycle, which we can use to simulate sailing around the world.

Now, the next bunch of code will involve showing the player a map when they type "look", and then updating that map when you move around. After that, line-of-sight. After that, zones (we declare this zone Kingdom of Highport, we declare this zone orc-random-monster attacks).


There are a few bugs to work out with the grid system (you always seem to flee north, wandering monsters going to an exit are DELETED), but those are trivial and I'll fix when I'm sick of working on line-of-sight. When I get a section of the code showing you a map, I'll make a magical 10x10 island you can access from Highport to test stuff out.


Anybody thought of cool suggestions? The obvious one being letting people sail around water on their own.

So, we can now have - like - battlefields? Perhaps you can join the Sendralian Army or Caladonian Army at some set time, or during a DM run-quest, and the battlefield will take place in a zone. Even after multiple battles you can raise in ranking up to General and command paladins or dks to fight for you or something.

I know this is perhaps totally off-base, but I have been thinking of it for a while, and with the new grid it seems more plausible.

-Bodhi