Messages

46

Scripting Board / Re: Scripted Quest Rewards you would like to see

« on: October 06, 2015, 06:16:13 pm »

Rynald!

Edit: Actually, I have a list of questions about triggers - if you could help answer them, that will be great!

1) Can triggers be attached to mobs? I dimly recall this being broken, but I'm not sure. If they can, what would the appropriate syntax be?

2) Can we really, really, really set up a wiki for script syntaxes?

Thanks!

47

Scripting Board / Re: Scripted Quest Rewards you would like to see

« on: October 06, 2015, 09:40:30 am »

An automatic DT detector (depending on how 4D is set up, and how the script works) might be taxing on 4D itself (particularly if it's a random script which fires every few seconds). Might be better to hard code this. A DT detector that has a cool down but gives a list of DTs in the zone / adjacent rooms would be better, but I was thinking one a DT detector which you hold (like a diving rod), and overrides the cardinal direction commands.

I'd say unlimited ID scrolls are the only thing that "should" be unlimited, as they are already weightless. There's already unlimited food and drink (or rather, inability to feel hungry / thirsty). I think healing potions have weights for a reason - else you could forego healing classes and focus on combat, so that shouldn't really be unlimited.

Script question: Rynald has already added the mod function to scripts (to make scripted games easier). However, do current scripts have recursive functionality (or rather, can we call the same FUNCTION script within the same FUNCTION script cleanly)?

Better still, would it be possible to change the scripting system to allow FUNCTION type scripts to return a set of outputs?

48

Scripting Board / Scripted Quest Rewards you would like to see

« on: October 04, 2015, 05:04:02 pm »

Post scripted quest rewards you would like to see here.

I've three of them:

a) DT detector (tells you if there is a DT in the zone).
b) "Unlimited" usage of ID scrolls - basically an object to store ID scrolls, but casts identify (reason behind this is that ID scrolls are weightless, but there are people who carry over 500+ of them, which used to cause the MUD to lag when they log in / log out)
c) Scriptable games - like Battleship, but more fun


Any others?

49

Scripting Board / Re: Trigger of the .... something

« on: December 28, 2014, 08:28:09 pm »

A nice way of repeating (mostly) similar stuff. For example, suppose you have a zone that echoes similar stuff like:

The flight to <random country> leaves at Gate <random number>. You could do something like switching cases. But a cooler way would be to do something like

Code: [Select]

set vec1 Heathrow Moscow Edinburgh Frankfurt Dublin Paris Newark LAX Minneapolis Georgia Hell Amsterdam Sydney Salzburg Bratislava Japan Toronto
eval randnum1 %random.20%
eval randnum2 %random.17%
extract place %randnum2% %vec1%  *we're extracting a random city from the above vector
%echo% The flight to %place% leaves from Gate %randnum2%.
Tada! And you don't need to create 17 different cases for a minor change!

50

News & Announcements / Re: Weekly Puzzle / Trivia contest

« on: September 09, 2014, 09:08:28 pm »

Urhm.. actually I wanted to give Tad more tokens...encourage him

That's why on the Old West board it says Kvetch: 8, Tad 5...

51

News & Announcements / Re: Weekly Puzzle / Trivia contest

« on: September 09, 2014, 12:24:18 pm »

Here are the questions for the eighth puzzle contest, sponsored by Vegas.

1. A day to celebrate trees and the earth
2. A place of eternal felicity
3. Preserves made of oyster irritants
4. Smooth screws 3 inches less than a foot
5. Something naughty kids do on Halloween
6. Stereo cranium
7. A rabbit's friend is held captive
8. Sleep, perchance to dream, or so Nathaniel Kleitman seems to think

The answers are shown below:

Category: 90s bands (Tadrielith)
1. A day to celebrate trees and the earth: Green Day (Kvetch)
2. A place of eternal felicity: Nirvana (Kvetch)
3. Preserves made of oyster irritants: Pearl Jam (Tadrielith)
4. Smooth screws 3 inches less than a foot: Nine inch nails (Tadrielith)
5. Something naughty kids do on Halloween: Smashing pumpkins (Kvetch)
6. Stereo cranium: Radiohead (Tadrielith)
7. A rabbit's friend is held captive: Alice in Chains (Kvetch)
8. Sleep, perchance to dream, or so Nathaniel Kleitman seems to think: R.E.M. (Tadrielith)

Tadrielieth gets 5 tokens!
Kvetch gets 4 rooms...

