Bury command

[Cind]

Idea: The 'bury' command, to instigate a whole crop of treasure hiding, getting, searching and finding storylines.

Like this:

Code Select Expand


>e

NSWE
Some place out in the desert.

>dig shallow

You dig with your shovel, but find nothing.

>dig shallow

You dig with your shovel, but find nothing.

>dig deep

Your shovel hits something.

>l

NSWE
Some place out in the desert.
--A deep hole is here.

>dip deep

You unearth a plain baobab chest.

>open chest

You open a plain baobab chest.

>exam chest

Description of the chest
Inside a plain baobab chest:
several black silt pearls
some uncarved rubies
a finely-made kryl chest plate
a brick of dark-red spice
an awesome sword
a silver ring
some other cool stuff


It'd be like... you know, sorcerors and psions and whatever can bury their forbidden books or spell components or something. Would make it much easier for people who are trying to survive in Tuluk, for example, if they're already suspected by someone of being a gicker, if they can hide those human skulls somewhere. And the difficulty with which the buried stuff can be found depends on the terrain and maybe maps can be automatically made when you bury something, and you can choose to copy or destroy the map. And make it so that digging up a buried treasure in, say, the red desert, becomes nigh impossible even if you know the room location, unless you have the map, or are the one who buried it. In a place like a small cave, it'd be easier, but by no means into the realm of easy, but you could certainly eventually find the treasure in that room without the original burier or a map, given time.

Anyone like this?

EDIT: Oh, and I think anyone who is in some way present and able to see the treasure being buried, should be able to find it with the same or nearly the same accuracy of the one who buries it as well.

[musashi]

I think something more versatile like, being able to hide objects, and have people ferret them out with the search or scan skill, would allow for more flexibility. Instead of just digging, with a shovel, outside, you could then hide stuff under beds, in gutters on the street for later pick up by your sleezy contact, ect. As well as bury your pirate treasure.

[Maso]

I would -love- to see something like this. I've always wanted to stumble across something randomly hidden in some strange place I've come across...

I'm thinking it might be pretty hard to implement in rooms without the Save flag though?

[Cind]

I think something more versatile like, being able to hide objects, and have people ferret them out with the search or scan skill, would allow for more flexibility. Instead of just digging, with a shovel, outside, you could then hide stuff under beds, in gutters on the street for later pick up by your sleezy contact, ect. As well as bury your pirate treasure.

+1

[Synthesis]

You don't need the items to be saved across reboots, if everyone understands that losing the loot in such a manner is a risk inherent in the process.  Think of it as a critical fail for the ability.

[Feco]

You don't need the items to be saved across reboots, if everyone understands that losing the loot in such a manner is a risk inherent in the process.  Think of it as a critical fail for the ability.

I like this.  I imagine something that lasts forever would likely be a pain in the ass to code, but the ability to hide items like this could be very useful and make for fun RP.

Perhaps add another use for the search skill which allows those experienced in it to uncover these items.

[RogueGunslinger]

Forage artifact, imo.

[A Large Bag]

I like the idea of being able to hide items, no save necessary. Have people with the search skill be able to find hidden items or possibly those with scan being able to spot them. Maybe, make it something everyone can do to a very basic degree but those who actually have the hide skill get a bonus to hiding items making it harder for others to find them.

[Lithium]

I think something more versatile like, being able to hide objects, and have people ferret them out with the search or scan skill, would allow for more flexibility. Instead of just digging, with a shovel, outside, you could then hide stuff under beds, in gutters on the street for later pick up by your sleezy contact, ect. As well as bury your pirate treasure.

+1

+1 Love it

[bcw81]

Code the current Hide skill to work with items as well. Just have items hide as if they were an NPC who could be ORDER NAME HIDE.

[Barsook]

Code the current Hide skill to work with items as well. Just have items hide as if they were an NPC who could be ORDER NAME HIDE.

+1

[Synthesis]

Ha, that would be an awful hack.

The processes that interact with mob/pc hiding would make very little sense when ported to object hiding.

