19 Jun, 2011, Runter wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
I only have a little experience with muds that have spacial systems beyond the typical connected room paradigm. In my limited experience I've had usability issues. The text based format seems to bring additional challenges to the interface and the complexity of the game. I'm very interested in hearing from folks who have developed such systems, or have experience with them from a player perspective, with their thoughts on the subject in the interest of learning what worked well, what was a pitfall, and general brainstorming on what could be done better. Any thoughts are welcome.
19 Jun, 2011, Tonitrus wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
I think descriptions are kind of a huge obstacle. On God Wars II, for example, most messages are done something like <range>, <whatever happened> or <whatever you see> <whatever the range is>. This seems fine in theory, but it's not too great in practice.

Four hundred and ninety feet north of you, a paradox spirit moves into sight.

Then you look later on and see:

A paradox spirit floats thirty feet north of you.

That works ok, I guess. Shows the range. But supposing there were two of them. That'd be displayed as:

A paradox spirit floats thirty feet north of you.
A paradox spirit floats thirty feet north of you.

Or if there are a few objects a few spaces apart, you'd see the ranges/directions from you, but have no idea as to their interrelation to one another – which might be useful if you wanted to cast a spell like fireball, that hits the target with an area effect blast.

I've been wondering if a system like Skotos' Proximity System could be combined with such a system to provide more readable descriptions while still giving a vague indication of range/direction. I don't think very specific distances could be covered that way, but you could still end up with something like.

A few hundred feet ahead, you see Fred, Bill, and George standing beside Bob.

Or, even better, just:

Fred, Bill, George, and Bob stand a few hundred feet ahead.

Or something to that effect.

If you're not worried that much about the descriptions themselves, the only real downside I've covered here is that the ranges between other individuals is never really described this way.
19 Jun, 2011, Runter wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
Right, that's the sort of problems I'm considering. If you had systems in place which relied on the spacial system (which would be the point of having it, I think) then you would have a big skill-gap between a player which can process the data vs a player who can not. An example would be a chain lightning ability that hops from target to target but only if each leap is a certain yards and only if it hasn't hit that target yet. It would be very difficult in real time for a human to determine "good" starting targets with what you described above. You'd see far more efficient players using some type of custom interface that processed the data for them. That seems defeating to me.
19 Jun, 2011, quixadhal wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Have a text-only interface to combat where positioning is important and can very considerably (such as in space combat), I would suggest slowing the combat pace dramatically, almost to the point of making it turn based.

Suppose you work out a system where you do indeed have reasonable descriptions.

Quote
You are standing in a field of tall grass, broken occasionally by low scrub brush. There is a large tree about 50 yards ahead and to your right. You see several deer grazing under it. You also see someone in plate or chain mail, and two others in cloth or leather, walking towards you from 75 yards to the west.

> cast chain lightning at plate wearer

At this range, your chain lightning will hit the armored target and one of the cloth wearing targets, but one cloth wearer is too far away. Cast anyways?


So, at that point, the attacker has the option of being able to attack, knowing one target will not be hit, or he can wait for them to close the distance, or attempt to close the distance himself. Had all three targets been in range, no such prompt would be expected (or required). Had none of them been in range, a simple failure message would be enough.

The only other suggest I have to offer is that closer stuff wants more accuracy. The difference between 15 yards and 20 yards is important. The difference between 1015 and 1020 yards is not.
19 Jun, 2011, Tonitrus wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
Right, that's the sort of problems I'm considering. If you had systems in place which relied on the spacial system (which would be the point of having it, I think) then you would have a big skill-gap between a player which can process the data vs a player who can not. An example would be a chain lightning ability that hops from target to target but only if each leap is a certain yards and only if it hasn't hit that target yet. It would be very difficult in real time for a human to determine "good" starting targets with what you described above. You'd see far more efficient players using some type of custom interface that processed the data for them. That seems defeating to me.


I agree. I was largely unable to think of anything resembling a passable approach for chain lightning. I could handle fireball with some smudgery, I think.

If it helps any, I'm considering having more of a Roguelike approach to ASCII maps to represent the spatial data visually. That's the only way I see to properly deal with things like chain lightning or a system that relies heavily on the spatial information.

As quixadhal mentioned, I do think a slower combat speed should probably go hand in hand with this sort of system.
19 Jun, 2011, Runter wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
Quix, are you suggesting the system show you the possible outcome before using the ability? In anything other than turn based that might not work as the variables would change before you had a chance to confirm.
19 Jun, 2011, quixadhal wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
Yes, although it doesn't need to be turn based. It can be accomplished if combat and movement are both paced, rather than the insta-move most Dikurivatives use.