52

General Discussions / Re: Random idea about crafting

« on: September 04, 2014, 08:40:36 am »

But generic crafting systems are boring.

I mean, games these days (and even MMORPGS) are a dime a dozen - you probably start by crafting iron swords, then bronze swords, then mythril swords, then ...., and all these descriptions are set by the imms.

What makes 4D different from other visual and non visual games? For a start, we could allow players to set their own descriptions, and based on these descriptions, the algorithm would determine the "crafting" cost, based on the positivity / negativity / length / sentence structure of the descriptions.

Would it be open to abuse, and for people to make hackish items that sound negative, so as to get less cost? Yep, and that's a signal to improve the algorithm, or even better, promote: "Hey, we have really cool players who have weirdish sounding equipment that you can never find in other MUDs..."

Once, back me up on this.

53

General Discussions / Random idea about crafting

« on: September 03, 2014, 03:21:46 pm »

We could have players craft equipment / stats and have an algorithm that determines this.

The algorithm will have a basic dictionary of words (positive, negative), and can tell sentence structure (positive or negative sentence). Longer positive descriptions generally will cost "more" to craft.

Then players can make their own equipment (maybe like RP gear), with minimal stats to show off.

54

News & Announcements / Re: Newbie Tabard and Helper Whistle changes

« on: September 03, 2014, 12:21:55 pm »

I'm not even sure if the room (to load the olive branch / tokens) is there... Or maybe it is, and I forgot where it's located.

Off the top of my mind, it would be really cool if we had a pool of say, 3 points, and helpers can load "customized eq" for a newbie. Example of what I mean - some pseudo DG triggers.

Load a sample object, with the following script.

set keywords pendant
set short A pendant
set long A pendant lies on the ground
set desc blahblahblah
set wearloc neck

and for stats (3 points means for stats it will be +1, for movement / mana / hitpoints would be +25):

set stats dex dex dex would give +3 points to dex
set stats maxhit maxhit maxhit would give +75 points to maxhit
set stats dex maxhit dex would give +2 to dex and +25 to maxhit

Of course, this object will poof after 1 remort, to prevent any possible abuse.

Edit: Might as well make it 5 points - 1 point for each voucher. Would it be too dangerous to have a +5 CHA or +5 DR item? Probably, but if there's a script that makes it go poof when worn after 1 remort, it should be fine...

55

News & Announcements / Re: Newbie Tabard and Helper Whistle changes

« on: September 01, 2014, 11:02:49 am »

Could we clarify what happens when a newbie collects the 5 helper vouchers?

Previously, they get some tokens and a branch. However, I've been told lately that the vouchers are part of the tabard tasks - completing all of them will result in the level boosting reward.

However, I think the descs on the voucher / mud school still encourage newbies to turn in all 5 to a helper. In that case, what should helpers do? Some of us have been giving "random" rewards out to compensate.

56

News & Announcements / Re: Weekly Puzzle / Trivia contest

« on: August 31, 2014, 09:58:13 pm »

Here are the questions for the seventh puzzle contest which was easy!

1. Soldier's accommodation, almost a terrorist
2. Kingly name, cleanse with water, heavy
3. Great wealth, to express denial, operating
4. End of month headache, place of confinement, supported by a surface
5. Famous Portugal football player, stink, projectile weapon
6. Boy wizard, bereft of falsehood, Leonardo's drawing
7. Small insect sketched by descendant of a giant-killer
8. Dragon killer, tribute for Knights of Ni

The answers are shown below.

Category: US Presidents (Kvetch)

1. Soldier's accommodation (barrack), almost a terrorist (osama): Barrack Obama (Serimia)
2. Kingly name (George), cleanse with water (wash), heavy (ton): George Washington (Kvetch)
3. Great wealth (rich), to express denial (nix), operating (on): Richard Nixon (Serimia)
4. End of month headache (bill), place of confinement (clink), supported by a surface (on): Bill Clinton (Kvetch)
5. Famous Portugal football player (Ronaldo), stink (reek), projectile weapon (gun): Ronald Reagan (Serimia)
6. Boy wizard (Harry), bereft of falsehood (true), Leonarng (Vitruvian man): Harry Truman (Kvetch)
7. Small insect (ant) sketched (drew) by descendant (son) of a giant-killer (jack): Andrew Jackson (Serimia)
8. Dragon killer (George), tribute for Knights of Ni (shrubbery): George Bush (Serimia)

The breakdown is as follows:
Kvetch: 4
Serimia: 5

57

General Discussions / Finding player peak periods

« on: August 29, 2014, 06:41:19 pm »

This is what I'm thinking of at the moment, to find player peak periods. However, I'm not sure whether this would be the most efficient way - so I'll post what I'd do - and see if anyone wants to tweak it.

