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Kingdoms of Ahln
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Author Topic: Player descriptions  (Read 1405 times)
Saffire
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« on: August 21, 2008, 10:00:26 am »
Descriptions for NPCs and items are almost always written (Or at least reviewed and approved) by staff in MUDs. The almost unavoidable likelihood of a player acting like an idiot and abusing the ability to make massive changes to the world are a risk that not many MUD producers are willing to take. However, it is generally accepted that players should have the right to describe how their own character looks. This is accomplished via the DESCRIBE command and extending the LOOK command slightly. Players use DESCRIBE <string> to set their description, or DESCRIBE CLEAR to clear it. When another player LOOKs at a player with a description, the MUD will display the player's description, along with whatever else it displays. My idea assumes that this is how things work now, or will work in the future.

Instead of using DESCRIBE <string> to set one large, static description of their character, players would use DESCRIBE <body part> <string> to set a description of each specific body part. Every slot that a player can wear armour or clothing or jewelery on should be describable. When a player LOOKs at another player, it will show each described body part, going from top to bottom (Head first, then shoulders, then torso, left arm, right arm, left forearm, right forearm, left hand, right hand, left leg, right leg, left shin, right shin, left foot, right foot). Also, if a player is wearing anything on a body part, it's description would show up as "S/He is wearing <item> on his/her <body part>." This would be shown even if a description for the body part in question is not set.

Thoughts? I don't think it'd be too terrible to code, depending how you handle wear locations (Or plan to). It would add a touch of realism and allow players a more in-depth mechanism for developing their character, which is always a good thing.

-Saffire
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Justin
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« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2008, 10:34:44 am »
There is code currently for doing clothing locations, but I hate it and will be changing it all one day.

As far as your suggestion...is it more or less desirable than being able to set a freeform description? (Yes, that is how it is presently). I wouldn't want to be unnecessarily restrictive.
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Saffire
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« Reply #2 on: August 22, 2008, 12:24:25 pm »
Freeform descriptions are fine, but that's how every MUD does it. The way I suggested has the advantage of being unique (As far as I know), as well as allowing players to customise their characters on a more in-depth level.
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Andril
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« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2009, 12:32:09 pm »
You could also take the body part description idea and use that to form an overall description the way most muds have it work.

Maybe give a large list of possible descriptors for certain things based on location such as:

Hair:
  Cut: messy, straight, flowing etc...
  Length: bald, close cropped, medium length(cut off around the ears I guess), shoulder length, middle of the back etc...
  Color: red, green, blue, yellow, purple etc...
Eyes:
  Color:
  Shape:
  Size:
Mouth:
  Shape:
  Size:
Ears:
  Shape:
  Size:
  Placement: low, high, lopsided....
Shoulders: narrow, wide, whatever
Chest: blah, blah, blah

And so on. Then they could use "desc eyes color brown" to set their eye color to brown and go through the whole list and at the end all of the options they set could be combined into one "regular" large desc.

Also give players the option to do a standard describe self <string> so they don't have to go through that process if they don't want to. Though if giving them the option to describe themselves I'd have it done in a text editing menu with the usual options to do stuff like read what they've written, format it to make it nice and neat (with some sort of option for having a tag, such as a {p}, that lets them use blank lines to make paragraphs - that always annoyed me when building areas, the format option always removed blank lines!), cancel the whole thing if they want and so on.
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Justin
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« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2009, 12:42:59 pm »
Oh, I like the idea of using the text editor for descriptions. I'll do that.
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Andril
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« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2009, 01:07:01 pm »
Heh, glad I could be of some assistance!

Don't forget that you can also do the same thing for describing rooms/objects/mobs as well. Could wrap the lines at, say 80 or so characters, assuming that's what happens right now, when using a format option to prevent stuff from getting too out of control.

You may want to take a look at how SMAUG handles it, which is the editor format I'm personally most familiar with.
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Justin
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« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2009, 01:13:04 pm »
Actually, the editor doesn't do any wrapping/formatting at the moment. A line in the editor is a line in the output. There are no assumptions that way, but it does make it slightly less useful as an editing tool.
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Saffire
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« Reply #7 on: January 11, 2009, 07:02:21 pm »
I don't think the editor should do any wrapping at all (As it is working currently). There is a config option that players can set the number of characters a line will wrap at. Let them choose when a line wraps.
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Justin
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« Reply #8 on: January 11, 2009, 10:34:02 pm »
Quote from: Saffire on January 11, 2009, 07:02:21 pm
I don't think the editor should do any wrapping at all (As it is working currently). There is a config option that players can set the number of characters a line will wrap at. Let them choose when a line wraps.

The downside is that you must edit a paragraph at a time. But I am not planning on making any changes at the moment.
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Saffire
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« Reply #9 on: January 12, 2009, 03:03:29 pm »
How many paragraphs long is a standard player description? One, tops.
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Justin
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« Reply #10 on: January 12, 2009, 04:39:19 pm »
Yes, but the same editor is used for everything.
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Saffire
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« Reply #11 on: January 12, 2009, 04:43:59 pm »
That's true. But how will the editor know when a paragraph ends? Isn't it just easier to put a blank space after a paragraph and format it yourself?
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Justin
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« Reply #12 on: January 12, 2009, 04:50:06 pm »
I agree. Just pointing out the trade-off Smiley
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Justin
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« Reply #13 on: January 13, 2009, 07:26:43 pm »
Quote from: Justin on January 10, 2009, 12:42:59 pm
Oh, I like the idea of using the text editor for descriptions. I'll do that.

Okay, this is in the game now if anyone wants to check it out.
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