PlaneShift

Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: LigH on February 05, 2013, 10:43:59 am

Title: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: LigH on February 05, 2013, 10:43:59 am

Another of those "inconsistent" cases where "east" is still used like a direction. ;)

Title: Re: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: verden on February 05, 2013, 02:44:06 pm

NPCs should be aware of cardinal directions, and have responses that reflect their locations. This helps to orient the character, and the player, to the game world.

What is to the North? Only barren mountains.
What is to the East? Ojaveda.
What is to the West? The Bronze Doors.
What is to the North? Only wilderness.

The inhabitants of the stalactite are not stupid. They have forks and beer, carts and machinery, philosophy and laws, and everything else that goes along with that. Meaning: They have cardinal directions. Just like they have concepts for up and down.

Quit the needless obfuscating of cardinal orientation that has been allowed to characterize the game world. It only serves to confuse and irritate players, and appears arrogant and gratuitous to many observers.

Title: Re: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: Taya on February 05, 2013, 09:22:05 pm

Actually, given the shape of the world - levels within a stalactite, why would they have the same direction sense? Instead of north, south, east, west they might relate to directions in terms of clockwise/anti-clockwise around the inside of the stalactite. And then "To" and "Away" from the center. "To" would also be "Down" as it takes you to the drop down to other levels.

The usual cardinal points never made much sense to me in PS thinking, but it might just be that my understanding of the layout of the levels is completely off.

But anyway, Denes, I love that suggestion about the guards at the gates being able to tell you where the road leads, and of course enkidukai in Hydlaa should know more about Ojaveda as well. Likewise it would make sense if kran NPCs can tell you about Gug with much more detail than a generic non-kran NPC response, assuming they don't already have specific KAs to do this (haven't tested.)

Title: Re: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: tman on February 06, 2013, 12:18:04 am

In terms of directions, yeah there's no reason it has to be the same as real life, but there's also no reason it has to be fundamentally different.  If you think of the location of the azure sun as the "north pole" then you could have the directions work exactly like they do on Earth around the north pole.

If you want to get complicated you could have everything in terms of polar coordinates ( in terms of distance,angle instead of x,y).

In reality we use the orthogonal coordinate axes and cardinal directions because they're just the easiest to use.  I'd imagine the same would be true in the PS world.  And this would almost definitely be adopted by engineers, cartographers, etc.

Title: Re: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: verden on February 06, 2013, 02:03:18 pm

Right, why would they have cardinal directions? Its not like they would have concepts for forward, backward, left and right. Every discussion in this place is deja vu for me, so I go.

Title: Re: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: mistnmc on February 06, 2013, 02:54:04 pm

If I recall correctly, East Gate is named after a famous Vigessimi named "[nameIdon'tremembernow] East" so it is not a direction, but a name.

Title: Re: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: LigH on February 06, 2013, 03:04:30 pm

The same old story.

Riding dead horses is popular again.

Vigesimi East Stronghand, father of Amidison, was invented to deny the wish for any kind of compass, no matter if it was magnetical or magical or whatever driven.

Title: Re: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: Taya on February 06, 2013, 07:16:01 pm

I don't understand why having that specific directional reference or not drives people to such bitterness. I really don't mind either way if we have north, south, east, west or something else. Just when travel on a level is along a curve, a system that's usually thought about in terms of straight lines isn't so great to my thinking. Either way, not my choice and I don't see a point in being negative about it one way or another.

What would be great is a way for NPCs to offer more in terms of directions toward things if asked. Apparently north, south, east, west were decided unacceptable long before I ever showed up on the scene. I'm not going to apologise for daring to consider an alternative. I'm not really a fan of making directions unreasonably different either since they should be accessible to new players, but not having a compass was never up to me. I'd say the ones riding dead horses here are those who only moan instead of trying to be constructive.

Point being - Compass points or not, it should be possible to get NPCs to direct players better than they currently do.  Be that in terms of answers to things like "Where does this road go?" or "How do I reach Gugrontid?" ("Follow the path through this gate until you see/pass xxx, then watch out for xxx, but you might want to think of asking someone to show you the way the first time, or taking the pterosaur if you don't know how to get there.")

Or directions in another sense, like Denes has pointed out so well. NPC responses can help a player learn so much about the game. Currency. Food. The different races. What wild creatures to expect. (If a guard is guarding a gate, he should know what from, maybe?)

Title: Re: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: Cirerey on February 06, 2013, 08:24:00 pm

Not that it is ever going to happen. Nor do I care enough to rant on the subject much, but in the environment of Yliakum a mapping system based on the location of the crystal seems to make more sense than a compass rose based on unobservable astronomic features. Radial + distance + vertical would identify any point in the conical world. That would requite a zero point on the rim for the radial measurements as well as a survey measurement of the position of the crystal. Placement of Octarchal survey markers would be required to map areas with no direct line of sight to one or both of the reference points. Or known points could be listed in a map making crafter's guide and used with the transit to derive additional points for user created maps. Accuracy and detail of the map are a function of skill level. Player mappers could leave a marker or not as they pleased. But the marker could easily be moved or stolen by other players...

Generally known permanent points or markers could be temples, gates, signposts, some stalactites, etc...

