Changing the representation of city space

[Anonymous kank with wings]

I'm going to make a pitch here for changing how city space is represented in terms of rooms and the grid.

Let me first say that I think that a seamless grid works great, especially for the outdoors. Within the city too it is good to have road segments that are proportionate, with none of the 'n;e;e;e;e;e;e;e;e;e;s;w' leading back to the same room kind of thing that afflicts other muds.

However, I believe a better solution to representing buildings would be to make them all enterable objects along the roads rather than implementing them as rooms attached to the road grid. Here are the reasons why:

1. Scaling problems. A small house with three rooms occupies too much of the grid relative to the road, unless you make the roads large scale (which means a huge number of road segments).

2. Real estate crunch I. Take the Commoner's Quarter in Allanak. It's about 17x13 rooms, 231 in total. Of this, over half (138 rooms) is road segments, and that doesn't include the alleyways! It's already packed, to the point where the buildings as enterable objects are already starting to be implemented there anyway.

3. Real estate crunch II. Again, the 'naki Commoner's Quarter. For whatever reason, there are a lot of gated dwellings there seemingly belonging to noble houses, merchant houses or whatever, to the point where there doesn't seem to be space left for the actual commoners.

4. Lack of complexity I. One might expect these sections of the city to be gnarly places with a few broad roads and lots of twisty little alleyways. With all of the grid space available for road segments and alleyways, plazas and "parks", 17x13 could represent this sort of twisted den quite well without being unnecessarily gigantic, giving thieves a more reasonable set of options for hiding, for example. Adding complexity could add mystery and also allow for more idiosyncrasies and unique places.

5. Lack of complexity II. With relatively few houses, the same places get hit by thieves over and over and over until PCs can't take it and stop bothering to even furnish their homes, which is a little ridiculous. If lots of partially cookie cutter homes were dropped on the map, PC homes could have a more realistic anonymity. Thieves would have to case victims, etc.

5. Building facades as a standard scripted object. Some examples: this could make buildings vulnerable to defacement and perhaps fire. Also, when a new building is being built, the facade could go through stages of construction. Certain plots could be more easily implemented too, such as the collapse of some houses after an earthquake strikes the city.

Special connections between buildings could still be made as they are now, as connections between rooms.

The one exception that I can see is the case where wagons need to be able to enter the premises. In that case, the gated dwelling could have a courtyard on the grid. Hopefully very few of these cases exist.

[mansa]

"buildings" aren't to scale with the roads.  They try, but it's not.  You have to remember this...  the size of the roads are different from the size of the rooms of houses.

It never has been, and probably never will be.  Just like how Allanak is a lot bigger on the inside than it is to walk around it on the outside.

[Kennath]

I would like more buildings, more houses especially. I would loe to change of the commoners quarter so that there are actual houses that are enterable from the street. More places to rob, etc.

Also an NPC butcher that charges to skin your animals...
Or a PC butcher who does the same...

-Ken

[Djarjak]

You can't lock an enterable object.

Further, if you create an enterable object with a house -inside- it and a lock (for example, enter house. You stand before a small house. Its door is locked) is on the door and you try to pick it there, people won't be able to see you because seeing what is goign on inside an enterable object is not guaranteed for all enterable objects (note: wagons).

Personally, I build to scale within the city. It drives me absolutely ape when things don't map.

[spawnloser]

I recall Sanvean saying something about how she likes that it doesn't map right.

[jcarter]

I'd like to see the southern parts of the commoner's quarter see more use. Maybe some more shops, another apartment building, or whatever. Just a reason for people besides Tor and Borsail to wander down there.

[Anonymous kank with wings]

You can't lock an enterable object.

Further, if you create an enterable object with a house -inside- it and a lock (for example, enter house. You stand before a small house. Its door is locked) is on the door and you try to pick it there, people won't be able to see you because seeing what is goign on inside an enterable object is not guaranteed for all enterable objects (note: wagons).

This could be gotten around by making the first room an enclosed entryway with a door. I think I've seen a few houses like this.

The better solution is to modify the code so that enterable objects can be locked/unlocked and opened/closed. The enter and exit commands could be changed to recognize all of these conditions. This would allow camps with gates that actually close and such too.

Personally, I build to scale within the city. It drives me absolutely ape when things don't map.

Why does it matter when you design or use a building? You're inside a closed little universe with only one to a few rooms, typically. It's hard to get disoriented.

