The Tavern Channel

[JohnTheWarder]

Well everyone is saying Role Players and Normal Players alike that we want more people in the Taverns, well I have an idea to do that. Make a new channel called the Tavern Channel. The only time you can use this channel is when your inside of a Tavern. This would just be like a General Tavern Chat channel. However, to keep it interesting there could be annoucements and contests that can only be heard while in this channel. This channel could be the secretive under belly of EL. So if you want to get in on the latest and most secret events you have go to a tavern. Also in-line with peoples ideas on smuggling. Seen here Maybe annoucements for smuggling could be heard here.

 

Well feel free to put any suggestions here for Tavern Games if you dont feel like making a new thread.

Edited November 10, 2006 by JohnTheWarder

[trollson]

The BarKeeps could speak on local chat, especially when somebody buys drinks off them.

 

Time gentlemen please...

See also:

• Interacting with the map -- The Rumor Mill, Other Rumor sources; Bartenders may offer a rumor at random when someone buys a drink from them.
  

Edited April 20, 2008 by trollson

[Roja]

Why don't you make an announcement in a few channels saying "If anyone wants to RP meet me in ___ Tavern!"

 

To get RP groups started people just have to go and do it!

[JohnTheWarder]

I dont RP I was just saying that there could be a common bond between the RPers and the normal players.

[sora_barzahd]

Nobody wants to announce an RP event taking place in a tavern mainly because n00bs come and type ":farts" every 3 seconds

[redsoxlovr10]

Well i think that something should be done to get more people into the taverns, such as we could have pub games in the taverns where u could bet your money and possibly make more, taverns really need to be more of a public meeting place instead of always being empty.

[Derin]

Well i think that something should be done to get more people into the taverns, such as we could have pub games in the taverns where u could bet your money and possibly make more, taverns really need to be more of a public meeting place instead of always being empty.

Some sort of pub games would be fun. However, first we would need some original ideas, then approval and then programming support and then..... well you get my point, but please start thinking about good original ideas for such pub games.

[The_Knight]

EL soduku would work, then we should also have Texas hold em' with gambling essies. If we had texas hold em' I wouldnt have time to do anything else.

Tavern here I come

[Derin]

EL soduku would work, then we should also have Texas hold em' with gambling essies. If we had texas hold em' I wouldnt have time to do anything else.

Tavern here I come

EL soduku is a utterly single player thing - will not work to attarct crowds

Texas Hold em' - come on! Is that what you really call "good original ideas for such pub games"

 

Think this through a bit instead of just jumping in to post silliness.

[The_Knight]

Ok, maybe Texas hold em' was more of a Casino idea, but It still would be fun? Lets see now for some more serious ideas, Chess and Checkers? I mean they are a little old school but they might work...

Or maybe I dont know what "Pub" games are...

[Foehammer]

well you get my point, but please start thinking about good original ideas for such pub games.

[redsoxlovr10]

Im gona make a new thread for this pub games idea to get more people on it =)

[The_Knight]

Chess and Checkers are original, and they are both fun...

[ttlanhil]

vakana will have a chess-like game soon, but that's not really pub-oriented... pub games should be reasonably fast paced, and relatively easy to play (so you don't have to be sober)

[trollson]

Edited out the original superflueous part of this post and concerntrate instead on the idea of a deck of cards specifically for EL...

 

The Deck of Draia: Playing Cards for EL

 

We could come up with a deck of cards specifically for EL, and base games the "Deck of Draia". Such a deck should capture the mythology of the world, and can be quite complicated (far more than the modern Anglo-American deck).

 

OTOH, a "different" and uniquely-EL card set could contain:

• Eight suits of cards, one for each major diety.
  
• A suit of eight cards for the moon signs.
  
• A suit representing elemental forces, essences, the forces held by magical swords.
  
• Some individual cards, such as The Joker, The Wandering Fool, the Stones...
  

The upper limit on the total number of cards would be 255, including the back of a card; '0' reserved for no card, 1-256 then available for faces or other designs.

