Up to Main Index                             Up to Journal for March, 2016

                   JOURNAL FOR WEDNESDAY 9TH MARCH, 2016
______________________________________________________________________________

SUBJECT: It only took 16 months!
   DATE: Wed  9 Mar 22:39:46 GMT 2016

Last night, for the first time in about 16 months, I was once again able to
walk around all 42 locations that make up the Zinara zone in WolfMUD. All of
the locations were loaded from the zinara.wrj plain text data file. Until now
there has only been 10 testing locations - all of them hardcoded in setup.go.

I think that might just be a major milestone :)

There are still a few things not quite working yet.

In WolfMUD there are two ways of specifying where objects should go in the
World. The first is to specify a reference on the item/location where it
should go:


        Ref: L1
       Name: Fireplace
    Aliases: TAVERN FIREPLACE
      Exits: E→L3 SE→L4 S→L2
  Inventory: O1 O2

  You are in the corner of a common room in the Dragon's Breath tavern. There
  is a fire burning away merrily in an ornate fireplace giving comfort to
  weary travellers. Shadows flicker around the room, changing light to
  darkness and back again. To the south the common room extends and east the
  common room leads to the tavern entrance.


Here the "Inventory: O1 O2" says that the things with references O1 and O2
should be put at this location. The second way of specifying where an object
should go looks like this:


      Name: a runestone
   Aliases: RUNE RUNESTONE STONE
  Location: L13 L23 L8 L29 L37

  This is a flat polished stone about half an inch wide by an inch long. One
  side is smooth. On the other a strange rune has been carved.


Here the "Location: L13 L23 L8 L29 L37" says that the object - A runestone -
should be placed into five different locations; L13, L23, L8, L29 and L37.

The first of these is already done and working. The second is working but
quite hacky. Both also have a major flaw. If you reference an object to
put it into multiple locations - it's the same object, in multiple places at
once. For objects that can change state, like a bag, the effects are...
interesting.

You can put the bag in two locations. Then have two players and have each one
pick up a bag. Now if one player places something in the bag the other can
take it out - because it's the same bag! *sigh* A nice game mechanic but not
what you would expect[1].

For things to work properly Thing and all Attribute types need to be able to
clone themselves so separate copies are added to the world. Which is how I
deem should be. When a player gets an item, unless it is special in some way,
they get to keep it. If data files for the MUD are then updated to tweak the
item, for example change the description or update some of it's statistics,
the one the player has already got will not change. Anyone who acquires the
item now get the new version. The player now has a rare, limited edition item.

It also looks like I will have to rework Vetoes a bit as they don't play well
with the .wrj format at the moment. I can make them work, but it's very ugly
and cumbersome.

I haven't push out any new updates yet but hope to do so in a day or so, maybe
at the weekend. Still a few rough edges to sort out first.

--
Diddymus

  [1] Would be great for implementing some kind of delivery or transport
      system though.


  Up to Main Index                             Up to Journal for March, 2016