Re: scabbard / inventory

From: Daniel [Trice] Koepke (dkoepke@global.california.com)
Date: 08/06/95


On Sun, 6 Aug 1995, Giao H Phan wrote:

> perhaps those of you familiar with zebesta can vouch for their excellent 
> inventory system - or rather, lack of it. the whole concept of inventory 
> lacks realism to begin with. seriously, a space where you can store shit 
> hanging in mid-air? you need hands to carry all that crap, and if you 
> aint using yer hands, then you should be using a container. the container 
> itself must be in yer hands, or else strapped onto yer body in such a way 
> as to free yer hands. perhaps we are moving into the area of equip 
> positions. perhaps this mod would require layered eq (at least) and 
> probably limb-based weight allowances. if you realism muds are up to the 
> challenge, inventory is ripe for removal.
> -dert
> 

	Actually, Zebesta's inventory system is from stock NiMUD.  Not to 
discredit Kalgen who provided pretty much all the ideas for NiMUD up to 
god knows what version.

	My MUD has no inventory, but it's still plagued with a shitload of 
things I don't want, I just haven't got around to removing these things 
and then keeping them there for the stock code (if I should).  A great 
example of NiMUD is the originators MUD, TheIsles.  (Locke who turned 
control of it over to me)  It's got pretty much the works for a good 
realism/political-RP MUD, check it out if you please, 
sauron.hacks.arizona.edu 2000.  Of course, TheIsles being a political RP 
MUD it's not the most exciting MUD from the perspective of the avid "get 
the gold key, open the chest, get the gold" adventurer.

	A few of the ideas you realism buffs might consider:

	* The removal of the inventory system.  Instead replace it
	  with a belt/scabbard system.  This feature has appeared
	  in all versions of nim released, and it won't be removed
	  from any public releases.  A good way to handle belts and
	  scabbards is use a value to define how many things can be
	  in a belt simultaneously max being 5 and create the five
	  belt positions.  So, for a scabbard or anything that can
	  only have one weapon have v0 (or v1, depending on what
	  your first value is) to something or not.

	* A size system.  Current released versions of NiMUD use
	  a few defines such as SIZE_MINUTE, SIZE_SMALL, etc. up
	  to SIZE_GARGANTUAN.  In the latest (yet unreleased)
	  version it uses an integer which is your height in cm,
	  and determining whether your tall or short is down by
	  a race/age table.  The general idea is that a 4 foot
	  tall, 500 year old hobbit is considered tall, while a
	  4 foot tall, 30 year old giant is considered short.  I
	  think you can be safe without the age table (if you want
	  to implement it just use like 0=1-30, 1=31-70, 2=71-200,
	  3=201+), most MUDs don't deal with the stage where you
	  actually are first born, and do grow taller, so just a
	  short and tall height for each race will do.

	* Remove WHO and global communication from IC mode, perhaps
	  make an OOC mode which has these things (but can not reach
	  anyone in IC mode).

	* Have the character enter a short description which is shown
	  instead of their name in all cases [or make some exceptions],
	  as well as long desc which is shown when the character is in
	  the room, in the default position (standing), when someone
	  looks at the room.  Require them to conform to a name standard,
	  perhaps make it so new characters must type "new", then they
	  are asked their race and sex and this help decide whether a
	  given name is valid or not - most likely a real pain in the
	  ass to implement (I haven't done it, yet :)).


	Good luck,

	Trice Sabre [Aka., Daniel Koepke]
	Krimson *** BETA *** : mud.california.com/140.174.210.5 1234
	Coder of the "new" NiMUD/TheIsles2 DikuMUD-derived RP server



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