How many cards per suit? Either six or eight seems about right; for diety suits these could include The God(dess), The Priest(ess), and a set of minions (various creatures of Draia).

 

In games, cards in a suit could be treated as an ordering (1..8), or represent a cycle (the days, or months), which may cross suits. This may use a scissor-paper-stone approach; each card having a superior and an inferior, none being absolute. A game doesn't have to use all the possible cards, it could use a subset. Lots of possibilities...

The more players a game supports, the better. Two player games are simply adversary. More than two gets much more interesting (4-8 should be managable).

 

People should be able to observe games being played; this may include descriptive messages on local chat.

Since the gods are represented in suits, the inter-god relationships can be included; suits of 'allied' gods help each other, while suits of opposing gods disrupt.

 

Merging the mythology of Draia into the card deck and card games would also help players learn more of the background.

 

A card-game dialog would be needed, which should be generic and flexible enough to support numerous different games; in the same way that a checkered board can be used for chess or drafts (or other games). The dialog could represent a "traditional" card table in Draia.

The card table dialog needs a 'view only mode for spectators. It should display text (for character names, current bids, value of the pot), and cards placement (x,y,card#). There would be a public area (the table) and a private area (your hand) except in view only.

Since we're started from scratch, card games can be designed to be easily implemented as computer moderated. Start with a seperate card game engine and test the games seperate from the server.

 

This does not mean that they need be simple; there can be simple 'snap' and 'trumps' style games, but medieval games did revel in complexity (the modern versions tend to be simplified forms, and involve less kicking), so complex and involved rules can be used for more challenging games.

Bets and wagers could be limited by the game complexity; for simple games, bets are limited to 0-9gc. For more complex games larger bets are allowed. This stops new players from being simply outbid by wealthier opponents.

The graphic design of the cards is important, and should include as much as possible hints as to the relative merits represented by each card, as a mnemonic to the player; but these shouldn't dominate the design -- I don't think we'd want cards to look like those of "collectable card games". Subtle hints in the illustration, not circled stats (after all, an individual game may not the relationships).

 

Then Roja and Radu could have the Deck of Draia made up and sold through the shop

Edited November 10, 2006 by trollson

[Shouja]

Put all the gambling and entertainment bots into taverns, perhaps? Then you could have open-source entertainment of sorts. Games don't have to be hard-coded into just the NPC system, do they?

 

Charades, puzzle games, trivia games, or Taboo! might work, and can usually be generated by bots in local chat. (I think)

 

~Shouja~

[ttlanhil]

Put all the gambling and entertainment bots into taverns, perhaps?

this can (and does) get spammy, though, plus it can interfere with people who want to purchase potioning ingreds, if the tavern is full

[Derin]

 

The Deck of Draia: Playing Cards for EL

....... .........

This is what i am talking about Great idea Trollson!

I am sure there are more such "good original ideas" out there.

Also note it would be nice if you (not you specifically Trollson) could find and perhaps solve the programming problem with these types of problems.

For things as these to ever happen you need to take a few certain steps (where approval is one and programming is another one).

 

 

 

I could also see some quest ideas and such coming out of the Deck of Draia....

[trollson]

The "Deck of Draia" could serving a fortune-telling/divination role (cf. tarot cards), as well as its use in games (naturally enough, in RL both sets have intertwined origins).

 

Mystical properties of the cards may have unfortunate side effects when playing the more complex card games -- imagine if a player laid out a hand on the table, which also represented some incantation (cf. sigil sequence), strange things could happen...

"I was just playing "

Cripple Mr Onion

" when Mortos appeared and smited me! I had a really good hand as well..."

...okay, these would have to be very very rare and undocumented Most games would probably use a subset of the full deck, which reduces the chance of accidents.

 

Implementation:

In the following, the term 'cards' can be read as 'playing pieces' for other games.

• Currently thinking of a 256 cards or playing pieces; games would be free to use a subset of the full deck.
  
