TOC: No TOC in "Design.DesignDiscussionLogs"

Vague descripions

Vague descriptions

Note: How do we track what objects are familiar with?

Note: How do we track what objects we are familiar with?

%META:TOPICINFO{author="PumaN" date="1047032460" format="1.0" version="1.1"}% %META:TOPICPARENT{name="OverallDesign"}%

Vague descripions

Puma  : Was thinking to write something about the problems of descriptions as you wrote about gems...
Elffy : ok back to the descriptions and gems.
Elffy : i don't have a prop written yet ...
Puma  : I was thinking of the technical difficulties of descriptions...
Elffy : shorts ?
Puma nods.
Elffy : i would think thats covered?
Elffy : with adjectives and the like.
Puma  : Using actions-code, you can generate proper shorts for each party partaking in that action, but there is also a generic message going to the room...
Puma  : I mean, I give you green moss, but when you look in inventory, you have a strange plant...that problem...
Elffy : i see
Puma  : I guess you would like to do ruby/red gem and similar...?
Ellfy nogs.
Puma  : Problem is, what do we send to the room...?
Elffy : vague_plural/vague_short
Puma  : Can we use only unknown shorts there...?
Elffy nogs.
Elffy : you can't predict who is going to see it.
Elffy : well you could actually
Puma  : You can, but it would be a lot of extra code...
Elffy nogs.
Puma  : You would have to generate a message for each person in the room...
Elffy : gayness
Puma  : Do you think objects should have several levels of description...? A sharp object of metal/a sword/the blade of slaying
Elffy : isn't that a little nuts?
Puma  : I dont know, why...?
Elffy : well not too nuts.
Elffy : only the first one is nuts ...
Elffy : unless your basing it on INT :)
Puma nods.
Elffy : i'm so dumb I can't see this is a sword :)
Puma  : It would be kind of fun playing a dumb ogre in that sense... ,o)
Puma  : No offense to Fanny... ,o)
Elffy : which is kind of valid ... some people re-arrange their int to nothing.
Puma nogs.
Puma  : But then you really get a problem...
Elffy : passing shorts becomes a nightmare.
Puma  : Cause the lowest one wont be acceptable as standard for those not totally unintelligent...
Elffy : it could be interpretted in the player object ?
Puma  : How...?
Elffy : pass a lambda instead of a string :)
Puma hmms.
Elffy : or some bit of code.
Elffy : instead of a static string.
Puma  : Thats pretty much the same as generating messages for each person in the room though...?
Elffy : i don't know if thats possible though
Elffy : no it would just pass the same message with the short part as a variable ?
Elffy : is that possible?
Puma  : Kind of...

Note: How do we track what objects are familiar with?

Object library generation

Elffy : we'd need an object library though.
Puma  : Nod, writing a small sequence diagram of that right now...
Elffy : how are you planning on handling that ?
Puma  : Not sure yet...
Elffy : are we going to have to plug in materials and such ?
Elffy : or can we make some assumptions ?
Puma  : Plug in...?
Elffy : open up /blah/blah/staffofdecap.c edit ... set_material("wood");   ... etc ad infinitum.
Puma  : Nah...
Puma  : What I was thinking is more like get_me_a("ogre warrior")
Puma  : Or what was you thinking about...?
Elffy : i am blank ...
Elffy : i was just interested to see what you came up with.
Elffy : my stuff would be needlessly convoluted :(
Puma  : Putting all the responsibility on me...!
Puma grins evilly.
Puma  : Im trying to make it as simple as possible to use it...as I usually do...
Elffy : so in that instance the obj lib would look at the 2 words and build an object based on others in the library ?
Puma  : I dont think a string like that is a good idea, but basically yeah....
Elffy : get_me_a( ({
Puma  : And he should come fully equipped...
Elffy : right on
Puma  : With appropriate gear...
Elffy : would an ogre really be an ogre without a wooden club and a leather jerkin ?
Puma  : Probably not, so we define him in the library as wanting to have that...

