dynamic paths

[Deddarus]

admitedly this could be difficult but since this is a wish list...

basically outside of cities there would be just grass etc .... as the grass is walked on by players it starts to turn slightly brown

after a while the most popular routes would have clear/dsitinct paths

if a path becomes dissused it will fade back to green + the path will be lost

this would allow the way to locations to be forgotten etc

as i said.. i know this is difficult to do but it would be damn cool (+ i kinda wanted my 100 post count lol)

[Dalec]

I think it\'s doable, but probably not worth the effort. In most online games I play, people are running all over the place all the time. No one pays any attention to roads, and any space without an obstacle becomes a road. I just don\'t think people would be walking the same direction and location another person is all that often. Perhaps we could -build- roads, but that would only be worth while if we had player made towns, which I\'m not sure if they are being included or not.

A little off topic:
I wonder if the dev\'s can make a system better then the run/walk system. No one usually ever pays heed to walk, and it looks ridiculous having people run everywhere in a town. I would like to see a brisk walk in towns, where you aren\'t going 1/2 mph, but you aren\'t running either. More like in real life: when you know where you\'re going, you tend to walk there at a medium pace, not run or crawl.

[Kixie]

i like the ideas of dynamic paths but i mean its not like it happens in real life much. walking in the same place out in a field doesnt make a path, you have to make one yourself. When more cities are implemented people will defenally take similar paths but untill i know how everything is going to work as far as transportation and that stuff i cant say much on paths.

[Deddarus]

actually it is how mud paths are made irl... noone goes round and removes the grass from a wavy line.... as people walk alon the same path they gradually tread down the grass and it dies.. leaving a dirt-track

if u ever go for a wonder in some woods and theres a path going thru them... thats how its made

[Xandria]

Yes whemy, this does happen IRL.  I remember at my high school there was a grassed slope between two different elevations of pavement.  Only a few months after it was grassed, there was a nice muddy slide at the corner because that\'s the way everyone walked to get from one part to the other.

And while yes, paths can be made by hand (I\'ve participated in a few service projects in state parks creating trails), they will occur natually if enough traffic walks through them.

Heh, this just reminded me of a Navy joke my father said the other day (don\'t ask me if it\'s true or not, cause I don\'t know):

Apparently when a new military installation is put in place, they don\'t bother to put down footpaths in between the buildings.  Instead, the engineers leave the ground as it is and wait for several months.  The sailors eventually find the quickest route in between the places they need to go, and a path eventually wears itself in.  Then, then contractors go back in and put paved walkways where the beaten paths are

EDIT: Oh yeah, back on topic

Dynamic paths in PS would be kinda cool, but very, very unlikely due to 1) the amount of coding to be involved, and 2) your client would have to download the most recent \"path map\" every time you logged in.  So in short, I wouldn\'t count on it.  But then again, you never know...

[Saphire]

a VERY nice idea, and similar to the story Xandria said, it WOULD be useful as players would know that it is probably the fastest and best route to take between two points (obviously a strait line is the best, but there can\'t always be a strait line between 2 points.)

but, the amount of information needed to download might be abit too much, unless it\'s downloaded in small chunks...

[DepthBlade]

that would be a brilliant idea because man do i ever get lost sometimes...damn the man

[Junilia]

Maybe the main path can stay and no grass goes on top but  like deddarus said you can make new paths and the grass comes back after a about half a day (Real Life Time) but it comes slowly. Unless people keeps on wearing the path off of course.

Can the maps be refreshed after about 5 seconds for the paths or it will take too long to make and too much effort?

EDIT: should making paths take very long? for eg 5 people to walk over to make a bit brown.

[aineko]

to keep players on a path and let them walk instead of running all the time, it might be a good idea to implement exhaustion.
The longer you run the more you get exausted. Therefor you get slower and finally fall back to walk or have to rest.
Furthermore it would exhaust you more to run through tall grass or over sand than running on a street or path.

About the path, you wouldn\'t have to update the whole map. it\'s enough to get the data about the grass near you. (like square(231).grass = 3)
You would have to handle grass like actors. You don\'t download a new map when ever a ruby get pick, do you?

In addition you can implement a tracker skill by simply coloring the grass for a few minutes when someone walked over it. or let it glow. it might look nice

[Deddarus]

depends on how the map is structured... if its a solid mass then you would need to add a brown path tile on top.. if its split into nodes then u could effect each node by walking on it

additionally if this could be done then footprints could also be implemented (and as said above this could be incorporated with a tracking skill)

[SnowWolf]

The key to implementing this idea is quite simple.

First, ask yourself what the idea is really all about - paths that change with respect to the amount of traffic they get.

Then, ask yourself what the different ways of accomplishing this goal are - the first idea that comes to mind is hard coding it into the game, but this doesn\'t work because of hardware limitations so you keep thinking....

Since it\'s nearly impossible to have the game keep track of this data and update the map all the time, an alternative is having a GM do it every once in a while based on observations and story/plot ideas.

Granted this is less accurate and it requires having a GM, but it is MUCH easier to implement.

What PS really needs to handle all of these really cool ideas that are hard to implement is a GOOD set of GM tools. For this idea it would be a map editor and I personally wouldn\'t be surprised if the DEVs already have one for their own purposes....

Just a thought anyway....

[aineko]

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you.

First of all, there server knows where everyone is.

If you define 1x1 meter squares which you lay over the grass (array?), you simply have to count how many walked over the square.

the client only knows the the squars within, 20m or so.

when you move, you get the new data. but only the usage number of the squar. like square(321) = 4.

you don\'t hard code the paths. neither you need a GM.

It\'s handled dynamically

this would require that you handle grass like an actor. (see crystals as example)
the advantages of this: you can burn the grass with a fire spell. you could bring animals which eat the grass. you can watch how the grass is growing o.O

[elscouta]

This needs a lot of memory server-side. IMHO. Not a bad idea though

[SnowWolf]

I stand by my point. There is ONE problem with your array set up - three dimensional games AREN\'T tile based - while I was considering ideas for my post, I too came up with this idea - however it is not feasible.

[aineko]

just make tiles

grass between (0.0.0)-(0.1.0)-(0.0.1)-(0.1.1) is 1 tile

you can smooth the edges of the tiles, so noone will see it\'s actually a tile.

but still, it is memory intensive