Tharsis . Design . RecordingBodyShape

As part of the building of an object library for the mud we need to gather details about the state of things already in play.

The tool /players/fantom/obj/recorder/recorder.c can be used by players to record the shape of all the monsters in the mud.

The tool provides the 'body' command and should be used when in the room with a monster for whom the details need to be recorded.

The command body <monster> lists the existing details of the monster.

The command body <monster> humanoid tail horns hooves would define monster as being humanoid (head/torso/arms/legs) with a tail, horns and hooves.

The command body <monster> -tail noears would remove the tail and add noears.

All changes are logged.

There is now a body all command to list the details of all monsters in the room, this is useful for determining what has yet to be done.

Add suggestions below.

-- FantoM - 21 Feb 2005

Body shape overview

See 'body shapes' for the full list.
All things are presumed to have a head, unless nohead is given.
You should try to choose one of the "base" shapes from the table below and alter it as necessary by adding other shapes

base shape	includes	examples
Arachnid	legs8, eyes8, torso, notoes	Spiders and ...
Avian	torso, wings, leg2	Birds
Humanoid	leg2, arm2, torso	Physical demons, skeletons, trolls
Leg4	leg4 (four legs), torso, noarms	Dogs, horses, elephants
Reptile	torso, leg4, tail, scales, noarms	Lizards, crocodiles, etc.
Snake	torso, tail, noears, nolegs, noarms	Snakes!
Fish	torso, tail, fins	Any fish-like creature
Insect	torso, 6 legs, 2eyes, noarms, notoes	An insect!
Codertodo	nothing	Anythign so wierd the coder will have to decide

Note that arms implies hands and hands implies fingers. to alter this the nohands and nofingers attributes exist.
Ditto with legs implying feet and toes and the nofeet and hooves attributes.
Torso implies arms and legs
Head implies eyes, ears and brain
Everything has a head unless you do nohead.
Upright is a special one implying that 2 of the legs are used for walking and as arms.
- Eg rabbits, dragons, kangaroos and scorpions.
  - Does upright imply a leg4 -leg2 arm2? I marked most dragons as upright with tail winged and now I will be going back through re-labeling them "body dragon reptile upright winged tail scales claws -leg2 arm2". * Upright implies that 2 of the legs function as arms some percentage of the time. You still need to specify how many legs it has. -- FantoM

* Another question I had, will -leg2 remove leg2 off the base of a reptile (leg4,tail) or will that only subtract if a leg2 attribute was added extra? -- TuKaN - 22 Feb 2005

- Recording -leg2 has no effect - it just removes any leg2 that was already there, in this case there wasn't one. -- FantoM

Sizes are now supported, use the table below to get the right value. Don't worry if you feel you are out by a bit. If the size is omitted then its presumably medium.

size	feet (size)	examples
szTiny	0-1	hand-sized or smaller: insect,rat,mouse,frog,snake
szSmall	2-4	smaller than an adult: halfling,dwarf,cat,dog,children
szMedium	5-8	human,cow,horse,shark
szLarge	9-30	ogre,car,elephant
szHuge	31-90	giant,whale,dragon
szColossal	91-	large dragon, big dianosaur, etc

Parts yet to handle

beaks: could add to avian, need to check what has been labled as avian, if dragons then we have to provide a nobeak. Do dragons have a beak?

Suggestions:

A command for listing the monsters in the room who don't have any details.
Maybe add NPC or Mob to the Humanoid value. (This could be useful later on when deciding on monster behaviours and speech patterns.) -- LuCid - 22 Feb 2005
- Doesn't say much about their shape. Speach and AI should go elsewhere really (and todo) --Main.FreD
- You mean human vs humanoid? -- FantoM - 22 Feb 2005
  - Well there are generic humans, and then there are humans with Capitalizations and actual names (ie NPCs.) -- LuCid - 22 Feb 2005

Shouldn't avian's include feathers? -- LuCid - 22 Feb 2005
- I left them off as bats and similiar things don't have feathers. -- FantoM - 22 Feb 2005

