So you want your NPCs with cookies disabled, yes?

LOL AP, and now I am thinking of NPC''s that don''t know YOUR name and wont do jack for you until you proove your worth. . That would be better, when they tell you to piss off because they don''t like the look of you. That way you would have the feeling of rejection that every person has gotten from time to time

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

Heh dwarfsoft it is hard to tell if you''re missing with Nazrix'' new sig. :p
Again, this is a good idea but now you need a structure for each NPC to tell which characters'' names the person knows. After all, why should the NPC''s know eachother''s names unless they have met before? Eventually, you have a very complicated mess of things that each character knows and doesn''t know. Which means now you need an information system to handle which NPC''s know what. Luckily, this system can handle more than just names. We may eventually get our dreams of rumor-spreading and such.

Think outside the dodecahedron

quote: Original post by dwarfsoft

LOL AP, and now I am thinking of NPC''s that don''t know YOUR name and wont do jack for you until you proove your worth. . That would be better, when they tell you to piss off because they don''t like the look of you. That way you would have the feeling of rejection that every person has gotten from time to time

Yeah, I was thinking about doing something like this too. It may be even better to have some NPC''s who are very friendly and will give you info no matter what. Then others would be really rude, while others may be just very cautious so you have to prove that you are a good guy

Anyway, I noticed your lack of presence, but I just wanted to have a nice, ripe topic ready for ya




"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

It would be as easy as adding a simple BOOL variable to NPC structures.

if (NPC.IDENTIFIED)
DisplayNPCName()
else
DisplayNPCClass();

Then if the player talks to the NPC, just set it to true and it''ll show the name instead of the generic class of the NPC.

-- Shaggy

AP, that does work, but the question is, do we want to do it that way? Because, whether you know a person''s name is not a quality of that person, but rather a quality of yourself. So, theoretically, the information should be a part of the player structure.

Think outside the dodecahedron

The way that I see it, every player and NPC should have a defining structure about themselves. Then, you just need to add in a small linked list with a single attribute:

CharacterDescription_ptr Knows;

From this you just add a pointer from the description class/structure to the people it knows by adding new elements into the linked lists. You can then also figure out networks of people and degrees of separation and stuff. Isn''t that hard from what I see, and it is DYNAMIC! So it is only as big as you let it be

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

Forneiq - Yeah, I can''t tell where I posted and Naz posted sometimes. Fortunately mine still has CoolSmiley(c) at the bottom tho

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

Honestly.. NPCs are worthless in MMORPG. i''m planning on having no one know anyone else''s name until they''re introduced. Yes, server space is a concern.. however.. i''ve been working to figure that one out without a lot of space or processor time.

You see.. space wise, you could simply make a database. However.. you can cut the size of the database pretty easily with a few intelligent routines. First and foremost.. you only need one instance of "A has met B". Therefore, you need to store that as "A has met B" and leave "B has met A" out. you do it alphabetically. Then you simply say "has A met B?". To go into a deeper example.. "has A met C" "Has B met X".. etc. So whoever has the first name in the list has one hella big profile.. hehe. Now, you don''t store that they haven''t met yet. That saves space a lot. You only store if they''ve met. so it becomes..
if exist A met B
display_names
else
no_display_names

Now, that''s a pretty easy way to do things, for sure. But it could take a lot of processor time simply to to do that routine 800 times per milisecond.. hehe That''s my next real concern.

Anyways.. it only has to check them if you look in the room, or if someone talks while you''re in the room. I''ve been considering buffering ones when people look around the room. Usually it''ll mean they''re going to stay in the room. Therefore, if it''s in memory already that X doesn''t know Y.. then it might help disk useage and processor time, but that remains to be seen.

It''s an exponential equation in some senses. For ever person gained in the game, you gain N (the number of players already in game) + 1 entries to the DB that''re possible. Granted, only introduced people get an entry.. and most people won''t introduce themselves to everyone. And the computer will purge older entries in the database. For instance, if you meet someone and talk for only a few minutes.. then you''re not likely to remember their name later. I plan on incorporating this into the stats and skills.. how well you remember people''s faces And if you remember well.. then.. you''ll keep a lot of names.. Else, you''ll just forget everyone. LOL.

It''ll take some work.. but i''m sure i can get it to come out fine in the end

J

Why not my way? You need to store data on each player and non-player anyway... What difference is one lp (4bytes) going to do? Not a hell of a lot. But in MMORPG, it still won''t screw you over that much anyway... Just stick the pointer in there and you will be right - that is my reckoning

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche