Travelling the wilderness

[theebie]

hi,

what about the following idea:

in order to make travel from the north to the south (or from point-a to point-b) more interesting, more dangerous, and longer, let's change rooms. whenever somebody enters a flagged room (like "Scrub Plains, Base of the Shield Wall", or some desert/forest/whatever room), there's a chance of 5% that instead of entering that room, you're entering a computer-generated area of rooms instead, which could for example be an area of 10x10 rooms, with you starting somewhere in the very middle of that area.

these areas have 4 "exits (north,south,east,west) which will lead out of the computer generated area, back to the "normal" worldmap, letting the hero progress normally on his journey.

example:

r r r r r r r N r r
r r r r r r r r r r
r r r r r r r r r E
r r r H r r r r r r
r r r r r r r r r r
r r r r r r r r r r
W r r r r r r r r r
r r r r r r r r r r
r r r r r r r r r r
r r r r r r r r S r

with 'r' beeing a generated room, 'N' leading back north, 'E' 'W' 'S' back east/west/south into the normal map
'H' is the spot the hero is (randomly) spawned into the new area (so people don't automatically know which ways to take to get back to the normal map but have to explore)

these computer generated areas would be populated with a set of creatures/traps/things to climb/whatever

i hope i could put in words what i meant feel free to comment

regards, theebie

[Rokal]

hi,

what about the following idea:

in order to make travel from the north to the south (or from point-a to point-b) more interesting, more dangerous, and longer, let's change rooms. whenever somebody enters a flagged room (like "Scrub Plains, Base of the Shield Wall", or some desert/forest/whatever room), there's a chance of 5% that instead of entering that room, you're entering a computer-generated area of rooms instead, which could for example be an area of 10x10 rooms, with you starting somewhere in the very middle of that area.

these areas have 4 "exits (north,south,east,west) which will lead out of the computer generated area, back to the "normal" worldmap, letting the hero progress normally on his journey.

example:

r r r r r r r N r r
r r r r r r r r r r
r r r r r r r r r E
r r r H r r r r r r
r r r r r r r r r r
r r r r r r r r r r
W r r r r r r r r r
r r r r r r r r r r
r r r r r r r r r r
r r r r r r r r S r

with 'r' beeing a generated room, 'N' leading back north, 'E' 'W' 'S' back east/west/south into the normal map
'H' is the spot the hero is (randomly) spawned into the new area (so people don't automatically know which ways to take to get back to the normal map but have to explore)

these computer generated areas would be populated with a set of creatures/traps/things to climb/whatever

i hope i could put in words what i meant feel free to comment

regards, theebie

This is a wonderufl idea, but I do not know if arms codebase could support it, its pretty old, and this looks like it would take a LOT of work to make possible, even then.

Something like this sort of system is usually (in my experience and limited knowledge of coding) when a game or program is in the production stages. its more difficult to insert such things into the code when its a code base thats more then twenty years old.

That said, I do , do wish so much this was a thing.

[whitt]

Betting it would require the spawning of a temporary mini-area that could be accessed via the "enter" command.

So you would be walking across the Red Desert, for example, and there would be the usual description plus:

Something about a jumble of rocks in the distance catches your eye.

You could then "enter jumble" or "enter rocks" and be in the mini-area.

Pretty sure I've seen this happen with encampments and other little things now and then at various times.  Having it happen randomly and persist for a set amount of time would likely be a bit more difficult.

[Molten Heart]

What about other players? Be they friends, enemies, or someone else who may be in the other rooms that the new area displaces. Would they also be included and moved into the new area or exist in a parallel area?

[whitt]

What about other players? Be they friends, enemies, or someine else who may be in the other rooms that the new area displaces? Would they also be included and moved into the new area or exist in a parallel area?

This is why I'm thinking it would need to be an enterable area and also feasibly shielded from view to those looking into the area from outside.  So someone a room away might see:

[Near]
Something about a jumble of rocks catches your eye.

But not who was "in" that jumble of rocks.

Also folks in the jumble of rocks would be able to look out to the main room where the event was placed.

Basically like many "features" of the wilderness that already exist.  Just not a permanent fixture of the landscape.

[theebie]

my idea was a little different here. i thought of the entrance more like a "wormhole" which might be open for 1 minute after it comes into existance (and anybody who will go this way, within that minute, will enter the area, too).
if you're in a group (meaning people following you), they all will enter the area and end up in the same spot within it. (this could be especially interesting for events like "salarr takes its crew and the big wagon and travels from nak to luirs", since they now could end in some canyons / hard to travel rooms for the wagon, which could bring up a whole LOT of possible rp action)

once that minute is over, the wormhole will close again, and anybody going that way afterwards will not be able to enter the same mini-area. (which means, that it can happen, that you actually won't find people in the desert, which is actually really realistically)

[theebie]

Betting it would require the spawning of a temporary mini-area that could be accessed via the "enter" command.