Avians should auto-include a tail. -- LuCid - 26 Feb 2005
- Thoughts anyone? If we add it we have to revisit all the avians and do "notail" (which we don't currently have)) -- FantoM
- Birds do have a tail-bone. I think bats have one too, but just a very short one (some might have longer). When we come to gargoyles and harpys, we don't have very many of those (todo) -- FreD
  - I already left off the tail on all the avians because it should be pre-set. And there aren't really all that many avians. Dragons, birds. There was only one thing that i can think of that probably +doesn't+ have a tail, and that's the wisp in Danaar. -- LuCid - 27 Feb 2005

There should be a 'hair' setting. Fur doesn't always make sense. -- LuCid - 26 Feb 2005
- Hair isn't important enough in my eyes. It wouldn't do you much good having hair when you get hit by a truck would it? Neither does fur I suppose, Im still thinking this over -- FreD
  - One can clench something's hair as leverage in combat. -- LuCid - 27 Feb 2005
  - Body shape is not only for combat. If I have a corpse we could use the hair/fur/scales bit to determine what you get when you skill it. -- FantoM
  - I'm pondering if there is any need to specify the "substance" for some creatures. Like stoneskin (some trolls), clayskin (some golems), iceskin (some more golems). It would have some effect on many things. If you like to severe a stoneskin monster with a standard knife would be pretty tough. Trolls would swim pretty badly, golems would dissolve in water and more; spells which can apply stoneskin or turn a target into ice (iceskin to cathegorize them as substance) I don't know yet how many monster need this, but it would definately make things more intresting (plus more fun code). -- FreD
    - I think substances will have to be handled by the coder, or be associated with species/race for a default -- FantoM

Thoughts

If a creature is magical or not is a race thing, not the shape.
Snowmen slide magically.
Upright is a way of using your limbs, not a shape. IE upright 6 legged thing or upright 4 legged thing.
There is no checking in the input for conflicting info. You can specify humanoid snake.
If you enter several values and one is invalid (doesn't exist) the tool doesn't give any feedback if one of a set of values is invalid, just rejects them all.
Not all avians have feathers, those who do, specify each case.

I'm compiling a list of recorded areas to help the recorders.

Completed areas:

Tolnedra (I think we got everything. This area is quite large.)
Magnus' Tower (Area just south and west of wisdom trainers.)
Village of the Ancients
Rift (The place where you climb down from the Towpath road. Has clockwise-type exits.)
Towpath
Areas off Chaos Tree:
- Caemlyn (Including sub-areas.)
- Q-zar
- Asylum (Including prison, sewer, and the rest.)
- Warcraft (incomplete.)
Danarr 90% Complete
- Treants
- Troll (orges, all land wanderers.)
- Wiztower
- Forgotten Tempple
- Dark Caverns
- Krestle Keep (incomplete.)
East of Tolnedra:
- Peat Bog
- Koi in pond.
- Playdoh Area tree with squirrels (Through portal.)
Riva
Bismarck
Dwarven Outpost
Elfrea (All sub-areas too.)
Karak-Azul
That area on the west side of Towpath:
- Zalpur
- Cloud palace
- Every area over here. I don't know their callnames.
All the areas northwest of Towpath:
- Hall of Heros and the skeletons, etc.
- Monks
- Minotaurs
- Snow dragon
- Robed ones
Harn (Almost all. Chance of losing recorder going there. :( )
Ishtar 0%
- A bug made all creatures there humanoid, tail, winged, horns, szLarge (or someone joking around). This is in todo to separate them from the monster with mentioned shape.
  - Ishtar, and probably Styl, doesn't have special monsters, they just clone the generic "monster" and alter it's appearance. Some other areas do this a bit too. Unfortunately in the eyes of the tool they are all exactly the same thing. -- FantoM

Remaining areas unconfirmed. I'm checking them all myself to make sure they are all correct. I've spent a couple hours each day.

The recorders: Jinx (Ninja,) Metallica, Poeun (Cuddles, me.) -- LuCid - 27 Feb 2005

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