[valeria]

You say to a small chunk of unworked sapphire: "Under the other rocks.  Now.  Or I get the beating spoon."

[brytta.leofa]

Do the checks off the search skill, maybe?

I've missed scan when I didn't have it, but not search.  Using it to hide and seek objects would give the poor search skill some love.

[Schrodingers Cat]

Anything is possible with code it's just a matter of: does staff want it and does someone want to code it.

How would hiding things effect the game as we know it now?

Would the buried items be saved to the room?  Would they persist through crashes and reboots?

I imagine it'd be possible to go far out into remote parts of the desert and hide lots of things in the sand.  I like it because it would allow someone to stockpiling a lot of things this way and coming back later to dig it all up.  Realistic sure and only somewhat abuseable if used across characters (a character buries a chest of gold and later dies, a subsequent character manages to return and "discovers" chest of buried gold!)

Should it be possible that the sand/dirt would randomly uncover buried items (from wind or other erosion) and reveal them just to be on the ground?  Would it be possible to discover items while burying other items?  Would rooms fill up if they had too many items buried there and there is no more room?  Outside rooms can be fairly large.  Would it matter if there were other things in the room?  Should some rooms not be able to have things buried in them because they are too rocky or the ground is to hard/wet (yeah I know, wet?!?  but it could happen).

If the items are saved to the room, if they are uncovered, are they still going to be saved to the room or will they vanish if the game goes down and restarts?

Would it be possible for someone to see that the dirt had been disturbed?  How much time would it take to revert to a natural state so it didn't appear that someone has buried something?

How deep are we burying things?  The deeper something is, the less likely it is to be exposed, discovered, lost to mischievous (v)npcs.

There is a lot to think about, how simple or complex would it be.  How realistic is realistic enough?  Is it really worth it?

[brytta.leofa]

Skill Bury    (Equipment)
This skill allows your character to attempt to conceal an object in the room in which he/she is currently standing.  Objects are easier to hide (and harder to find again) outdoors and in shadowy areas, and hiding small objects is easier than hiding large ones.  A freshly concealed item can be found only by someone whose search skill (q.v.) is higher than your bury skill.  With the passage of time and traffic, the object may be unearthed from its hiding place, and objects hidden outdoors may be lost forever.

Syntax:
bury <object>

Delay:
before

Notes:

Sneakies and skinnies love watching you bury your loot.

[Feco]

Skill Bury    (Equipment)
This skill allows your character to attempt to conceal an object in the room in which he/she is currently standing.  Objects are easier to hide (and harder to find again) outdoors and in shadowy areas, and hiding small objects is easier than hiding large ones.  A freshly concealed item can be found only by someone whose search skill (q.v.) is higher than your bury skill.  With the passage of time and traffic, the object may be unearthed from its hiding place, and objects hidden outdoors may be lost forever.

Syntax:
bury <object>

Delay:
before

Notes:

Sneakies and skinnies love watching you bury your loot.

I like it.  I see absolutely no need for these objects to last through reboots.  It would be nice, but it's hardly necessary.

[Kismetic]

You could just streamline this, and give the current 'hide' skill more functionality, in this case, with the ability to 'hide <object>'.  Wilderness vs. city hide skill would remain intact.  Size and object type would modify results.  Objects could be found with a 'search' check (as suggested, beefing search's usefulness), and the person doing the hiding would have a marked bonus in finding their own hidden objects.

Reasonably, if one knows how to blend into the environment, they could put that knowledge towards concealing an object.

Edit:  Now, I see this was already suggested.  D'oh!

[brytta.leofa]

Y'know, here's a simpler way.  We already have semi-hidden objects (dung, certain shelves and closets, etc.) that can be found with "keyword" but aren't readily visible.

Let people with hide/sleight of hand/steal/?? hide objects with an absolute check based on size, skill, and the indoor/outdoor flag: you can hide a pack in an indoor city room, but not a chest; you can hide chests in the wilderness, but not wagons and shipping containers.

Anyone can find anything, regardless of skill, with "key <object keyword>" or "key ."  Obscurity wins.