So you would be walking across the Red Desert, for example, and there would be the usual description plus:

Something about a jumble of rocks in the distance catches your eye.

You could then "enter jumble" or "enter rocks" and be in the mini-area.

Pretty sure I've seen this happen with encampments and other little things now and then at various times.  Having it happen randomly and persist for a set amount of time would likely be a bit more difficult.

and this is not really what i intended. i wouldn't give people the -choice- to enter the miniarea or not, but force them into it, this way making travel more interesting, taking more time, and more dangerous. my main idea behind this is to keep people from spam-walking from one place to another within 2 rl minutes.

[Jihelu]

So basically it's like a random encounter but its just an area.

[theebie]

So basically it's like a random encounter but its just an area.

hmm, yes, that's correct.

technically it could be realized by building a path/labyrinth which connects the four exits (by random), then build a mechanism that adds rooms to fill-up the rest (automatically, too), then spawn sets of creatures in it, or other random events (for example, one could have random spots where you can find rare spice, or diamonds or copper or whatnot.)
this way those areas would never be the same, and player would be unable to automatically spam-walk through them

[Jihelu]

Would it ever be like.
The area you go into is just filled to the brim with raiders/monsters and what not and it's like "Get the hell out or die trying" scenarios.
That sounds fun kind of.
Kind of.

[Rokal]

this woulld be great if possible to implement, but there would definetly need to be quit rooms in these areas.  Not everyones a ranger that can quit out anywhere. This is more of a playability issue i see then anything else. I still think this would be too hard to implement into arm's code tho.

[theebie]

this woulld be great if possible to implement, but there would definetly need to be quit rooms in these areas.  Not everyones a ranger that can quit out anywhere. This is more of a playability issue i see then anything else. I still think this would be too hard to implement into arm's code tho.

are you one of the coders ? (i'm doing coding as a living, but not for muds). there's not really an easy way to say if somethings hard or easy, unless you -do- know the code base...

[Harmless]

would require a pretty fundamental remapping of most wilderness areas... the reason being that space and distances are not constant in the world. If it were directly implemented today, a lot of the world would look very tightly packed and jumbled.

On certain other muds it's a nice feature, but it isn't particularly something I think armageddon needs. The lack of pictographs (except for our beloved mantishead) has also been a consistent aspect of arma's "style" and I wouldn't want to see that go, particularly.

[Rokal]

this woulld be great if possible to implement, but there would definetly need to be quit rooms in these areas.  Not everyones a ranger that can quit out anywhere. This is more of a playability issue i see then anything else. I still think this would be too hard to implement into arm's code tho.

are you one of the coders ? (i'm doing coding as a living, but not for muds). there's not really an easy way to say if somethings hard or easy, unless you -do- know the code base...

No, I'm not one of the coders.

But I know enough that something that is 20+ years old  with several systems already embedded into it with an introduction of another one out of the blue would take a lot. LOT of work, for both to add it, and to make it work with the other systems.

[Agent_137]

... would take a lot. LOT of work...

meh, so do 90% of the ideas put forward on this GDB. It's worth acknowledging the effort and it may be the ultimate reason that it doesn't get done, but it's no reason to argue or stop the discussion. Only the coders on staff can accurately estimate the effort and weigh it against other projects.


So anyway, the goal of this idea would be to add some challenge to travel and so you can't just memorize a series of directions between point A and point B?

[Rokal]

... would take a lot. LOT of work...

meh, so do 90% of the ideas put forward on this GDB. It's worth acknowledging the effort and it may be the ultimate reason that it doesn't get done, but it's no reason to argue or stop the discussion. Only the coders on staff can accurately estimate the effort and weigh it against other projects.


So anyway, the goal of this idea would be to add some challenge to travel and so you can't just memorize a series of directions between point A and point B?

Yeah, it'd be basically this. I imagine it as sort of.. some of those RPgs where the random encounters making big, randomly generated areas to both explore, and encounter danger in. it'd add a depth of challenge and further exploration.

Which I'd love to see, but as I stated before, I personally think it'd be hard to put in - its not that I don't acknowledge the idea, or anything. I do wish it could happen.