Consider, in old DikuMUD's, movement was instant (that is, as fast as you could input the command and have it interpret it). On the old tick handler, this was about 1/4 of a second. Traveling for long distances was often done by macro or pre-typing, so players whooshed around the map from point to point. To prevent (or limit) this, most muds had a movement point or exhaustion system where every step took X points, and then you had to reset to regain them.

By contrast, most LpMUD's of the same time queued commands, and only executed one per heartbeat. So, you could type n;n;n;n, but it would still take you 8 seconds to get there (traditional heartbeats were 2 second intervals). In this case, there was no need for a move point system, since movement speed was already controlled.

If movement and combat both shared a common timer like this, the situtation would change but not so rapidly that this kind of confirmation prompt couldn't work. Obviously, turn based would make it easier still.
19 Jun, 2011, Scandum wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
I described a system here that some people might find interesting: http://www.mudbytes.net/index.php?a=topi...

For a full coordinate based system you'd tokenize the direct surroundings into a central location, and what's in front, behind, to the left, and to the right of the character. The tokenizer should probably grab the biggest objects and determine the relative position of smaller objects. After doing this creating a dynamic description and object handling should be much easier as you organize the data into something easy to work with.
20 Jun, 2011, quixadhal wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
OTOH, if you are using coordinates, one thing you can do when working out a description engine is to give every object an effective size so you can simulate both line-of-sight and level-of-detail.

If you're using a room paradigm as well, you may have to create large objects outside of rooms in order to allow them to be visible over large distances. For example, let's say you have a small forest of maple trees and a single redwood. From most of the maple forest around the redwood, you can't see it because the maple trees themselves block the LOS. However, from grasslands around the maple forest, you can probably see the redwood towering over the forest, and of course in close rooms you can see it through the foliage. If you just put the redwood inside the room it's in, there's no easy way to spot it from those grassland rooms unless you really scan hundreds of room around you for big objects. However, if the objects exist outside the rooms themselves, but have a "homeroom", you can traverse the object list for the zone and present any large ones that are close enough to your location to be able to see. Ordering the list by size and/or location makes such a traversal faster.
20 Jun, 2011, Idealiad wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
While I think coordinates, despite the interface hurdles, can't be beat for certain kinds of play (I love the ranged combat in GW2), I think there's a lot of unexplored territory on either side of conventional mud room/node systems.

There was a rather interesting take on mud space here:

http://gameshelf.jmac.org/2011/02/the-se...

The idea described there is of random generation of rooms, but if you return to the same area over and over you tend to get the same rooms.

Of course things get more interesting (challenging) the more PCs you put into the mix.

I've been messing around with something akin to old print gamebooks, which often combined situation with location. The system you use has a great influence on the mud's style of play. Vanilla rooms are great, but I think in many cases it leads to vanilla play as well. If you want something more interesting, maybe take a risk on how the spatial system works too.
20 Jun, 2011, Tonitrus wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
The standard microcosm approach to rooms also makes it very easy to "hide" things.

That is to say, if you want to open a new exit leading to a whole new section of a city based on a person's completion of a quest, you can do so quite easily. I have a harder time envisioning how to approach this in a coordinate-based system.
20 Jun, 2011, Runter wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
Exposing coordinates to users tends to be nasty. I think exposing landmarks is a better way, whether or not coordinates are used internally.

Anything relating to a user typing "fly to 1029.100.294" is gross to me.
21 Jun, 2011, quixadhal wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
I've thought about using coordinates before, and for the UI, it tends to want to break down to:

> go to the tall tree
You begin moving north towards the tall tree.

> set pace 100
Your slower party members can only travel at 80 yards per minute. Pace set to 80 yards.

> go north
You travel 80 yards to the north.

> goto 1200, 763, 12
You begin walking north-northwest.

The latter is the least friendly, unless you're in a space game… then coordinates might make sense. I think it's useful to allow players to navigate by coordinate if they want to, but I also don't think it should be something that's used very often.
21 Jun, 2011, Scandum wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
Something to consider as well is adding roads, along with a travel command to follow the road until it dead ends or intersects. A handful of road signs can be added to make navigation easier for newbies. Probably still a good idea to support landmarks so not everything ends up having a road lead to it, as that'd diminish the exploration element of the game.
22 Jun, 2011, KaVir wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
Tonitrus said:
I was largely unable to think of anything resembling a passable approach for chain lightning.

You could have a 'glance' command that shows the distances of other creatures relative to the target you're glancing at, that would work for fireballs as well. If you want to include shapes like cones and streams, you could perhaps have something similar, indicating who would get hit if you attacked your current target.

It's not ideal though, for that sort of accuracy I'd rather go the graphical route.

Runter said:
Exposing coordinates to users tends to be nasty. I think exposing landmarks is a better way, whether or not coordinates are used internally.

