From: Juan J. B. <sa...@re...> - 2001-04-15 10:03:59
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> Unless <workround alert> buildings / cities are *not* inside their own > worlds.</workround alert> All is in the same world. > Perhaps portals could even intelligently manage PCs/'plot NPCs' through > the 'wilderness portals'. > > i.e. There could be a strip of, say, 100m, or 500m, of world which was > shared by the two adjoining worlds. If no-one is in/near the neighbour > world's border area, the PCs/'plot NPCs' can stroll through the border > area within their own world, and get portalled when they reach the edge of > their current world. > > If there was, say, an ambush party lurking just outside the border zone in > the neighbour world, their world would move the PCs/'plot NPCs' into the > neighbour world as soon as they entered the border zone. > > This eliminates the need for x-border spells (except spells of perception, > use of binoculars/telescopes, etc) and x-border missile weapons use. Sorry but: a) There will be no borders in Arianne, although the Map will really be in this way, the border crossing should be totally transparent to the user. b) All this discussion is for getting the border/portal thing to be transparent. QUESTION: Do we really need plot NPC? I have been talking with Harlequine on IRC, and he says that perhaps some would be needed. I just want to note that instead of plot NPC, we just have plot task, that can be done by whatever NPC or PC that want it. Example: The Gatekeeper, whose work is to defend a magic portal from attacks, this work can be taken by any PC/NPC. > What limits would this approach impose on us if adopted? > > 1) Location management for active objects - which server are they active on > when they are in the border zone, and when do they move from one > world to the neighbouring world. > a) does the WorldManager or the object manage this process? WorldManager of course. Object is a passive structure, just for storing data. Let's do the distrivuted server approach when we make a good single server game. It has no sense to create a multiserver world, when the RP & AI don't exist. > 2) Replication management of the map info (note *not* of objects) in the > border edge of maps. > (No biggie - maps'll be pretty stable data) Please read World Structure document. There is only Maps of objects, because terrain itself is going to be an object. > 3) Large cities & towns would need (relatively) high-spec servers. > (No biggie - I'm sure the servers will be a heterogenous bunch. We > just make sure that the empty wildernesses are on the smaller > servers in the pool, and the big busy cities are on the bigger servers). I really prefer to seek this problem later. By now let's concentrate on a single server specification. > Clients only ever handle the info that the PC can perceive, so large worlds > don't impose any load at the client end, which means that everyone can > get away with a low-end client machine. Yes, of course. The perception will be about two or three screen long. The main problem with speed will be the renderer |