NW NE SW SE movement directions

[Thomoto]

Here's a thought, like other MUDs add NW NE SE SW, although instead of adding rooms, those commands will move into a room existing there, so that way you wouldn't have to move one room w e n s to get to the one across from the one you started in, you can just imedietly move into that room unless the room doesn't exist or something is blocking the path.
Also so you can look there instead of moving a room and then a high powered beast walks in when realistically you could have looked nw ne se or sw to see "Oh there's a pissed off mekillot waiting to jump me."
What do you think?

[Brokkr]

I'm not going to put our Storytellers through the immense amount of work doing this right would entail.

Because while if you think about the Salt Flats, ok that works.  If you think about a winding, snaking tunnel that happens to go North then East, there is no way you should be able to do that.  Which means someone has to apply judgement...to all the rooms in the game.  No way.

[mansa]

I'm not going to put our Storytellers through the immense amount of work doing this right would entail.

Because while if you think about the Salt Flats, ok that works.  If you think about a winding, snaking tunnel that happens to go North then East, there is no way you should be able to do that.  Which means someone has to apply judgement...to all the rooms in the game.  No way.

What if we democratized the changes for it?

[Veselka]

I think more than actual room connections, if people were just able to 'look northwest', and the game greps one room north and one room west from their location (So not all three, even if they might be visible), it shows what is in that room. That would likely kill two birds with one stone, as far as realistically looking around your location, maybe only applied to outdoor zones to reduce the ability to look around corners underground.

Still, massive undertaking, and the game has been fine without NE NW etc for a while. Would I love it? Sure.

[SmashedTregil]

The problem with this Veselka, is that you cant automate those changes. Somebody will need to go through every room, consider it, and add connections that are appropriate. Every single room.



How about a new rule.

Whenever staffer accidentally TPKs their entire clan, they must do diagonal interconnections to 1000 rooms.

With frequency of one TPK a week, this should take less then a year to do this. 7-8 months, tops.

[HeeBeeGB]

I think you could implement it/roll it out, and then make a big, big announcement to the community, and ask them to typo/bug rooms that have hard corners or seem like you shouldn't be able to see around a corner. Offer a karma to participants who rack up over 50 bugged rooms. Outsource to the playerbase. That part doesn't seem daunting to me, but I don't know much about code/the back-end work. I feel it isn't game breaking to be able to see NE/NW/SE/SW when I shouldn't. It also isn't game breaking not to -- But it does present challenges to realistic range of viewing.

[RogueGunslinger]

... But why?

[roughneck]

When I play chess, I like rooks best.

Fuck the bishops! And the queen.

I only play knights if I feel like getting Nilaz.

[ShaLeah]

I don't see what this would ADD to the game world. We can expand it without adding 4 more cardinal directions and if we DID add it? You could just add it to 'new' areas. Don't change the old. I still remember mentally wtf'ing when they changed the Sanctuary.

[Alesan]

I don't see what this would ADD to the game world. We can expand it without adding 4 more cardinal directions and if we DID add it? You could just add it to 'new' areas. Don't change the old. I still remember mentally wtf'ing when they changed the Sanctuary.

The point is to be able to see that GIANT MEKILLOT one room north and one room east of you. The only reason we can't see things like this is the code limitation of N E S W only. In a vast open landscape, you should be able to see more than just four straight lines around you.

But I get why people don't want this. Because then you remove the danger of being instantly steamrolled by it when it rushes into the room as soon as you're adjacent to it.

[kahuna]

I don't see what this would ADD to the game world. We can expand it without adding 4 more cardinal directions and if we DID add it? You could just add it to 'new' areas. Don't change the old. I still remember mentally wtf'ing when they changed the Sanctuary.

The point is to be able to see that GIANT MEKILLOT one room north and one room east of you. The only reason we can't see things like this is the code limitation of N E S W only. In a vast open landscape, you should be able to see more than just four straight lines around you.

But I get why people don't want this. Because then you remove the danger of being instantly steamrolled by it when it rushes into the room as soon as you're adjacent to it.

An easy solution is to expand large animals to be visible regardless of where you are. So if a mekillot is northeast of you in the salt flats you get.

You notice: a massive mekillot to the northeast.

Why would the danger of being steamrolled factor into the realistic expectation of visibility? In what way does getting one shotted by a mekillot add anything to the game or foster roleplaying?

[Brokkr]

It keeps folks from going to areas that have mekillots, or at least, keeps a decent percentage from coming back, if they are so foolish?

I have always gotten lost really easy on MUDs with intercardinal directions.  Doubt I am the only one.

[Dar]

I always wanted a survey command that would point out any gigantic level creatures in 3x3 rooms from you. Shouldn't be that difficult to code. We have things that have 3x3 effect don't we?