1. Get the syslog of players
2. Look through all the new player created / player generated / player went netdead / player quit / player extracted when idle, etc etc, and simply give a label of "enter" for text signifying a player enters, and "quit" where it means a player quits.
3. Run through each player in the syslog, and map the hours when they are on the MUD - deleting each entry as you find them. When the "syslog" is empty, all players have been accounted for.

Potential questions: Does 2) account for alts? i.e. would we be double counting players?

58

News & Announcements / Re: Weekly Puzzle / Trivia contest

« on: August 28, 2014, 05:32:08 pm »

Might as well:

Here's the link for (some) Arsene Lupin novels and short stories:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1358

The books on Gutenberg in chronological order (for the Lupin universe):

Arsene Lupin Gentleman Thief (short stories)
The Confessions of Arsene Lupin (short stories)
The Crystal Stopper
Arsene Lupin (play / novel)
Arsene Lupin versus Sherlock Holmes (aka The Blonde Lady)
The Hollow Needle
The Eight Strokes of the Clock (short stories)
813
The Golden Triangle
The Secret of Sarek
The Teeth of the Tiger

If you understand French, the complete collection of Arsene Lupin novels and short stories can be found online, eg at:
http://www.ebooksgratuits.com/ebooks.php?auteur=Leblanc_Maurice

If you are interested in A.J. Raffles (briefly mentioned above - interestingly, his author was a brother in law to Arthur Conan Doyle), the entire collection of novels and short stories can be found here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/364

The Amateur Cracksman (short stories)
Mr Justice Raffles (novel)
A Thief in the Night (in betweenish ; short stories)
Raffles: Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman (short stories)

Personally, I prefer Lupin over Raffles, but others may think differently.

59

News & Announcements / Re: Weekly Puzzle / Trivia contest

« on: August 28, 2014, 10:59:12 am »

Here are the questions for the sixth puzzle contest, which was extremely difficult. Two questions were unsolved.

Category:

1. Day of especial colour, unsightly face disfigurement, zero
2. Donkey, night accommodation, flower
3. Common woody plant, old-fashioned gun
4. A girl's best friend, square container
5. Crows, deep regret, before a funeral
6. Famous polymath, secret symbols
7. To find a cardinality, sandwich
8. Bad posture, near bridge of locks

The category was: Novels set in France

Hopefully, this contest will provide you with some interesting reading material

1. Day of especial colour (red), unsightly face disfigurement (pimple), zero (null): The Scarlet Pimpernel (unsolved)
2. Donkey (ass), night accommodation (inn), flower (lupin) : Arsene Lupin (Kitolani)
3. Common woody plant (tree), old-fashioned gun (musket): Three Musketeers (Once)
4. A girl's best friend (chocolate), square container (box): Chocolate Box (unsolved)
5. Crows (murder), deep regret (rue), before a funeral (morgue): Murders in the Rue Morgue (Serimia)
6. Famous polymath (Da Vinci), secret symbols (code): The Da Vinci Code (Once)
7. To find a cardinality (count), sandwich (Monte Cristo): The Count of Monte Cristo (Once)
8. Bad posture (hunchback), near bridge of locks (Notre Dame): The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Vryce)

Some trivia:
1. You might want to check out The Scarlet Pimpernel (and sequels) - while trying not to give away too much of the plot, it's about an Englishman rescuing French royalists during the Reign of Terror in France. Surprisingly, there were lots of "copycats" in real life, such as the American Pimpernel who rescued people during WW2, etc. Check this out!

2. Most of the Arsene Lupin novels have been translated into English, and he's the French equivalent of Sherlock Holmes (and surprisingly, not of A.J. Raffles). There are some famous novels like 813, the Teeth of the Tiger featuring Arsene Lupin, and they're certainly must-reads.

3. Chocolate Box is a short story featuring Hercule Poirot - one of his rare failures. Every detective needs a story about his failures - else he/she will have a super inflated ego...

The breakdown of the tokens are as such:
Kitolani: 1
Serimia: 1
Vryce: 1
Once: 3

60

Building Board / Re: GlobalTime triggers

« on: August 26, 2014, 10:45:58 pm »

I wonder if it's the same case for the game port when no one is logged in (does time pass)?