• A range of cards is reserved for non-cards, including the back-of-the-card, and game state symbols or tokens ("folded", "dealer", "discard", "draw", "raise" etc), for more convenient display of information. These are used to customise the table for a game.
  

Card (or playing piece) '0' is best left to indicate no card, and card 1 the back-of-the-card. Sending a location for card # 0 can then be used to remove a card from the table.

• A game would consist of a public "table", and private "hands" of cards.
  
• A hand of any number of cards is then never more than 32 bytes (less than 32 bytes its one byte per card, 32 or more is a bitset) [1]. A player should be able to sort and organise their hand for their own convenience (client side only).
  
• The table can be a 16x16 grid of card locations with a border, so each visible card (stack top) is given in two bytes {(x,y), card#}. Cards may overlap due to space, but the client can raise a card when a player looks at it. Card placement on the table is controlled by the game engine and is shared (the same presentation to players and spectators).
  

Note that games would be free to use whatever card locations are best suited. The "table cloth" can be some "traditional" Draia design, for example, the background of the

Carta Macuma

, except green.

• The game needs to support;
  • "use" on cards on the card table.
    
  • "use" cards from the hand.
    
  • "use with" cards from the hand on cards on the table.
    
  • "use" card with a table location, drag or move, to support non-card games.
    
  • Possibly sufficient to just support drag & drop of pieces, and clicking on pieces.
    
    

  [*]Text annotation is another matter (player names, game name, etc), but most of this wouldn't change during a game (only current bet and stake/pot?). Text is placed in the border of the table, facing inwards (requires rotation by ±90° for text along the left/right edges). Define a set of text slots around this border which can be addressed.

Allow eight (8) text slots for player names, two per edge; corresponding to the number of people who can stand/sit around a small table. This is then the maxiumum players per game. Allow an extra text slot centre-top (raised slightly?) for the game name, and one centre bottom for public state information (bid, pot).

 

The colour of players names could be changed during the game; for instance highlight the current player in a turn based game.

More general:

Have three text slots per board edge (left, centre, right), for a total of nine addressable spaces. Let the in-game decide how to use these slots.

• Messaging could be coded into local chat (the table) or PMs (the hands); the client would need to be extended to recognise and handle such messages, supressing normal display [2]. No server side changes should be necessary. The game can then be administered by a bot (or the server).
  

Using local chat and PMs to pass state information would be a neat trick for in-games, avoiding extending the protocol (the client still needs to be extended). The game could even then be run by a bot, which manages the game and bets (characters trade it gold to get a credit they can use to bet with, and withdraw their winnings or residue later).

Prefix text messages with a double colour code to identify as non-text? Use of null-byte (0) values?

This not only covers all card games; but by changing the table cloth and the icons (cards), other types of games could be implemented - so long as a 16x16 grid is sufficient for playing piece positions (eg, the various forms of chess, drafts/chequers, backgammon, sudoko). In the case of chess-like games, your hand becomes captured pieces.

[1] Assumes unique playing pieces; this is okay for card games, but may need to be relaxed for other games (chess, backgammon). This compression may have to be abandoned in a general game framework (which is what this is tending towards). Consider RLE type compression for sending hands and complete table dispositions.

[2] There is a general approach here, for extending functionality using bots and clients, without needing server or protocol changes, which could be used elsewhere. Remember that a "bot" could be a process running on the game server if critical.

Edited November 10, 2006 by trollson

[trollson]

Hmm... I think my last post has evolved beyond the scope of a suggestion, into an outline design. If only I didn't have 3 million lines of code to deal with already

[Derin]

If it is doable and someone thinks s/he can do it I would definitely put the suggestion forward.

 

Can this relate to the EL sudoku at all? Or would that be too different?

( http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=29191 )

Edited November 1, 2006 by Derin

[trollson]

Briefly... Yes you could arrange a sudoko game using the same framework. The client is completely neutral to the nature of the game, and just presents the playing pieces it is told to.

 

For Sudoko the playing tokens are 1..9, and don't get removed from your hand when you place them. Drag piece from hand onto square etc.