Title: Re: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: tman on February 07, 2013, 01:11:44 am

It's not that I (or I assume most other people) care how the directions are done.  I just think it's silly that there isn't any sort of system for it.  Once a system is put in place, then it can be used by NPCs and other players to convey the information.  Which is the goal, right?

I understand the whole "East Hydlaa" debacle.  But I found these with just a quick search of my logs (and this is only one of three computers I play on):

(23:18:54) [NPC] Fholen Medraa says: The mines are not too hard to find, you should exit from Hydlaa going north, after the two round towers, and the Kada-El tavern.
(23:18:03) [NPC] Fholen Medraa says: Eh, I was a miner in the Jade caves to the north of Ojaveda for many years.

I'm assuming if other people search their logs they'll find a number of occurrences like this.  I only have 42 kB of logs on this computer.

My point is, a universal method of directions should be established and then we won't run into problems like this, and getting directions from NPCs and other players will be easier.

Title: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: Venalan on February 07, 2013, 08:08:11 am

just an FYI: I had this discussion moved as it was off topic and annoyed me that it was hijacking my KA thread.

But with us Devs it has come up a few times and I'm sure I'll end up writing something down officially.

But for now have this;

Away from the crystal, wall-bound, north.
Towards the crystal, edge-bound, crystal-bound, south.
With back to the crystal, right round the dome, clock-wise, east.
With back to the crystal, left round the dome, anticlock-wise, west.
Angle with the crystal would be used to find distance.
Local land marks would be used a lot as well.

This should make the use of 'north' or 'east' in game actually correct. So unless there is some overarching reason why these simple directions couldn't be used I don't know about I will write something like these into a book and stick it in the library.

Title: Re: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: LigH on February 07, 2013, 08:21:32 am

\\o// A step into a more certain direction.

Title: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: Eonwind on February 08, 2013, 12:03:30 am

My opinion is cardinal directions are more natural than clockwise and counterclockwise and those are not good enough lacking the ability to efficiently direct a traveler missing the north-south axes.
I think we should not re-invent the wheel.

Title: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: Bonifarzia on February 09, 2013, 07:30:37 am

Quote from: Eonwind on February 08, 2013, 12:03:30 am

My opinion is cardinal directions are more natural than clockwise and counterclockwise and those are not good enough

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Arctic_Ocean.png)
Just kidding, Eonwind  ;)
I got your point, and what matches the setting is not necessarily the most practical solution. Still, I do second Venalan's concept.

Btw., the local (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_coordinates) polar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_coordinate_system) coordinate system on the north pole looks actually like the opposite of the convention proposed by Venalan, but maps of the south pole simply dont look that nice.

Title: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: mistnmc on February 09, 2013, 06:08:21 pm

I like Venalan's system too. We get to keep conventional direction names, and a way to tell directions with a very simple method. Sound like a win-win to me.

Title: Re: What should an NPC know -Direction?
Post by: Daevaorn on February 09, 2013, 11:49:33 pm

I fully agree, that a proper means of giving cardinal directions is helpful and even necessary for a credible developed society like Yliakum's. That's the reason why I requested (http://bugs.hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray/index.php?task_id=4668) that feature roughly two and a half years ago and also provided a concrete idea for realisation. That idea, I think, corresponds largely with was has been said in this thread. So I repeat the outline here.

In essence it is the same that Venalan proposed, only without the four directions of our compass but using the six directions of the "compass rose" of Ways as described by magic lore of Yilakum. (Represented for example in the spell research window.) I think that would suit Yliakum which has in general a very peculiar or even unique approach to things, yet is never too far from reality.

So instead of calling "towards the crystal" (or center axis of the stalagtite) "north" or "south", we couid call it "Crystal". Logical and pretty simple, eh? Accordingly moving away from the crystal - our source of light - towards the walls would be "Dark", amazing, ain't it? The other four directions follow accordingly and can be interpreted in Venalan's and Taya's way as clock-wise (with a drift towards the wall or the centre), or counter-clockwise the same.

(http://www.abload.de/img/hydlaa-illustrationno8c.png)

So guys let Hydlaa have a Crystal gate for us to reach the winch, a Blue passage towards the Arena, a closed Brown gate and a Dark gate towards the forest under the Windowless Tower and last but not least an Azure gate towards Ojaveda, shan't we? As a big plus the Red Temple would be at its proper place! And the library with all its mindful knowledge is in the Azure part of the town! ;D

PS: For all the guys so in love with maths that their minds start processing polar coordinates vs. cylindrical this very instant: I don't think we need to have any changes to the way geometry is dealt with in game. We can consider this entirely separate of game coordinates as they are given for example by the /pos command. We are talking about settings and an aspect of Ylian culture. Don't complicate things too much, this can be done without changing the actual code, purely by updating and creating content accordingly. Plus, maths won't help 90% of the players the least bit here. On the contrary.

PPS: LigH, you are so right. That story about East Hydlaa being named after a person was the worst  excuse ever invented. Lame. Boring. Unimaginative.

PPPS: If this idea is still too complicated or not mathematical enough or whatever else people might say against it: In this case I'd fully back Venalan's original idea that keeps things simple and manageable!