Mudlet Mapper

Caled
Posts: 403
Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2009 4:45 am

Re: Mudlet Mapper

Post by Caled »

I'd like to be able to use an ability like fullsense, falcon observe, scout and scent, capture the list of people in my area along with their locations, compare the names to a list of allies/enemies, and then display their locations as coloured dots in or around each tile.

I.e. I'd like to be able to dynamically add temporary notes/symbols to my map via script.

Jaizsur
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2010 9:31 pm

Re: Mudlet Mapper

Post by Jaizsur »

Here are some of my thoughts on mapping. If rooms can have specific "costs" then that solves a lot of the problems people were talking about earlier.

For example, with my zMUD map every wormhole on my map was a specific room in the zone 'wormholes'. Each wormhole room had a cost of "12". The wormhole room had two exits in it, one leading to each of the wormhole locations. This way while autowalking, if taking a wormhole was faster, it would worm warp through the wormhole room (you never actually see this on zMUD since you're only in the wormhole room for a split second).

The advantage of this was that if wormholes were turned off (say in a worldgame) you could run a script to change the cost of the wormhole rooms to something ridiculous (say 9999) and then the map would avoid those rooms for the time being and you could easily set them back to 12 after the world game was over.

I did the same thing with universe tarot, Patrhren Gare, etc. Gallop/dash was a little more difficult however because so many things can stop gallop/dash and it would require thousands of additional rooms using this concept. (I wrote a script to automatically create gallop/dash rooms but I never implemented it)

Anyhoo, zMUD also had a "RoomInfo" section for each room if I recall. I found this useful for adding misc room information. For example I kept track of if a room was indoors/outdoors, what room type it was, what plane it was on, etc, as well as the standard room name/room description. I find this useful because if you're playing a bandersnatch game then you can run a script to highlight all indoor rooms red, for example.

So I think the map should have a lot of functions associated with it. zMUD's mapquery allowed you to search the map and return results showing the room number, name, desc, info, exits, etc. But there should also be functions to create a new room, new exit, change the room's level/position, change the cost, and so on.

Nitro
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 2:44 pm

Re: Mudlet Mapper

Post by Nitro »

Sounds like electric current following the path of least resistance, or the concept of path integrals in Feynman's interpretation of quantum electro dynamics. Great idea.

Skylark
Posts: 46
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:38 am

Re: Mudlet Mapper

Post by Skylark »

What stage is the mapper in currently? Just looking for a ballpark estimate of when it might be considered ready to be released to the ravening masses. Two days, a year, no idea, whatever you've got.

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Vadi
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Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:13 pm

Re: Mudlet Mapper

Post by Vadi »

Free time comes and goes. Real hard to put a timeframe on it - but judge by the fact that Mudlet was started a year and a half ago in august and where is it now.

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Heiko
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Re: Mudlet Mapper

Post by Heiko »

I've started work on the mapper now. Here's some new screenshots. What I'm interested in is some good ideas on how to graphically represent different terrain types, special places e.g. trainers/shops, water and other obstructions.

I'm using color coding to help simplify usage. Your position is red. All rooms that are located on your current level are yellow. All other levels use different colors.

I'll add further simplifications show only 3 levels max of which everything above the current level should be transparent.
Other means of simplification, playability enhancement are welcome now because I'm still in the planning stage.
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Jaizsur
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Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2010 9:31 pm

Re: Mudlet Mapper

Post by Jaizsur »

What does it look like if the links are not the same colour as the rooms? Might help visually.

kaeus
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2009 4:33 pm

Re: Mudlet Mapper

Post by kaeus »

This looks like its going to be crazy fun to use. I need to get a second monitor just to put the map up once I get this! =p

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Heiko
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Re: Mudlet Mapper

Post by Heiko »

Actually, you don't need a second screen because the mapper scales very well to small inline windows the size of the current ascii map display. You can zoom in any time of course or make the window bigger, but it's not necessary if we use color coding. This is a small version of Hashan in Achaea:
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This is a bit more zoomed in and the same but you moved one level down to the basement:
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Heiko
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Re: Mudlet Mapper

Post by Heiko »

Jaizsur wrote:What does it look like if the links are not the same colour as the rooms? Might help visually.
The reason for having the links in the same color as the level they belong to is to make things easier to grasp.
Here's the most complicated map I have found so far: The city Halifax in Lusternia.
It will demonstrate the problem better I hope.
Bildschirmfoto3.png
I'd like to get more ideas and suggestions on how to simplify things - anything is welcome.

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