Besides, the grid of roads would be to scale, so again it would be hard to get lost.

It would even lead to maps that look to scale, rather than maps with small one room houses the size of palaces.

There are other examples of enterable objects leading into sets of rooms, such as the farming communities and wagons, Possibly Cenyr too?

And there are buildings like this in Allanak already. It's been done, why not complete the process?  

[Anonymous kank with wings]

"buildings" aren't to scale with the roads.  They try, but it's not.

Yes, they're not. That's why you can only put one small house to the north side of a road, even though the road segment can represent quite a distance. That's why a single small house occupies an entire square of the grid, even though that can represent a palace-sized area.

This proposal addresses the issue nicely as well as others.

[Jherlen]

If Armageddon was a new mud in development, this might be an interesting solution to consider.

Recoding every area in the game on such a fundamental level would be practically impossible.

[Anonymous kank with wings]

If Armageddon was a new mud in development, this might be an interesting solution to consider.

Recoding every area in the game on such a fundamental level would be practically impossible.

Let's look at what is required to uproot one house, then. Assuming the function to enable opening and closing, locking and unlocking enterable objects is implemented.

An enterable object needs to be defined, given a description for the exterior of the house and linked to the first room of the house.

The corresponding door pointer in the first room needs to be changed to reference the enterable object.

One object, one room modification.

Not an unrealistic amount of work, then. Remember that it's only cities and towns that are affected too, not all the zones of the mud.

And it doesn't have to be done all at once.

[Anonymous kank with wings]

Recoding every area in the game on such a fundamental level would be practically impossible.

Also, I should mention that it doesn't involve recoding the game server, other than the unlock/lock/open/close enterable object change. Just modifications to the world database. Very similar to zone building.

[Jherlen]

If you haven't already, download any DIKU/MERC/ROM derivative mud and play with its OLC a bit. Messing around with room linkage is hardly trivial and often ends up in errors. It's also very time-consuming and you're talking about relinking probably a third to half of the rooms in the major areas of the game.

[Anonymous kank with wings]

If you haven't already, download any DIKU/MERC/ROM derivative mud and play with its OLC a bit. Messing around with room linkage is hardly trivial and often ends up in errors. It's also very time-consuming and you're talking about relinking probably a third to half of the rooms in the major areas of the game.

Looking at my map of the 'naki Commoner's quarters, about thirty five entrances would have to be redefined. Let's say there are lots that I don't know about, so make it seventy-five.

Say it takes ten minutes to set up the room link. Since only a couple of commands are required, this is a vast overestimate.

10 minutes x 75 = 750 minutes = about twelve hours of work. Like I said, I believe this is a large overestimate. Writing the building descriptions would take more time than making the links.

[spawnloser]

You can't lock an enterable object.

Further, if you create an enterable object with a house -inside- it and a lock (for example, enter house. You stand before a small house. Its door is locked) is on the door and you try to pick it there, people won't be able to see you because seeing what is goign on inside an enterable object is not guaranteed for all enterable objects (note: wagons).

This could be gotten around by making the first room an enclosed entryway with a door. I think I've seen a few houses like this.

The better solution is to modify the code so that enterable objects can be locked/unlocked and opened/closed. The enter and exit commands could be changed to recognize all of these conditions. This would allow camps with gates that actually close and such too.

Um...the point is that that entry area can not be seen from outside like it should.  If you are a room away on the road, you can't see that some guy is banging on the door of the building, and that is the issue.

To address your "just change the code" style solution, from what I understand, it would take a complete rework of how enterable objects work to have them lockable from the outside.

This issue isn't worth the effort, in my opinion.

[Anonymous kank with wings]

Um...the point is that that entry area can not be seen from outside like it should.  If you are a room away on the road, you can't see that some guy is banging on the door of the building, and that is the issue.

I've seen houses that work like the following.

- you leave from the road in a direction like normal
- the room you arrive in is an entryway... it has two walls and a roof
- one end opens onto the street and the other has a door that leads into the dwelling proper

So it has been done already at times. Is it so unreasonable that to look into such a shaded entryway, someone would have to make a specific effort, be it 'l n' or 'l in brickhouse'?

To address your "just change the code" style solution, from what I understand, it would take a complete rework of how enterable objects work to have them lockable from the outside.

I don't know about "complete". It would take a couple of enhancements to the information that the objects store, and enhancements to the enter and exit commands' code. Not trivial, but certainly not overwhelming.

This issue isn't worth the effort, in my opinion.

