Would it even be possible? Distance within rooms combat wise?

[Pariah]

From the talk about auto cures and auto flees etc...

Would it even be possible in this game to have distance in rooms?  Like you enter east and someone enters from the east room.

So one is on the west edge and one on the right.

If you had to close distance before you attacked that would give some RP chances I think but don't know if it would even be a possible mechanic.

Whatchu guys think?

[creeper386]

I've seen similar things implemented into games.  I'd imagine it's kind of similar to table code, and maybe even use talk.


A group walks in from the west, one walks in from the east, they are in their own zones. One would have to "approach" or something in order to be in the same zone.

I'd probably just be assigning folks the same zone if they enter together, in large outdoor rooms. Zones 0 through n. Outdoor rooms are potentially large enough that if separate groups even arrive from the same direction they may not be near each other either.

But then how would this work with like, threaten? My imagination is if you are in different zones, threaten doesn't work, but perhaps someone coming close could trigger threaten.

[mansa]

This is not possible with Diku, and would require a major code rework.

[Riev]

This is not possible with Diku, and would require a major code rework.

Currently you can use "shout" to yell at people from other rooms, but the way DIKU works is that if you are in the room, you can engage in combat.

[mansa]

::Edit:: This is similar what creeper386 suggested, now that I reread their post.

What could be an interesting idea is to have some sort of "engage" system, where in order to start a fight, you need to "engage" the other player.

>engage player A
You approach player A.

>kill player A
You strike at Player A.

versus

>kill player A
You need to engage them first.

Where sap and backstab would not require this sort of engagement.   The guard skill would prevent you from engaging players, and also prevent you from striking players.

[Pariah]

I can already hear certain people screaming against this, but hear me out...

What if, Kill had a before delay, similar to backstab and steal...

Then if you walk in the room with your scimitars in your hand and type Kill Jarod there is a chance that Jarod will see (Maybe with scan or watch):

Prompt> The big scary raider mul (they are always muls..) walk in from the east
Prompt> You catch a glimpse of the knuckles whitening on the big scary raider mul's hands around his scimitars.
Prompt> Think Oh shit!
Prompt> Run
Prompt> e e e e e e e e e

Even if the delay was like 5 seconds and the chance was you wouldn't see it, at least it gives someone a chance in hell to sorta anticipate the attack and bounce.

I've often through it was odd too that NPCs don't do shit but run in an attack you.

It would make more sense if something similar to this happened:

Prompt> A chalton walks in from the east.
Prompt> You notice the chalton gnashing it's teeth and it's eyes are bloodshot.
Prompt> The chalton attacks you!
Attack spam!

As I said in another thread, I'm all for making the world seem more immersive.  Right now a newb would have no idea that scrab are trying to murder them until they attack, because sometimes they will enter your room and chill for a solid 10-15 seconds before they try and eat you.  If there was some emote or aggressive messaging from the nasties of the world, that would really bring it to life.  Shit I'd volunteer to write them.

Only thing I'm not sure how you'd handle is the subsequent attacks after flee.  Unless the kill delay only triggers per person/critter once in say a few minutes?  That allows someone to Kill Jarod, watch me flee like a bitch, then e, kill Jarod again without being penalized after the original attack.

[creeper386]

I'm sure if there would be a way to add in a zone to a character. That is relevant in wilderness areas. And a check on combat if a.zone == b.zone. Otherwise kill doesn't work.

Problem is with diku I don't know if all the combat skills go through the same sort of code checks first. I'd hope the "is that person present, and can you see them" code might be a place to check. But again unsure if that is on all the commands individually or a central location. If it is, it'd be rather or not you can put a player into a zone in a wilderness area.

If they came in following, in same zone, otherwise they just aren't in some zone and requires engaging to approaching the other zone(probably via targeting a player, very similar to "sit with amos").


Honestly this concept interests me the most in ways to allow interaction and keep distance.

[Riev]

I'm sure if there would be a way to add in a zone to a character. That is relevant in wilderness areas. And a check on combat if a.zone == b.zone. Otherwise kill doesn't work.

Problem is with diku I don't know if all the combat skills go through the same sort of code checks first. I'd hope the "is that person present, and can you see them" code might be a place to check. But again unsure if that is on all the commands individually or a central location. If it is, it'd be rather or not you can put a player into a zone in a wilderness area.

If they came in following, in same zone, otherwise they just aren't in some zone and requires engaging to approaching the other zone(probably via targeting a player, very similar to "sit with amos").


Honestly this concept interests me the most in ways to allow interaction and keep distance.

I hope you make your own MUD sometime soon, with all of this.

[Pariah]

Dartmud and Accursed Lands use LPC I think it's called and they have a sector system.  Where you approach thing, approach person.  Or if you type Kill thing and it's diagonally away from you, you walk/jog/run/sprint to it depending on your movement settings.

If you could take that movement system and put it in Arm somehow, holy shit, game changer.

Also my first mud I ever played seriously, Dragonrealms has Missile/Pole/Melee distance.  So when you walk in a room you have to advance goblin or whatever and you start to advance on it.  Whether it's RT or just a timer, you get to pole (where pole weapons work to attack) or continue to melee where you can slice chop jab etc till it's dead.  You can't leave the room till you retreat back to missile either.

Either would make it less of a walk in one second, OH SHIT he's attacking me before I read his sdesc!

[Gunnerblaster]

A more feasible change would be a Delay before Kill. As someone completely unfamiliar with how coding a MUD works, it feels the easiest to implement versus going through every single zone and splitting it up into "sectors".

I think skills, like Threaten, would be quite useful because they'd be able to bypass the Kill Delay (I'd assume). Either way, two PC's have the forced opportunity to interact before it turns into combat. Threaten prevents the victim from instantly walking away and a Kill Delay prevents insta-attacks from people/NPC's entering an area.

Too many times have I seen NPC's, for example, enter an room and instantly attack, en masse. That's the worst thing to see and even worse to experience.

[creeper386]

Delays could be an option, but unless it's something large, or perhaps these commands come with warning to indicate someone is approaching, I'm not sure if it's a solution. If someone can just go "e;kill amos" and amos sees nothing but, "Someotherguy enters from the west." Doesn't really solve the problem of creating feeling of size to these rooms.

I wouldn't even consider seperating areas into "sectors". These sectors as I imagine it would be fully abstract. Zone 0 through zone n, where n is however many zones would need to be generated.

Perhaps with or without a max value.