[rinthrat]

If you can see a mekillot that's northeast of you, and essentially one room away, why doesn't it chase after you?

If you can look ne, sw, nw, se, but not travel in that direction, that's not realistic, either.

[kahuna]

I always wanted a survey command that would point out any gigantic level creatures in 3x3 rooms from you. Shouldn't be that difficult to code. We have things that have 3x3 effect don't we?

Agreed. This would work fine. It would catch anything flagged as a gigantic creature, ie: bahamet, mekillot, horrors.

[Dar]

We can see a mek 3 rooms away, why doesn't it chase us then? Coded rooms and actual distances are very ethereal concepts.

[Giled]

We can see a mek 3 rooms away, why doesn't it chase us then? Coded rooms and actual distances are very ethereal concepts.

This was my thought too. While I'd love to be able to see the Mek that far away and avoid it, if it's aggressive enough to give chase, why wouldn't it start then?

[Thomoto]

I have always gotten lost really easy on MUDs with intercardinal directions.  Doubt I am the only one.

Sure you can get lost if you add extra rooms. But I don't think you would get lost as long as you think "Hey, NW is the same thing as north then west or west than north.

I'm not going to put our Storytellers through the immense amount of work doing this right would entail.

Because while if you think about the Salt Flats, ok that works.  If you think about a winding, snaking tunnel that happens to go North then East, there is no way you should be able to do that.  Which means someone has to apply judgement...to all the rooms in the game.  No way.

\
However, that is a fair point.

[rinthrat]

We can see a mek 3 rooms away, why doesn't it chase us then? Coded rooms and actual distances are very ethereal concepts.

This was my thought too. While I'd love to be able to see the Mek that far away and avoid it, if it's aggressive enough to give chase, why wouldn't it start then?

Because three rooms are not one room. 

[Vex]

No thanks, to non-cardinal directions, it's unnecessary and all too easily, becomes a confusing mess, as soon as some cheeky builder decides, BOY IT'D BE FUN IF FORESTS WERE SUPER CONFUSING. A means to browse for mobiles in those dirs would be fine, but I would imagine, requires far more work than the reward would justify.

[Harmless]

I have always chalked up the lack of non cardinal direction movement as:

Wavy dunes all around
Clutter of city streets and messy city design
The constant billowing of sand and dust
Having trouble seeing in a world blasted by constant heat
My characters eyes gone bad

[Alesan]

I've always chalked up the lack of diagonals as... the lack of diagonals in the codebase. I just assumed that if area builders had the directions available to them, they would use them in building an area. I suppose I was wrong.

As for cheeky builders, they can do that just as easily with just N E S W by making looping, one way, or exits that skip rooms on the "grid". Those exist in the game right now, and have for years. Having diagonals or not does not make any difference as to whether builders will decide to make confusing areas. If they want to, they will, regardless of what directionals are available to them.

[tapas]

Maybe just a way to determine if there was a large looming threat close by. Like a command that allows you to check for an XXL size creature to your closest diagonal zones?

[mansa]

Maybe just a way to determine if there was a large looming threat close by. Like a command that allows you to check for an XXL size creature to your closest diagonal zones?

Like a pulse message that sends out to all connecting rooms?

a  X -  X -  X  - X  - X

   |    |    |    |    |

b  X -  X -  X  - X  - X

   |    |    |    |    |

c  X -  X - MEK - X  - X

   |    |    |    |    |
   
d  X -  X -  X  - X  - X

   |    |    |    |    |
     
e  X -  X -  X  - X  - X

   1    2    3    4    5

Let's say you're D2.  You're basically in the blindspot of the MOB, but if you move north or east you're gonna trigger the MOB to enter your room and attempt to eat you.

You could do an extra room description added to the 'look north' that says "a giant shadow appears to the east" perhaps.

[kahuna]

It should just play off your scan/awareness skills. You notice: a ruddy brown mekillot to the northeast.

There are rooms that observe in this manner. Star dunes for instance will show you what happens in other rooms around it so this code kind of exists already?

[Alesan]

At this point I don't think it matters, as it has been brought up that whatever you can see should also be able to see you, and would chase after you anyway, so this would ultimately do very little to change things.

[mansa]

It should just play off your scan/awareness skills. You notice: a ruddy brown mekillot to the northeast.

There are rooms that observe in this manner. Star dunes for instance will show you what happens in other rooms around it so this code kind of exists already?

That's more of the room "observing" mobs entering and leaving rooms that it's watching.  Like how you can watch the room below the balcony in some places.  That's a room feature (if in room w, observe room x, y, z), rather than a skill.

I think the latest talk is having large sized mobs have extra features that extend to the connected rooms of the one room it currently is in.

[kahuna]

At this point I don't think it matters, as it has been brought up that whatever you can see should also be able to see you, and would chase after you anyway, so this would ultimately do very little to change things.

