[CF List] Player building (was Re: Castles and houses)

[Kurt Fitzner]

On 31-Aug-2002 Mark Wedel wrote:
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      Steven Lembark wrote:
     
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      One way to handle people building things where maps to
     
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      is to invoke eminent domain: community projects displace
     
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      deeded ones.
     
     
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        Perhaps.  But I think the biggest issue is player makes house, and then
     
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      new 
     
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      maps are added to CVS that are on the place the house is.
     
     
As Crossfire becomes aimed at a more and more immersive experience and diverts
away from Moria, it is encroaching in an area where people have already gone. 
I've spoken to some of you about this already, but really, Crossfire is
becoming a graphical MUSH.

MUSHes are text-based
role-playing games.  They grew out of the old Unix MUD (multi-user-dungeon).
The MUD was the text-based equivalent to Moria.  Like playing Moria with the
interface from Zork.  MUSHes grew from this, took the MUD system and changed
the paradigm from hack and slash to a more immersive role-playing
experience.  The MUSH servers became object based. Rooms, players, etc, are
all objects in the database.  The interesting thing about MUSHes, is that they
are constructed in-situ.  People install the MUSH server and then dig all
the rooms and create all the objects they need for their environment.  And
once the MUSH opens, construction never stops. What I am hearing (and what I
have been encouraging myself) is a move towards more in-situ creation of
Crossfire maps and objects.  A move to letting the players expand and grow the
place.  Why do this?  Because life is dynamic, and if we want an immersive
experience on Crossfire, it should be dynamic too.  The MUSH servers support
scripting heavily, and players on them can create objects and script them to
perform incredibly complex tasks.  I've toyed with merging in the code from
Pennmush to Crossfire as a plugin simply because of how useful this is.  In
the end it would be too much work, but I think we can learn a LOT from history
and progression of MUSHes.

Because this is Crossfire, we are all looking at ways of bulding areas
that are automated.  Scrolls that do this or that, altars, etc. And this is
good, it would add a new element to the game.  Building houses is neat. People
are right now talking about using this ability to build new quests in-situ. 
This is great!  But with the methods that are being discussed, you'll never be
able to take advantage of the real power of crossfire maps.  Why?  Because
most of the interesting things that happen on maps are not in-character
constructs.  They are behind-the-scenes mechanisms that make things happen.

Let's do this, but let's add a new class of player to Crossfire.  There
would be nothing special about a builder.  It would be like a DM, just
someone who gets access to new building commands.  Let them @dig a new map,
@create objects, @set variables, and add scripting code.  Anyone who has used
a MUSH will recognize those commands.  MUSHes have already gone down the road
we're walking.  Gone from the hack and slash MUDs to the more immersize
environment.  Let's learn from their example.

Once this is done, if a person wants a new house, he ICly (in-character-ly)
approaches someone with the authority to offer a house and arranges it.  They
arrange a price and then someone who is an OOC (out-of-character) builder
does the work.  Trying to make IC objects that do everything will never give
as good a result, because half of what goes into the good maps are not IC
constructs.  And, as things go, less and less of the map making will involve
IC constructs, as scripting becomes more and more the rule rather than the
exception.

There are a million details to discuss about this.  Who has the authority, how
is that coded, how can we prevent builder A from altering builder B's stuff,
and so forth.  These are all details that MUSHes have solved.  I'd encourage
the development team to look seriously at the MUSH paradigm... download a mush
server (www.pennmush.org) look at what they do and how, and then let's see how
we can make Crossfire into the same immersive environment. One where the
Crossfire maps are only the starting point for the individual server, and
where the players and builders grow it from there.

The neat thing about this, is that if we then want to make automated systems
where people can make houses, then we can.  Once the support is in the game
for digging maps and better support for creating objects, setting variables,
writing scripts, and so forth, then it will be trivial to make systems to
create scrolls that do subsets of this sort of thing automagically.  But,
we'll also have the ability to set up people with @zone authority over a city
or region, and let them build houses or dungeons, administer quests, and make
the game more fluid.

        Kurt.