Re: [crossfire] New plugin: citylife - help needed
If I'm running a private server and don't log in for a few days, it would be annoying for all the shops to be closed. This should not be a problem: it should be easy to only count active ticks (i.e. ticks when someone is actually logged on to the server) when considering which shops thrive and which die. Related to that you are likely to get some towns that may not be used much even on active servers - if I have a private server, I'm likely only working in one town at a time. This is more difficult. Perhaps the npcs themselves could help with this? Perhaps the npcs could be made to go to the shops as well? They might not need to buy anything, just enter and exit. Also, their influence in determining whether a shop lives or dies could be made orders of magnitude lower than players' influence. What I have in mind, is that if no player visits a shop in Scorn, the npcs can keep the shops alive, but as soon as players start visiting the shops, their vote counts so much more that if players do not go to shop A at all, the npcs' influence can't keep that alive. Some kind of differential metric between the shops, not an absolute one. An npc entering the shop is worth one life point for the shop, while a player is worth a 100. Then, whenever the lowest scoring shop is, say, 1000 points below the next lowest scoring, it dies. Also, this means that whenever the highest scoring shop is that 1000 above the next, it should expand its business... that driven more my player actions - eg, folks can by plots of lands outside of cities, etc or what not. This sounds nice. But... how do we keep track of who owns what? And how do the players find out if the beautiful spot they fancy is already owned by someone? At some level, if we let a player do it, then we could also let NPC's do it (some number of NPC's buy farms or whatever) Naturally, the npcs must basically be able to do whatever the players do. I'd like to see them enter dungeons themselves and join parties with players as well. Though the last type of npc probably would not be controlled by the sim code (if we choose to use that). (And I do not count the current hired hands in Scorn as npcs. They do nothing unless you hire them - not really very c in npc.) -Juha -- --- | Juha Jäykkä, [EMAIL PROTECTED]| | home: http://www.utu.fi/~juolja/ | --- signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] New plugin: citylife - help needed
Out of curiosity, how hard would it be for city life to animate other things that are not NPCs? Am thinking along the lines of tumbleweed, whirlwinds, leaves and such. Not sure it is a suggestion yet. Was also thinking of objects the player might be able to walk on rather than have them be blocking. Well, you could expand the plugin to do that. Define eg trees as spawn points for leaves, maybe. If one were to do that, I'd suggest to generalize, ie define multiple spawnable lists, each with spawn zones and points. I looked a bit. The zones and points in code seem odd, but I guess probably mostly out of simplicity until it seems it catches on? It's a rough first implementation :) I didn't try that hard to adapt precisely to eg the port shape, and zones can just try to put on walls (but server won't let, of course). Feel free to change that, of course. In the suggested changes, it would probably make sense to define the zones in the maps themselves, maybe, or something not closedly linked to the server... Nicolas -- http://nicolas.weeger.org [Petit site d'images, de textes, de code, bref de l'aléatoire !] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] New plugin: citylife - help needed
Also spracht Juha Jäykkä (Sun, 03 Feb 2008 10:29:38 +0200): This is more difficult. Perhaps the npcs themselves could help with this? Perhaps the npcs could be made to go to the shops as well? They might not need to buy anything, just enter and exit. Also, their influence in determining whether a shop lives or dies could be made orders of magnitude lower than players' influence. What I have in mind, is that if no player visits a shop in Scorn, the npcs can keep the shops alive, but as soon as players start visiting the shops, their vote counts so much more that if players do not go to shop A at all, the npcs' influence can't keep that alive. Some kind of differential metric between the shops, not an absolute one. An npc entering the shop is worth one life point for the shop, while a player is worth a 100. Then, whenever the lowest scoring shop is, say, 1000 points below the next lowest scoring, it dies. Also, this means that whenever the highest scoring shop is that 1000 above the next, it should expand its business... Alternatively. Since the players are heroes, they could be opinion-makers and trend- setters. If they are seen favouring one shop, the NPCs will start preferring that one as well. If they avoid one, its popularity with the general populace will drop very fast... best, Lalo Martins -- So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. - http://lalomartins.info/ GNU: never give up freedom http://www.gnu.org/ ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] New plugin: citylife - help needed
I don't know if you already know this, already use it, already plan to use it, whatever, but: Sim City (classic) has been just GPLed under the name Micropolis, and the automata that runs the sims in the game is available as a library within the source tree. http://www.donhopkins.com/home/micropolis/ When that happened, one of the first things I thought was, how awesome it would be to use it to control NPCs in a game like Crossfire! Well, I'm not totally sure it's nice to control NPCs, because as far as I know it manages more shops/buildings than individual characters :) It could be used to control the general town development, though. But I'd rather see something based in part on player activity (players don't use at all a shop = it disappears) Of course, we could use some algorithms and ideas from that! Nicolas -- http://nicolas.weeger.org [Petit site d'images, de textes, de code, bref de l'aléatoire !] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] New plugin: citylife - help needed
Also spracht Nicolas Weeger (Sat, 02 Feb 2008 10:26:17 +0100): Sim City (classic) has been just GPLed under the name Micropolis, and the automata that runs the sims in the game is available as a library within the source tree. Well, I'm not totally sure it's nice to control NPCs, because as far as I know it manages more shops/buildings than individual characters :) Really? From the description, I thought it did control the sims too -- be born, grow up, go from home to work and back, and so on, I love watching them on SC (although it's much more interesting in the later games of the series). It could be used to control the general town development, though. But I'd rather see something based in part on player activity (players don't use at all a shop = it disappears) Of course, we could use some algorithms and ideas from that! best, Lalo Martins -- So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. - http://lalomartins.info/ GNU: never give up freedom http://www.gnu.org/ ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
[crossfire] New plugin: citylife - help needed
Hello. I just committed (to trunk) the first version of a plugin named citylife that aims to add NPCs to towns. Plugin is doxygen-documented for interested people. Basic summary: when a map is loaded, adds NPCs to random zones. When the map is in memory, will randomly spawn NPCs from predefined points (houses / shops). Behaviour is for now totally dumb, NPCs will just move around randomly. Plugin relies on spawn zones and points, and archetype list (to vary NPCs for regions). Help would be appreciated to define the spawn zones / points for various towns (only Scorn is done for now) :) (or improve the plugin! see the todo list, or use your imagination). Nicolas -- http://nicolas.weeger.org [Petit site d'images, de textes, de code, bref de l'aléatoire !] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