I've found it better to provide both. Landmarks are prettier, but they can also be confusing and ambigious - another frustrating barrier for a movement system that's already alien to most players. Revealing the coordinates also makes the world much easier to navigate, particularly for blind players.

Offering standard movement commands such as "north", "east", etc, can make the interface feel a bit more familiar, and for a coordinate-based world it makes sense to let players include a distance; typing "north 1 mile" is much more convenient than typing "north" 80 times in a row. But if players prefer to target exact coordinates, I think they should have that option as well.
22 Jun, 2011, Idealiad wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
Not to mention that exposing coordinates allows players to make their own landmarks; this can facilitate client plugins that come for example in the IC form of a map, a guidebook, or a set of knowledge from a PC's new guild or faction.
24 Jun, 2011, duwnel wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
Idealiad said:
Not to mention that exposing coordinates allows players to make their own landmarks; this can facilitate client plugins that come for example in the IC form of a map, a guidebook, or a set of knowledge from a PC's new guild or faction.


Players could conceivably produce their own landmarks without necessarily knowing the coordinate as "xxx,yyy,zz" by incorporation with a build command and by making the game emulate life a little more realistically. When you give directions, how often do you say, "Go to 33.41283354544102, -111.9182825088501, head south 30 feet, then turn east."? Usually you'd say something more akin to "Head south on 52nd Street and turn right on Avenue E" or whatever. In that case we're provided with a waypoint: "52nd Street" and "Avenue E", usually represented by a traffic sign at that intersection.

If JoeSchmoe (an avid MUD player) is at point 0,0 (assuming this is where players start after creating a new character for instance, perhaps known as Hometown) and wants to travel to the Crypt of Doooooom, it might not be in range for him to find. But say JaneSchmane has been there before, and set markers, JoeSchmoe could go, for instance, from his starting point could target Ulfgar's Forest, head east through the forest, target the Statue of Dig'em, then, from there, target JaneSchmane's own placed waystone (Which amounts to an item she built, which is specific to that coordinate, but could just of easily been placed 30 feet west) before targeting the Crypt of Doooooom.

If an area is given perimeter points, it's not infeasible that it could be made a target. No forest is just a forest, after all, and perhaps it would need to be surveyed by players to be claimed. The player need never know the coordinates (Why do they need to know the center of Ulfgar's Forest is at 567, 89, 3?), just the relative position from theirs (Internally calculated to -343,-642,10; externally "A few miles 'that-a-way'"). A scan command would allow you to see what's in range, vague relative distances would still allow for a bit of exploration The closer you are, the more precise your distance estimates become (perhaps too based on some perception attribute).
24 Jun, 2011, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
typing "north 1 mile" is much more convenient than typing "north" 80 times in a row.

loop 80 north isnot that different though

I coded the loop command for myself as an imm, I may give it to player if the yasked for it, but basically, either they use fastwalk to go from 'recall' to their choice of place, or they do not spam command.
Using coordinate is handy as you have a more realistic feeling though, and way better to provide things like archery . It also means you get rid of rooms alltogether and can now create world based on automatic description from a 3d world as well.
The question I have is how do you create the description without a graphical tool to model the world in the first place then ?
24 Jun, 2011, quixadhal wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
Who says you didn't use a graphical tool to model the world in the first place?

If you're using coordinates, you probably have a world map. It may be a hand-drawn map, or it may be something you drew or generated on the computer, or it may be purely an algorithm (fractal, perlin noise, etc)… but however you decided to use coordinates, there is some kind of visual map of the world, even if it's in your head.

The traditional MUD uses the concept of a room as a container. You make rooms that represent arbitrary spaces, which are only determined by how the description appears, and by their connections. At some point, you may add coordinates to this system, which often introduces inconsistencies. In a room based system, one room may be a tiny 5' closet, and another may be a 100 mile wide stretch of ocean. Even worse, their connections may be non-euclidean, meaning going north and then south doesn't land you where you were before.

If you get rid of the traditional room and instead generate "rooms" based on coordinate spaces, you may still hand-edit descriptions for many of them, and those rooms have to be saved to disk (by whatever means) so they are accessible by those coordinates. When you attempt to enter that space, if such a file exists, you present it as if it were a normal room. If not, you dynamically generate a room based on the map data.

How to do that? That's the fun part. As a base, you might consider looking at the map data in a radius around your current position and using that. You may also need a table of landmarks that are further away but still obviously visible. You may want to randomize phrases a bit, so walking across a large field doesn't LOOK like 200 cut-and-pasted descriptions.
24 Jun, 2011, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
Who says you didn't use a graphical tool to model the world in the first place?

I never said you did not, I asked how would you do it without.
And magical mazes when you can go north but not going back south or be elsewhere if you do are quite complicated to build this way too. So I ask the how, cause the tools, if they exist are of interest to me.
0.0/29