Approach (from threaten thread)

[Jenred]

I didn't want to derail the threaten thread further, so here is an idea for a command called Approach. Basically it allows you to move closer to a character, allowing a number of functions that would increase playability. Firstly, it deals with the issue that I initially brought it up for: people running away from hostile situations annoyingly. But it has other friendly/neutral applications, here are ome examples.

Hostile

Code Select Expand

>A human soldier has arrived from the north.
>A human soldier begins approaching you.
>A human soldier stops next to you.
>
>e
>You begin to move away from a human soldier.
>A human soldier subdues you despite your attempts to move away.
In this scenario, the soldier comes in and approaches you. There is a delay for him while approaching that lets you have some lee-way if you see someone moving in on you that you don't want to be near. This would be affected by sneak and run. Obviously someone running at you has a shorter delay, and sneaking might make their approach unnoticed. Similarly with moving away. Sneak would have penalties with moving away, since they stopped right next to you, it might be more difficult to move away. You could disengage or back up, or the other player could do it. Skills like moving in a direction, if you were the approacher would automatically make you move away.

Neutral 1.

Code Select Expand

>n
>You move north.  "Outside the Gladiator and the Gaj"
>A tall man has arrived from the south.
>A tall woman has arrived from the south.
>A short man has arrived from the south.
>
>A tall man and tall woman approach a short man.
>Near a short man, a tall man says something, arching his brows curiously.
>Near a short man, you overhear a tall woman say "Hello".
>A tall man begins guarding a short man and a tall woman.
>
>l groups
>Group 1: A tall man, a tall woman, a short man.
>approach group 1
>You begin approaching a tall man, a tall woman, and a short man but a tall man gets in your way.
This situation allows the table-conversing code to be used in rooms without tables. Especially useful in situations with alot of people outdoors. It would also limit alot of spam, as you'd not notice as many actions unless watching a group of people. It cuts down on conversation spam, allows for different uses of the guard skill. It would also eliminate movement spam, as groups would be clumped.


Here is some run downs.
-Allows for table-conversations outside.
-Eliminates some movement spam in larger groups.
-Allows for less twinky behavior with raiders or law enforcement.
-Allows for guarding of multiple people (with lesser success per extra person).


Basically a less-ROMmy version of the group command, more streamlined to facilitate roleplay. To prevent confusion, if two people are close together they become a group, and would be viewable in the room like the look tables command.

[brytta.leofa]

It's a really great idea, in the sense that it gives the code important information that it couldn't otherwise guess.  I like it, and think it's a perfectly natural thing to do: 90% of the time, you're going to emote how you approach someone before engaging them, even though there's no coded action involved.

Some folks feel that it's too cumbersome; others have proposed fairly heavyweight implementations that I think try to squeeze more juice than this potato will yield.  Either way, it does seem to keep getting shot down: in particular, I understand that the staff considered this for Arm Reborn and decided to reject the, heh, approach.

There've been a couple good threads on this...if anybody wants to search 'em up?

[Eloran]

Yes please.

[Taven]

This sort of makes the whole thread moot: http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,30896.0.html

Having not completely read all of them, a quick search finds:

http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,31155.0.html
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,28262.msg299930.html#msg299930
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,32858.msg393749.html#msg393749    <--- This is closer to the threaten in the other thread.
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,26389.0.html
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,13868.0.html
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,16398.0.html
http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,31683.0.html

There's probably more, too, but you can find them yourselves.

[Jenred]

All but two of those links are from the Arm Reborn forum (which I don't really follow, for two reasons 1: not wanting to spoil the new game too much, and 2: its almost a fictional board, with alot of ideas that the majority of which won't be implemented).

The two that arn't from the Reborn forum are both 4 years old - received alot of positive feedback and critiques and then die out without even a staff response. The nature of most good coding ideas in the forums.

[Taven]

All but two of those links are from the Arm Reborn forum (which I don't really follow, for two reasons 1: not wanting to spoil the new game too much, and 2: its almost a fictional board, with alot of ideas that the majority of which won't be implemented).

The two that arn't from the Reborn forum are both 4 years old - received alot of positive feedback and critiques and then die out without even a staff response. The nature of most good coding ideas in the forums.

There is an offical staff position, and that is that there won't be an approach system implemented, at least not for Arm 2. I would assume this means that they won't be doing it for Arm 1, either.