[Beethoven]

I know most players have the way from A to B to C memorized backwards and forwards, but I have a really hard time with directions IRL. You mightn't think that lacking a sense of direction in real life would translate to a text-based mud, but I have difficulty to the point that I always have to play PCs who are either unfamiliar with the wilderness or have a terrible memory or sense of direction. When I do manage to memorize directions, it feels like a real accomplishment.

While I enjoy the idea of more random encounters, I would have an extremely hard time with anything that is meant to confuse me during travel. I get lost enough as it is. With this added, I'd probably give up on desert travel altogether. Of course, I'm not the average player in that sense, so my personal problems probably shouldn't affect what should or shouldn't be added to the game. Just putting my thoughts forward.

[CodeMaster]

Cool idea.   I haven't seen anything like it on any MUD I've played.

More generally I'm all for random encounters with procedurally generated content. The random wanderings and surprises generated by aggressive NPCs are a simple example we're all familiar with.  There are also areas of the game, I've seen, where dunes come and go.

[theebie]

i, personally, know the outdoor/wilderness areas so much out of my mind by now, that i can more or less spam-run back from -any- place in the world to safety within <5minutes. and/or spamrun start in nak at dawn and reach tuluk at early morning.

and i guess most longterm players can do this without even having to think what they do.

so ways to make travelling more complicated would be a big enhancement to me, personally.

[theebie]

idea is described here in detail: http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,50013.0.html

i just forgot a poll in the last post

regards, theebie

[Lizzie]

i, personally, know the outdoor/wilderness areas so much out of my mind by now, that i can more or less spam-run back from -any- place in the world to safety within <5minutes. and/or spamrun start in nak at dawn and reach tuluk at early morning.

and i guess most longterm players can do this without even having to think what they do.

so ways to make travelling more complicated would be a big enhancement to me, personally.

And it would make it a huge liability for anyone who doesn't know the outdoor wilderness areas backward and forward. Basically you're looking to replace something you've lost, as a result of your becoming accustomed to it.

I have a map I can refer to when I need it. I don't need to memorize anything, though after travelling so much over the years in game with various characters, I have memorized some of the routes. And yet - I have no problem enjoying those rides. In fact, the memorization itself makes it easier for me to enjoy those rides. I can pause in "this" spot to throw out an emote of feeling like I have eyes watching me from the scrub off the side of the road, when I (the player) know that my character is approaching a tribe encampment. Or another one to feel the hair rise on the back of my neck when I know I'm approaching a mekillot spawn spot. Or a known mage hangout. Or a thug in the alleys that's always within a 4-room space.

That gives me a chance to throw those emotes/thinks/feels out before any actual combat ensues, when I no longer have time to think them up and have to fight or flee.

So instead of wanting the game to change to accommodate your personal "been there done that" level, why not ramp up your character's responses to the existing game world, since you know you have the opportunity to do so? Maybe it'll push you deeper into your character's mind and you'll have more fun riding the same road you've had characters ride for years and years.

*for the record - I rarely refer to the map. It's more of a security blanket for me at this point, but it did help me log out at a reasonable hour back when I had zero clue where the nearest quit-safe rooms were in the wilderness.

[Lizzie]

You forgot the "I don't think it's necessary but might be a nice addition."

In fact the question itself "Should we" implies that the reader thinks it's either necessary, or something to be intentionally avoided.

And so I didn't vote.

[Fujikoma]

I like it how it is. Now, one thing I WOULD like to see is something I saw on a hack and slash mud, Ancient Anguish, which were treasure maps, I think you could either buy them or find the pieces and assemble them, and, once the map was read, it would plant a temporary opening somewhere, after you found the coordinates, these tended to contain cool stuff you couldn't find elsewhere, but, the encounters and loot were level-based, so as to provide a challenge. If you went with the map-holder, you could participate in the challenge as well. Upon completion, the mini-dungeon would begin to collapse.

Then again ancient anguish doesn't save inventories and reboots every three or four days or something. It's also filled with powergamers, but, they were fun to play with.

[Nyr]

Merged these two together.

[Riev]

I'd be more interested in randomized spawn points, than this idea, in the vein of making things "difficult" or "more dangerous". The paths and routes exist for a reason. If you're following, say, the North Road... I would think you could stay on it. And if you know its "only a few leagues until the next marker" and suddenly you're in a completely different place, its going to be more of a detriment than an addition to gameplay.

Also, while I hate to be the one to spamwalk from one side of the Known to the other, for some people they may only have an hour to play. Which means logging in, gathering things up, making sure you're set, doing the whole riding thing, and getting set up in the next place. Randomly generated content is great in some games, but not here.