> hide medallion
You conceal your medallion of Tektolnes in A Dingy, Run-Down Apartment.
> hide pack
You don't think you can hide a pack here.  (It's doable, but you don't have enough skill.)
> hide chest
It is way too big; surely someone would notice!

No new skills or (per se) commands, no new flags on objects, just a sanity-checked method for letting players flip the hidden switch that seems to already exist.

[Maso]

Skill Bury    (Equipment)
This skill allows your character to attempt to conceal an object in the room in which he/she is currently standing.  Objects are easier to hide (and harder to find again) outdoors and in shadowy areas, and hiding small objects is easier than hiding large ones.  A freshly concealed item can be found only by someone whose search skill (q.v.) is higher than your bury skill.  With the passage of time and traffic, the object may be unearthed from its hiding place, and objects hidden outdoors may be lost forever.

Syntax:
bury <object>

Delay:
before

Notes:

Sneakies and skinnies love watching you bury your loot.

I like it.  I see absolutely no need for these objects to last through reboots.  It would be nice, but it's hardly necessary.

I feel like it would be completely pointless if the items didn't last through a reboot. If you're burying something to hide it - it's obviously important. If you can afford to lose it in a reboot or a random crash...then it's probably not important enough to bury.

[brytta.leofa]

I feel like it would be completely pointless if the items didn't last through a reboot. If you're burying something to hide it - it's obviously important. If you can afford to lose it in a reboot or a random crash...then it's probably not important enough to bury.

I kind of agree.  It might be adequate to only hide stuff in save rooms, though, at least as a start.

[Reiteration]

Hidden items should persist only when not in the wilderness or in wilderness quit-safe rooms like caves, an item can be hidden under a pile of bricks, but once the sand blows over (or grass grows over, if you're a pansy) the item outdoors, it will be impossible to find again.

[Synthesis]

I feel like it would be completely pointless if the items didn't last through a reboot. If you're burying something to hide it - it's obviously important. If you can afford to lose it in a reboot or a random crash...then it's probably not important enough to bury.

I kind of agree.  It might be adequate to only hide stuff in save rooms, though, at least as a start.

I might agree if crashes were as common as they once were.  However, they aren't.

Also, there are plenty of reasons to hide things that aren't terribly important.  Not everything you'd like to keep is something of irreplaceable importance.  The fact that it's replaceable doesn't necessarily mean it's not important enough to want to keep safer than "wide out in the open for anyone to take."  Further, not everything is going to be stashed in such a way for a long period of time.  It's quite possible you only need it to be hidden for a RL hour or less, and (lately) the likelihood of a crash occurring during any particular period of time of that length is fairly small.

It might not be a dramatically game-changing code addition, but it's not a terrible idea.  I'd base it off the forage skill because a) it stands to reason that, since forage is used to find things, being good at finding things lends itself to stashing things as well and b) everyone gets the forage skill, and successfully stashing loot shouldn't require a specialized background.

Loot stashes could be detectable with:

1.  Scan. Let's say loot stashed with the lowest 10-20% of skill-check results could be picked up 100% of the time with maxed scan...loot stashed 21-40% successfully would be 50% with maxed scan, and above 41% just being observant wouldn't be sufficient.

2.  Search.  Maxed search should find loot stashes 100% of the time with enough effort and skill, although it might take numerous attempts before success.

3.  Forage.  Less useful than search, but effective for all but the most masterfully stashed loot.

4. Magick and/or psionics.  If such functionality would make sense.

Also, I'd add a separate forage keyword for it.  "Forage loot" or something.

[Maso]

Hidden items should persist only when not in the wilderness or in wilderness quit-safe rooms like caves, an item can be hidden under a pile of bricks, but once the sand blows over (or grass grows over, if you're a pansy) the item outdoors, it will be impossible to find again.

You should totally be able to hide something in a cave! That's like...the first place I'd think of.

[Kismetic]

As for hiding things with seemingly no value ...

Code Select Expand

You get the head of a lanky, tan half-breed from a large bag.

>hide head
You search around, looking for a place to hide the head of a lanky, tan half-breed.