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Re: My take on the Unique Quests/Castle in Scorn thing



On Wed, 14 Jun 2000, Peter Mardahl wrote:

> >   Basically, the sort of maps I was thinking, would be more like actual
> > designed quest maps, like Byron's castle, or Eureca, or the Cellar in
> > Wolfsburg -Sure, these aren't great examples as some are very detailed,
> > and some are a bit random mixed up hack'n'slash, but they have a sort of
> 
> Oh.  Map making is a lot of effort, you know?  If you've gotta design a map
> each to match all the permutations of possible quests as you described,
> that's a huge project.  I really thought that you were just going to
> specify styles.

  I don't actually mean me (or anyone else) actually personally creating
quest maps for each possible quest that could be produced- I have made
some maps, nothing to do with quests, and they took time. I recognise the
effort involved in making one thats good and interesting, too. What I
was referring to was the random questmap generator creating *random* maps
with specific features and styles as set out by the story for the quest,
that seem vaguely as though they were designed.
  Sure, in different ways, that should be seen as an even taller order-
but the algorithm's already mostly formed in my head, and I'm quite
certain it's possible- they'll just tend to be a bit samey, not too
imaginitive. After playing a few you'll probably not find them much of a
challenge. The maps may take longer than usual to generate, too.
  OTOH, some designed maps are kind of uninspired but people don't seem to
mind. There are limits to the sorts of puzzles and traps and stuff you can
throw at a player. Even things like Tomb Raider which was mainly puzzle
based, didn't have that much variety, so maybe any attempt at making a map
interesting is an improvement over 200 hill giants in one big room.


> Well, you're right, most of the random maps are pretty stupid.  I've put
> in a few things to make a player's mind work, like sometimes I hide
> the doors by giving them the faces of walls, or hide keys in the map that
> players must find to advance, or use little specialmaps.
  I rather like your random maps- my random quest map stuff isn't
intended to replace them (maybe mine could be accessed like a different
style of random maps). Its just that other than those cool specialmaps,
and tough monsters on the lower levels (which I've never met, only having
played the Random House one), there isn't that much to do in them. But
that sort of thing's great for creating monster-vault style quests like I
described.


> You could do something similar to the key code (door.c):  
> i.e., make this particular
> door special and locate handles for it inside and outside.
  Do you mean like something in the random map code to sometimes replace a
knock-down type door with a openy-closey gate thing in the map?

> > that have clever mechanisms,and perhaps some of the bits in different,
> > separate walls and rooms could be connected. Such fancy gubbinry could
> > *maybe* be done by means of your little specialmaps, but it would
> > probably need a separate directory (eg puzzlesections), and code to
> > handle them differently as the specialmaps are just placed randomly.
> Maybe.
  By now I've got a fair idea of how to set the code to connect everything
together automagically. I think. Small data-sets associated with each
puzzlesection may be necessary for it to all work interestingly. Empty
spaces left by the setting-out mechanism I've been looking at could be
used for the boulder+spike bits.


> crossfire/doc/RandomMaps.doc
> crossfire/doc/Styles.doc
> I think it's reasonably complete.
  I would have to agree, although they don't help too much with
understanding the code- but at least that's in a standalone directory, so
it's not too much hassle to read thru. I'll probably start playing with
placing some more random maps on my machine.

> One thing you could do is enhance the random map code by: 
> 1)  making your own layout (layouts are arrays of characters:
> only > < # * C have meaning right now, I think.  You could extend this to
> have more features, such as connected handles/teleporters...)
  I picked up a cvs snapshot last night, but I couldn't seem to find much
about these layouts. Do you mean that some of the code generates the
layout randomly and the layout is translated directly into a map (looks
like nethack characters), or the layout is a stored array and used as a
guide/template to randomly create the map?


> Making a finishable map randomly is somewhat difficult.  It's a bit hard
> to teach a computer to do intelligent stuff like "make sure the key/handle
> is on the OUTSIDE of the door."
  I know what you're saying, I was aware of this before. There was an
algorithm I came up with when I was younger that takes care of this now that
I've come up with a way to set sections down in a linear-but-interesting
fashion (think topology/nets/graphs).
  I'm still partly working on ways to get secret short-cuts through such
a map (changes the topology of the route), I think I know how to deal with
that, and there's a definite question of scale vs interestingness and
difficulty. It may end up either producing 150x150 maps or boring ones
(as I said, they'll get a bit repetitive anyway). They'll prolly look
a bit gridlike, too.


> Well, how about having the entrances multiplex based on an object in
> the character which describes the quest?
  If I've understood what you're saying, yes, I think that would be the
consequence of having partly visible entrances. Any that weren't
completely exclusive to one player tho, would have to just lead to that
quest until it was closed.

> Anyway, as a suggestion, since you say you're not too strong a C coder,
> how would you like to write a new layout?
  I may do this too, if I can come up with one.

 I'll be moving stuff over weekend, but should have something vaguely
functional (probably in perl or pseudocode or summat:P) by Tuesday or
Wednesday, at a guess. Initially, it'll prolly be a standalone thing with
some data files (eg maps) to produce fairly faceless maps. Could I put it
in CVS somewhere if it doesn't interfere with anything else, or post it to
the list, or what? At a pinch I could put it in our ISP's webspace if
that's preferrable.

Thanks again,
Tomble
PS- Someone else other than Peter must have some opinions on this? I would
like to hear them also.
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