checking the weather

[Cuttlefish]

Not sure if this has been covered before, but a search didn't turn up anything.

It would be nice if there was some way to check the weather outside without having to step out into it.

For instance, I'm hanging out in a building, one room away from the outdoors.  There's a raging sandstorm going.  Can't see a thing.  So I'm just waiting it out.  I set my ldesc appropriately so I look like I'm waiting it out.  Unfortunately, every time I want to see if the storm is over, I have to go outside, see that it's not over, go back inside, reset my ldesc.

I can't check the weather because I'm indoors and "You have no feeling about the weather indoors."  That's kinda silly.  In RL, if it's raining outside, you probably know it even if you're inside, unless you are very far into a building.

So, not a huge deal, but definitely something that might be handy if it wasn't too hard to code.  Something like this would even work:

> weather south
It is a cool night.
A harsh sandstorm fills the air with whirling sand and dust.

etc.

That way if south was also in a building, it could still give you the message about not being able to tell because of being indoors.

[Dakkon Black]

yeah, not only would this be real nice it would be much more realistic. However that being said I do believe that codewise it may be hard to do. Because the mud is in sectors.
How easy it would be to be able to send a query codewise to a sector one away from you? I dont know. Also consider the fact that each one would have to be programmed to only be usable through door/windows. Would it be difficult? I think so.

But granpa says
Leave the thinking to the horses they have bigger heads.

[spawnloser]

I have a similar gripe, though.  You 'leave' a building, because you can't check the weather outside, and all of a sudden you're in a raging sandstorm and can't see to go back inside.  That one irks me to some small amount.

[RaynerApe]

Maybe a compromise can be worked out - if the direction points ot a different sector then you receive a vague message which makes it clear it's because of the limitations of the command - eventually people will get used to that.

[creeper386]

Hmm... When you use the weather command it checks to see if your are inside or outside and then checks for the weather in that area.

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be a HUGE undertaking... But it'd depend on how the weather is currently coded.

But IMO it'd be a huge boon either way. The only problem would be working with windows that don't have acctually exits, but I think alot of them you can 'l out' and be able to see if you can see or not...


Creeper

[Cuttlefish]

Checking through windows and such would be a nice bonus, but really all I'm looking for is a solution for the case where I'm just one step away from the room I'm trying to check the weather in.  Especially in the case where I'm in a room with a bunch of other PCs, constantly stepping in and stepping out, spamming things up.

I'd hate for the whole idea to go down the drain because it was too hard to code the more elaborate solution.

[Sephiroto]

Idea:  A command called 'outweather'.  This command is much like the 'brief' command.  Now the idea is for certain indoor rooms that have outdoor exits.  The Trader's Inn for instance.  Lets say you looked toward the direction of the exit.  At the bottom of the room description there's a script that shows how the weather is.  Now...a flag/script or something could be coded into certain indoor rooms that have outdoor exits that would allow the weather to be seen from indoors when looking in that set direction.  Granted, this would take likely take a long time to code, but it would be a more permanant thing.  Something that would allow any newbie to use without the use of a special command.  It would also be a  thing that can also be turned off if people get tired of seeing the weather description each time they glance over to the exit.  

Feedback?

[Cuttlefish]

Hmm, not a bad idea, but not sure I like it.  It seems like it would be MUCH more likely to get done if you kept it simple.  Just an argument to "weather" that would allow you to give it a direction.  Everything else is nice, but I just don't see it as likely to happen and I would hate to get nothing.