May 1999
- Object server. Quzah [softhome]
- Censorship & Its Impact On World Immersion J C Lawrence
- OT: Ethics v Law Greg Munt
- Virtual v Artificial Worlds Greg Munt
- Virtual v Artificial Worlds Matthew Mihaly
- Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Custom Server Roll Call? Wes Connell
- Custom Server Roll Call? David Bennett
- Custom Server Roll Call? Koster, Raph
- Custom Server Roll Call? Greg Munt
- Custom Server Roll Call? The Arrow
- Custom Server Roll Call? Alex Stewart
- Custom Server Roll Call? Nathan F Yospe
- Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
- Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
- Custom Server Roll Call? Matthew Mihaly
- Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
- Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
- Custom Server Roll Call? Chris Gray
- Custom Server Roll Call? Marc Hernandez
- Custom Server Roll Call? Greg Munt
- Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
- Custom Server Roll Call? Matthew Mihaly
- Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
- Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Custom Server Roll Call? J C Lawrence
- Custom Server Roll Call? Ling
- Custom Server Roll Call? Jon A. Lambert
- Custom Server Roll Call? Emil Eifrem
- Custom Server Roll Call? Niklas Elmqvist
- Custom Server Roll Call? Chris Gray
- Custom Server Roll Call? Emil Eifrem
- Custom Server Roll Call? Chris Gray
- Custom Server Roll Call? Emil Eifrem
- Custom Server Roll Call? Chris Gray
- Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Custom Server Roll Call? J C Lawrence
- Custom Server Roll Call? Emil Eifrem
- Custom Server Roll Call? Marc Hernandez
- Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Custom Server Roll Call? Jo Dillon
- Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Custom Server Roll Call? Marc Hernandez
- Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Custom Server Roll Call? Marc Hernandez
- Custom Server Roll Call? Adam Wiggins
- Custom Server Roll Call? Matthew Mihaly
- Custom Server Roll Call? Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Custom Server Roll Call? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Custom Server Roll Call? claw@kanga.nu
- Custom Server Roll Call? Emil Eifrem
- Custom Server Roll Call? Chris Turner
- Custom Server Roll Call? Ling
- Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Custom Server Roll Call? Jay Carlson
- Custom Server Roll Call? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Custom Server Roll Call? Ling
- Interesting dilemma Peck, Matthew x96724c1
- Interesting dilemma Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Interesting dilemma Quzah [softhome]
- Interesting dilemma Brandon A Downey
- Interesting dilemma Shawn Halpenny
- Interesting dilemma Matthew Mihaly
- Interesting dilemma Benjamin D. Wiechel
- Interesting dilemma Koster, Raph
- Interesting dilemma Wes Connell
- Interesting dilemma Mattias Lönnqvist
- Interesting dilemma Mik Clarke
- Interesting dilemma Joel Kelso
- Interesting dilemma Ronan Farrell
- Harvey's Rules of Immship John Hopson
- Confiscating items (Interesting dilemma) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- AW: Interesting dilemma Hofbauer Heinz
- Virtual Property J C Lawrence
- Virtual Property Koster, Raph
- Virtual Property Jon A. Lambert
- Autogenerating maps from muds using cardinal directions for exits? Ben Greear
- Discussion of large server IO handling desing J C Lawrence
- Planes of existance Quzah [softhome]
- Planes of existance Greg Munt
- Planes of existance Quzah [softhome]
- Planes of existance Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Planes of existance Ben Greear
- Planes of existance Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Planes of existance Greg Munt
- Planes of existance T. Alexander Popiel
- Planes of existance Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Planes of existance Matthew Mihaly
- Dynamically changing room descriptions Ronan Farrell
- Dynamically changing room descriptions Mik Clarke
- Dynamically changing room descriptions Ben Greear
- Dynamically changing room descriptions Koster, Raph
- Dynamically changing room descriptions Richard Bartle
- Dynamically changing room descriptions Matthew Mihaly
- Dynamically changing room descriptions Travis Casey
- Dynamically changing room descriptions Travis Casey
- Dynamically changing room descriptions Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Dynamically changing room descriptions Jon A. Lambert
On 14 May 99,, Travis Casey wrote:
>
> 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.
Yes it do feel odd. It's funny though, because I used to do this for
humorous effect in FTF sessions. Describing the demon as an
afterthought, "Oh yeah, and by the way, there's a towering demon, with
flames rippling off his body, glaring angrily at you. He cracks his
six-headed glass shard encrusted whip hungrily."
> 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.
Excellent ideas. We've touched on this a little bit in another thread
on distance and size perception. Here's an example scene:
There are four persons seated at a card table playing hearts surrounded
by a crowd of onlookers, say twenty or so. One of the players, myself,
has a mouse on his shoulder. Among the crowd is a gorgeous red-head of
amazon-like proportions, a twelve foot giant with a horsefly on his nose,
and a three foot gnome. The entire party is located in the dusty main
street of a small village. On the north side of the street is a cafe
with a sign in the window advertising 'All you can eat for 3 grotzees'.