Ok. I'm hoping others (especially the staff) will feel differently.

[spawnloser]

Yeah, so have I.  Thing is, "l n" doesn't work...you have to be right there and "l in building" to see inside.  See, in an urban sprawl, it's unlikely that any buildings will have cozy and sheltered entryways.  On an empty street you should be able to see the person up ahead trying to break into that building there.

And yes, by complete, I mean exactly the dictionary definition of 'complete.'  Look it up if you have to.  Doubt me if you want.  I'm stating how I understood what was said by a staff member a while ago.

Seriously, winged one, why do you think this is so important?  You want your automapper to work?  That's not a good reason.  I agree with the sentiment of Sanveans that I'd mentioned earlier.  I LIKE[/u] the fact that automappers don't work.  I like that things aren't always on a grid.  Real life isn't on a grid, so why should the mud?

[Anonymous kank with wings]

Yeah, so have I.  Thing is, "l n" doesn't work...you have to be right there and "l in building" to see inside.  See, in an urban sprawl, it's unlikely that any buildings will have cozy and sheltered entryways.  On an empty street you should be able to see the person up ahead trying to break into that building there.

I see, so you want to want to see the fellow, standing in an enclosed entryway, covered in shade on a sunny day or standing in the shadows on a dark night, from [Far] or [Very Far]?

And yes, by complete, I mean exactly the dictionary definition of 'complete.'  Look it up if you have to.  Doubt me if you want.  I'm stating how I understood what was said by a staff member a while ago.

Are you trying to piss me off here? Anyhow, instead of making a vague, unverifiable reference, could you post a link to it for all to read, please?

Seriously, winged one, why do you think this is so important?  You want your automapper to work?  That's not a good reason.  I agree with the sentiment of Sanveans that I'd mentioned earlier.  I LIKE[/u] the fact that automappers don't work.  I like that things aren't always on a grid.  Real life isn't on a grid, so why should the mud?

I listed six reasons in my first post.

The mud IS on a grid in the cities already, at least in Allanak (I haven't seen the new Tuluk). For the most part, it will fit a sheet of graph paper with one square allocated per room just fine. So an automapper will work just fine in the 'naki Commoner's section, to use my example. I don't use an automapper anyhow, I draw maps by hand.

I don't think this is a vitally important feature, but I do think it would improve the game.

[LauraMars]

Though I think that this idea has merit, and the discussion is interesting, restructuring the whole city to conform to one configuration, at this point, would be by and large impractical when it's been established this way for so long.  There's certainly room for both ideas, and no reason you can't layer "enterable" buildings on top of what already exists.  I've seen that used effectively in some places already.

But hey, if you can't settle for both, just get Allanak destroyed somehow and see if you can convince staff to build it from the ground up - your way.

[spawnloser]

I'm sorry.  I wasn't meaning to piss you off, but you seemed to question my use of 'complete.'  I'm also sad to relate that I don't think any of the reasons voiced are a good reason to put the cities on a real grid except to make automappers work...and I like that they don't.  There's other places where this is true too, and I love it.

[Sir Diealot]

(Not preaching at code staff, or anything, just talking because I have nothing better to do right now.)

Make and enterable object, and within said enterable object there is a N an E a S and a W exit.  basically, you'd enter a couldesac (culdesac? a fucking circle of homes) , the enterable object is called '(street name, King's/Winrothol's/Mantis) culdesac'.  You can lock the door  <n/e/s/w/> within the enterable object, and make crimcode for picking etc. work within the front part of the enterable object, it'd be like those tents with the shops in them that have multiple rooms.  Put two or three 'culdesacs' or 'lanes' in appropriate places, along the correct streets in the quarters and it wouldn't spam each room all that much

But, I'm seriously just talking out my ass, I know nothing about the code, I think the scale idea is a badass one, but I also understand that the mapping issue makes things potentially wonky.  I love the current system, but I also really like discussing new/other ideas.


edit to add: I think, maybe, I misunderstood the posts?  I dunno, I've been up for a long time.

[Socko]

You could just make it so that there are openable, closeable, and lockable gates to alleyways and smaller byways on the main roads. They'd just be a normal [neswwhatever] direction like many other entryways.

Those alley gates would lead into enterable object areas.. something like a cul-de-sac or zig-zagging path between buildings. It gets tricky, but at least you could still see people trying to get in upfront.

I like the idea a lot. I'd like it a lot better if it was more easily resolved.