#6: The Castle Marrach Wish List

[ShannonA]

Article #6 in the Trials series, "The Castle Marrach Wish List" is now available. Just click on the Articles link in the navbar to the left.

Here's an excerpt:

"Plots are a very work-intensive thing. Though they'll always be central to Castle Marrach, because we are here to tell stories, it'd be really nice if those plots could be supplemented by interesting objects which could help people do things even when we're not around. And to connect this up to my main point, let me say that plots tend to fall more toward the reactive side of things while interesting objects tend to fall more toward the strategy side of things... by putting work into some interesting objects now, we'll be able to entertain a lot more people in the future, supplementing the plots we're running then. It's all a balance."

Comments are always welcome.

Shannon

[cedric]

I never intended to spend a bit of this column every week talking about amusing bugs... but the bugs we've seen have been so amusing that I can't really help myself, so here we are again.

I don't know about everybody else, but the amusing bugs portion of the articles are my favorite part! Even my wife, who has no idea why I enjoy this type of game so much, enjoys hearing about them.

In fact, at least for the beta testers until final launch, I bet a new column along the lines of "Funniest Bug of the Week" would be a serious hit! During a beta, users should expect bugs. If they can be amused by them, all the better!

As for a wish list, here's my top five:

1. It would be great if certain actions could be performed for a period of time. Right now, you can sing a song or dance with somebody in the the time it takes to drop an item. It makes it seem trivial to do things like dance or sing. If (to continue using the dance example) you could start dancing, change the adverbs of your dance a few times, and stop dancing when you so choose, that would be very cool. People entering the room would see something like "Cedric and Myalina are dancing rapturously near the fireplace." Suddenly there is more of a time dimension.

2. It would be nice to order food from the kitchen. If I walk into the dining room and there's a peice of cheese on the table, it does me little good if my character is in the mood for a leg of lamb. And how about a beer to go with it?

3. The ability to hide things in places other than your room. It'd be great to say "Hide necklace under loose flagstone" so that you can leave a present for somebody and send them a scroll to let them know where to find it. (When something is hidden, the thing hiding it should not be readily obvious, for example the next person into the room should not have as part of the base room description "And there is a loose flagstone in the hearth."

4. A CNPC bard in the Dining Hall. He could have ten or twelve stock stories that he tells if people listen, but he'll only tell two of them to any given person per day before he gets too thirsty to talk to them further (In order to keep players from burning though all his stories). He could even be set up with alternate narratives to each small peice of each story so that each time you hear it, it's different. As new deeds are done in the castle, new stories could be added to his library.

5. The ability to use ad hoc adverbs. Right now I can "dance beautifully" and people see "Cedric dances beautifully". What if I could type "dance 'x'" and have people see "Cedric dances x". Suddenly, I can "dance 'the tango'" or "approach the door 'lockpickingly" or "look at Myalina 'seductively with a mad gleam in his eye'". That last would return "Cedric looks at Myalina suductively with a mad gleam in his eye." Ad hoc adverbs would create a whole new way to write, as the last example shows.

I could go on, and maybe I will after I see what other people post, but these are my favorite ideas.

Cedric

[stealthkat]

I don't want to clutter this particular discussion string too much with conversation not directly related to Shannon's articles, so I will be extremely brief - as brief as one who likes to talk can be anyway.

Cedric, I hope that your request/idea/need for a bard will be met by the collective efforts of the Poets' Brotherhood. Although the members are not stationed any place in particular, and have not yet built up a large repertiore of Castle-related stories, I believe that in the long run you will be quite pleased.

The members of the Brotherhood can be identified by the rosettes they wear. I am sure that if you asked any one of them, they would be more than happy to recite something for you. Otherwise, seek out Sera Katherine personally, or read the postings of the Brotherhood for further information on attending our regular meetings. I happen to know that they would love to have a larger audience.

Any further thoughts or ideas you have on this are welcome both by me and by Sera Katherine.

Kathy - Katherine

[Atama]

In reply to Cedric...

As to #1: awesome idea! Something like a cross between a pose and an action. For another example, a duelist could be sharpening his sword, or a seamstress could be sewing a shirt.

As to #2: Can't you *ask* the cook for something? I never tried, I always pick up whats lying around. If you can't ask for something, it's probably becaue it hasn't been coded yet.

As to #3: Another awesome idea. This fits in with another suggestion I read, about a "palming" ability, the ability to hide something in you hand, in your clothes, or by subtly moving it around your body so others cannot see it. This could also fit in with the "disguise" ideas being kicked around.

As to #4: I'm sure that would be a fun thing for Skotos to develop. Also, the bard could be designed to give helpful advice to the newly awakened, if they have trouble finding a helpful player right away.

As to #5: That is flat out brilliant. There was a huge debate over custom emotes vs. preprogrammed emotes, but your idea would be a wonderful compromise! If you could make custom adverbs, that would satisfy many players' need for creativity, while still preserving the ability for the system to recognize the action of the emote. The adverb is merely the modifier of what you are doing, it should not affect the outcome of the action (except in certain cases, such as laughing softly and laughing heartily). Perhaps, you can put in whatever you want as an adverb, and certain adverbs that are recognized by the game will affect the outcome. I often find myself restricted less by th emotes themselves in-game, but the adverbs I want to use to define the emote.

Great ideas Cedric!

[ShannonA]

Originally posted by cedric:
I don't know about everybody else, but the amusing bugs portion of the articles are my favorite part!

They actually tend to be my favorite bit too, which is why I keep writing them. It they don't appear in the future, it's probably because our bugs weren't very funny that time around http://www.skotos.net/ubb/wink.gif.

As for your wish list, I suspect several of them are going to happen sooner than mine.

1. It would be great if certain actions could be performed for a period of time.

This is what our pose system should do, though you've added some intricacies--namely, the ability to change your pose easily.

2. It would be nice to order food from the kitchen.

I really need to find a better way to document the CNPCs, as their usage is nonobvious (any ideas?).

In any case, type "ask cook" to get a list of what he can prepare for you.

3. The ability to hide things in places other than your room. It'd be great to say "Hide necklace under loose flagstone" so that you can leave a present for somebody and send them a scroll to let them know where to find it.

Two systems in process should account for this.

First, we're planning some improvements for containers. Soon containers will be closable. In addition, details in a room (ie, flagstones) will be able to be containers at some point in the future.

Second, we're working on an event system which will allow things in the castle to be slightly more dynamic. This will allow neat triggers for opening hidden stuff.

Because details can be hidden in details ad infinitum, it's easy to make these things nonobvious (ie, you have to "examine floor", then "examine cobblestone" to learn one is loose.)

How well leaving hidden stuff around the castle will work is an open question... players tend to find all of the hidden places.

4. A CNPC bard in the Dining Hall.

A neat idea, but definitely further off with our current CNPC system.

5. The ability to use ad hoc adverbs.

Hopefully we'll figure out other ways to do this, so the system can still understand what you're saying, but ... noted as a possibility.

Shannon