A waitress gazes out of the greasy window. On the south side of the
street is a four-story hotel. Walking on the hotel's third-story ledge
is a darkly-dressed cat burglar. The village is surrounded by a 20 ft.
wooden palisade; and nestled within snow covered mountains.
Challenge:
Come up with a method of describing this scene from the vantage point of
myself, the fly, the giant, the mouse, the gnome, the waitress and the
cat-burglar.
Such a method might take into account distance perception, foreground
to background, elevation, size, and ATTENTION.
Any of the card players would be tuned into seeing the hand they are
holding, the table, and the three other players in good detail. The
crowd as a whole might form the blurry backdrop, with some noticeable
standouts. I'd most likely not miss Xena's red-headed sister. ;)
The waitress would see a blurred vision of a crowd gathered in the
street, probably the least perceptive of the humanoids.
The cat burglar might have the best perspective of all, yet miss the
standouts in the crowd (giant and red-head) and the small mouse and fly.
Yet the cat burglar might be way to preoccupied with negotiating the
ledge to notice much at all, especially the beautiful mountain view.
Then again, if he was just relaxing on the ledge (not working) he might
grok the full detail of the scene.
Perhaps everyone but the giant would miss the fly or someone studying
him. If the fly was worrying the giant, he might not notice much else
other than the fly.
> 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.)
Agreed.
> 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.
What attributes make sense here? Distance, size, color, character's
perception, etc. And speaking of character perception, what if my gentle
giant in the above scene was like Lenny from 'Of Mice and Men'? He
might only be able to perceive the things that are "pet-able", the mouse
on my shoulder or the red-head's long tresses might be the primary or
sole items within his perception, much like your demon example.
> 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").
That chalk mark would be far more noticeable in an empty room, yet be
almost as good as invisible, in a room loaded with fine furniture and
colorful wall hangings.
>
> - 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.
How about disguise and familiarity? You might see a rather homely old
woman pushing a cart, while I might see Bob in hose and a wig.
> - 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.
Yes. You might glance briefly at a character and get a generic
description, but totally miss that red 666 tattooed on their forehead the
first time. But once you noticed it, would you miss it again?
> - 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!
I wonder what sort of mess you'd get if you added character facing into
the mix? Suppose you and Brenda are walking through woods alone on a
moonlit night, and she conveniently positions herself slightly behind
you, rather than next to you. :P
--
--* Jon A. Lambert - TychoMUD Email:jlsysinc@ix.netcom.com *--
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--* a virus... thereby it becomes its enemies." -- P.K. Dick *-- - Dynamically changing room descriptions Ola Fosheim Grøstad
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- old fight system I toyed with Koster, Raph
- APE 0.2.1 J C Lawrence
- OT: robots, agents and emotions Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- OT: robots, agents and emotions Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Time Discontinuous MUD Ling
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- Marc Hernandez' Server Greg Munt
- Marc Hernandez' Server Jay Carlson
- Marc Hernandez' Server Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Marc Hernandez' Server Travis S. Casey
- Marc Hernandez' Server Adam Wiggins
- Marc Hernandez' Server Marc Hernandez
- Marc Hernandez' Server qitelremel@hotmail.com
- Scry 1.9.1 (Feature Freeze) released. Ben Greear
- The distinction between magic spells and magic abilities Greg Munt
- The distinction between magic spells and magic abilities Matthew Mihaly
- Multi-threaded mud server. Ross Nicoll
- Multi-threaded mud server. Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Multi-threaded mud server. Jon A. Lambert
- Multi-threaded mud server. Jo Dillon
- Multi-threaded mud server. Travis S. Casey
- Multi-threaded mud server. Jon A. Lambert
- Multi-threaded mud server. Chris Gray
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- Multi-threaded mud server. Jon A. Lambert
- Multi-threaded mud server. Mik Clarke
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- Multi-threaded mud server. Travis S. Casey
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- Multi-threaded mud server. Ross Nicoll
- Multi-threaded mud server. Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Multi-threaded mud server. David Bennett
- Multi-threaded mud server. Ross Nicoll
- Multi-threaded mud server. Jon A. Lambert
- Multi-threaded mud server. Travis Casey
- Macro languages Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- LOTR and Mud [was: Marc Hernandez' Server] Marc Hernandez
- Noise: boys will be boys (was Multi-threaded mud server.) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Kanga.Nu has finally moved... claw@kanga.nu
- Java & MUD servers Laurent Bossavit
- ScryMUD 1.9.3 released. Ben Greear
- ScryMUD 1.9.3 released. Chris Gray
- ScryMUD 1.9.3 released. Ben Greear
- ScryMUD 1.9.3 released. Jon A. Lambert
- [TECHNICAL] How to generate pre-processor output (template problem). Ben Greear
- Searching the archives claw@kanga.nu
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- [TECHNICAL] [SOLVED] (template problem). Ben Greear
- [RELEASE] ScryMUD 1.9.4 available for download. Ben Greear