I have to disagree here. If we're talking about the size of immense creatures such as mekillots it is unlikely they would notice much smaller things around them. They could be rooting around for food, sleeping, thinking about mating, who knows? Of course if we're talking about predators such as tembo yes but this change is not about that, it's about these immense 100 foot long lizards coming out of thin air which is unrealistic.

[kahuna]

It should just play off your scan/awareness skills. You notice: a ruddy brown mekillot to the northeast.

There are rooms that observe in this manner. Star dunes for instance will show you what happens in other rooms around it so this code kind of exists already?

That's more of the room "observing" mobs entering and leaving rooms that it's watching.  Like how you can watch the room below the balcony in some places.  That's a room feature (if in room w, observe room x, y, z), rather than a skill.

I think the latest talk is having large sized mobs have extra features that extend to the connected rooms of the one room it currently is in.

I'm pointing out that the code exists, whether that code is used to see mekillots isn't up to me. The latest talk doesn't really interest me as that solution seems strange and unnecessary when you can just tie off your watch skill or something into a message when you get close to a mekillot it pings you that you notice it wherever. This is definitely doable with the watch code rather than tying some kind of 'shadow' object to another room.

[Alesan]

At this point I don't think it matters, as it has been brought up that whatever you can see should also be able to see you, and would chase after you anyway, so this would ultimately do very little to change things.

I have to disagree here. If we're talking about the size of immense creatures such as mekillots it is unlikely they would notice much smaller things around them. They could be rooting around for food, sleeping, thinking about mating, who knows? Of course if we're talking about predators such as tembo yes but this change is not about that, it's about these immense 100 foot long lizards coming out of thin air which is unrealistic.

I agree with you, but the cynic in me is saying this is why it won't happen.

[mansa]

It should just play off your scan/awareness skills. You notice: a ruddy brown mekillot to the northeast.

There are rooms that observe in this manner. Star dunes for instance will show you what happens in other rooms around it so this code kind of exists already?

That's more of the room "observing" mobs entering and leaving rooms that it's watching.  Like how you can watch the room below the balcony in some places.  That's a room feature (if in room w, observe room x, y, z), rather than a skill.

I think the latest talk is having large sized mobs have extra features that extend to the connected rooms of the one room it currently is in.

I'm pointing out that the code exists, whether that code is used to see mekillots isn't up to me. The latest talk doesn't really interest me as that solution seems strange and unnecessary when you can just tie off your watch skill or something into a message when you get close to a mekillot it pings you that you notice it wherever. This is definitely doable with the watch code rather than tying some kind of 'shadow' object to another room.

There's a difference between code designed for rooms and code designed for mobs.
You can set a bunch of flags to a room, including "observe room#100xyz".   This makes it static, you cannot change what room it observes, it just always observes room#100xyz.

Let's go back to the example I listed:

a  X -  X -  X  - X  - X

   |    |    |    |    |

b  X -  X -  X  - X  - X

   |    |    |    |    |

c  X -  X - MEK - X  - X

   |    |    |    |    |
   
d  X - you - X  - X  - X

   |    |    |    |    |
     
e  X -  X -  X  - X  - X

   1    2    3    4    5

Let's say you're D2.  You're basically in the blindspot of the MOB, but if you move north or east you're gonna trigger the MOB to enter your room and attempt to eat you.

You can either have a skill that looks into the room, like 'weather <direction>' does, but then also "bends a corner", so to say.   In the example, if you were to, let's say, "Scout east", while looking at D3, it would display creatures one east and one north (C3) & one east and one south (E3), of you.

That's one option you could do.  That would require using this ability frequently, and it may act pretty weird if E3 was actually a shop or a cave or the entrance to red storm village.

Another option is to force code on "large sized" mobs, that they extend their "space" consistently into the connected rooms, like the 'shadow' idea I mentioned.  That way, if you were to look ahead, you would see a shadow or a tail or something large enough to show up when you "look east".  It wouldn't require any additional commands from the user to enter.

Query: Why do we need to have mobs that are 1 room in size only.  Why can't we have mobs that span multiple rooms?

[kahuna]

Query: Why do we need to have mobs that are 1 room in size only.  Why can't we have mobs that span multiple rooms?

Typically rooms especially outdoor rooms span a mile or more. Something that size would be absurd.

[Evilone]

I like diagonal movement in theory, but after playing RPI muds for about 20 years now, when I first tried it on SoI 3.0 or whatever it was, I couldn't stand it and get used to it. It just felt so damn wrong.

Some echo or awareness check should exist for mekillots and bahamets diagonally, but much harder to code I'd imagine because there is no actual coded link. Even if we got a echo 1 room away when they moved into range might be a little helpful.