Overall design

Elffy : i'm not as worried about the design as much as making what we have conform ...
Puma blehs at Elffy.
Elffy : am i thinking too much ?
Puma  : Nah, I just dont want to think about that... .o)
Elffy : i was thinking if we could brainstorm a little maybe we could make it less painful.
Puma  : Our current areas are as un-dynamic as something can get, so its hard to think them in this designing...
Elffy nogs.
Puma  : Nod, depends a bit on our overall goals, which we havent dedided upon...
Elffy : so we can probably ignore some of our static stuff.
Puma  : I hope so...
Puma  : Perhaps they can be converted, I dont know...
Puma  : I lack an overall goal though...
Elffy : maybe we could make a player tool ... to have Elffy walk around and set some of the stuff to the right material.
Puma  : Oh, I dont worry too much about material stuff...
Puma  : Nothing that says we must have material just cause we have a library...
Elffy : i'm going back to the initial part where you had multiple shorts per object based on rules.
Puma  : Nod...?
Elffy : so maybe we talk about what we are trying to accomplish.
Puma  : With...?
Elffy : object library etc.
Puma nods.
Elffy : then maybe we can better prioritize.
Puma  : Question is a lot of what kind of mud we are wanting...
Elffy : ok
Elffy : I would like to see a healthy mix of combat and crafting ...
Elffy : real but not ultra real ...
Puma  : Are we happy with a hack-and-slash static mud...do we want to make a humongous world where you can travel in 50 million rooms, whats character-development like...
Elffy : no ... yes ... and i dunno :0
Puma  : There are a lot more ways to go than the standard ones of extreme reality too...
Elffy : middle ground ...
Elffy : i am fine with settling for playability
Puma  : Not just middle-ground, you can cut an utterly complex thing into a single bit of nothingness, and the game will still be fun...
Elffy : i see your point ...
Elffy : what I am trying to say is i'm flexible ...
Puma nods.
Elffy : it sounds like you have som real plans.
Puma  : I have a lot of different kind of plans, but I dont know which ones to head for...
Puma  : As its a question of what kind of game you want to have...
Elffy : kick the biggest guys ass first ... then all the shitheels will follow :)
Puma  : I saw the other day a mud that purposefully cut their whole world into a small island, so that players would meet and interact more...
Puma  : Thats a real design-decision...
Puma  : Instead of a 'lets build this'...
Elffy : interesting
Elffy : and then what you teleport to places ?
Puma  : Dont know how they did it, they just purposefully didnt make their world extremely large, went for detail instead...
Elffy : ic
Elffy : so you want me to just spout out some ideas ?

World/Grid

Elffy : i really like that prop I wrote about the world_d ... but I realized as soon as i started that I don't have all the pieces ...
Puma  : What pieces were missing...?
Elffy : and purgie was telling me somethign about ROMS
Elffy : rom code based.
Elffy : she said all the rooms have a number.
Elffy : vnum
Elffy : the part I was missing was a mapping system ...
Puma  : A grid...?
Elffy nogs.
Elffy : a way of identifying where all of those features are so they can be digested and spit back out in descriptions.
Puma nods.
Elffy : and it wouldn't have to be elaborate ...
Puma  : I have even been thinking whether it would be possible to build areas using the architecture stuff I put in housing...
Puma  : Cause if you are going to have that kind of details, you cant code it all, a single room would grow hmuongous...
Elffy nogs.
Puma  : Thus Id prefer if you could use building-blocks and put them together...

Project design

Elffy : your design document is starting to make more sense now...
Puma  : Which...?
Elffy : twiki
Elffy : the main page of the design web.
Puma  : How so...?
Elffy : sounds like you want an action plan
Puma nods.
Puma  : I guess design is not about the amount of detail you can put into it, but the amount of detail you can cut away from it...
Elffy : you want a list of goals ... and a plan on execution of each of those goals.
Puma nods.
Elffy : a classic project.
Elffy : i've written quite a few for work.
Puma  : Good, Ive never done any...
Puma grins evilly.
Elffy : I have a form somewhere ...
Puma  : Check my idea under GameTime also, its quite a major thing, that I need feedback on...
Elffy : time_d can be leveraged for that I think .. if we scale the day correctly
Puma  : Check second idea...
Elffy : objective ... goal ... methodology
Puma  : Whats goal...?
Puma  : In this context...
Elffy : i get mixed up on that part of the form :)
Elffy : objective: To lower communications costs.   goal: to lower the communications costs by $1000 over the next year ... methdology: I will lower the cost of communications by $1000 by doing the following ... x ... y .... z
Puma goes, 'Heh.'
Puma goes, "Ah...That makes a lot more sense..."
Elffy : in the job world its about accountability ...
Elffy : we don't really have time lines here  ...
Puma nods.
Elffy : but we could use the goal to just focus more on what it is we want ...
Puma nods.
Elffy : or identify key areas that will make an impact.
Puma  : Especially I think we need to decide on certain things...
Puma  : Because sometimes theres more than one way of solving a problem...
Puma  : And sometimes one of the solutions leads to another problem, that has to be solved as well...
Elffy nogs.
Puma  : Before you can decide which path to take...
Elffy : this project plan basically outlays what you want to do ... and then gets people moving forward on it.
Elffy : it doesn't outline everything.
Puma nods.
Elffy : sometimes thats better ... some things are overwhelming ... and not detailing them helps.
Elffy : so I think we've identified heaps of things we'd like to do ...
Puma  : But not how to do them...
Elffy : now we just have to figure which things are dependant on eachother ... and start at the bottom.
Puma  : Nod, I think we got object-library and combat system as two of those...

Combattime

Elffy : but when you think about time and movement ... how can combat begin without either of those ?
Puma  : Think we should leave movement, movement will not be free inside combat...time is more a matter of whether we want round-time or turns...
Elffy : time could easily move differently when we enter combat.
Elffy : yeesh ... its 3am.
Puma  : Nod, but its also a matter of how to perform combat once you are in it...do you ever get any sleep...?
Puma  : Ill compile the discussion...
Elffy goes: Whee!
Puma  : Need to get Fantom into this too...

-- PumaN - 07 Mar 2003 %META:TOPICMOVED{by="PumaN" date="1047032392" from="Design.DiscussionLogs" to="Design.DesignDiscussionLogs"}%