 

Personally, the games which are most interesting are those with 3+ players. Solo games (sudoko, patience), you may as well play directly

 

Possibly arrange some sort of scoring system or against the clock league tables to make it more multi-player interactive.

 

I'll find some time and write up a more detailed specification later if there is interest.

[algunar]

ORC!

 

Another possible EL Tavern Game. a game of memory and reactions.

 

aim of the game: obtain more cards than your opponent(s)

 

number of players: 2 (possibly more)

 

number of cards: 52

 

the cards are divided into 13 different monsters of EL, 4 of each. these would be:

-goblin

-skeleton

-phantom warrior

-orc

-gargoyle

-troll

-ogre

-cyclops

-desert chim

-mountain chim

-arctic chim

-forest chim

-fluffy rabbit

 

how to play

-shuffle the cards and place them down on the table, face down, and randomly.

-flip a coin to see who goes first.

-turn over any two cards. if they are different, turn them back over. if they are the same, put those two cards onto the "jackpot pile". it is then the next player's turn.

-if you turn over two cards and they are both orc cards, the first person to say "orc!" wins the jackpot pile. you then shuffle the remaining cards (including the orc cards you turned over) and deal them out again and repeat the above.

-you keep doing this until there are only 4 cards left, which would be the four orc cards as they dont get put into the jackpot pile.

-the player who has won the most cards, wins.

 

this is quite similar to that real life card game, i think it's called "memory" or something, but it does have its own EL twist. anyway i think it would be cool if you put real life card games (or any kind of game) into EL with a bit of a unique twist, as well as original games thought up by our very own EL characters.

 

Algunar

[trollson]

This post will only be of interest to s/w developers...

 

Packing Bot to Client data in PMs and Local Chat

 

To support in-games, and possibly other interactions, it would help to have client-to-client data messaging (where one client is a bot running the game). There are three options discussed here, two piggy-back on regular text messaging (allowing point-to-point using PMs, and broadcasts using local chat), and one would require an extension to the protocol.

 

Double colour byte delimitor in text messages

 

To avoid server changes, I have been considering packing data packets into PM and Local Chat messages. The basic premise would be to treat any message body starting with two colour code characters as a data package for some other subsystem, rather than as a message to be displayed. For example, in-games may be prefixed by <GREEN><GREEN>.

 

Since the name of the character sending the message is added by the server (I assume), then this provides a degree of security against spamming attacks.

 

Possible issues which could be show-stoppers:

• A server-side word-filter that could corrupt messages?
  
• Would a message containing null bytes be truncated?
  
• Does anything produce double colour-bytes in messages already?
  

Null byte delimitor in text messages

 

Since we'd have to support null bytes anyway, an alternative is to place the data after a null-byte in the text message:

• String processing should continue to work on the portion upto the null byte.
  
• The message length is seperate from the string length.
  
• 
  

Issues:

• Would the full message length be preserved when passed through the server, or would it truncate at the string length?
  
• Can we guarentee that, currently, any padding bytes after the string length in a message are harmless (zero'ed)?
  
• We will have zero-length strings in messages; would these still be passed?
  

New client to client protocol supported by the server

Ideally, the protocol could be extended to support direct client-to-client (or bot) messaging through the server. Any data packet could be sent, and the server would guarentee that the identity of the sender is correct.

 

But this requires:

• Server modifications to support a new message type.
  
• Design to mitigate bad client-client messages (the data packets are out of the control of the server).
  

Conclusion

In anticipation of feed back from those-in-the-know, the issues with piggy-backing on text messages are mostly testable. The issues in any mechanism of ensuring failsafe handling of bad messages (since the message data is not interpreted by the server) is non-trivial, but not impossible.

Edited November 10, 2006 by trollson

[Derin]

A possible EL tavern game?

 

Valley vault is a dice game played in many taverns throughout Seridia. Most taverns has a copy of the game layout or two in store, some even has the layout inlaid in special gaming tables.

The game table represents the gods and their ways and so the layout has nine circles with the number 3 through 11 in them.

Stakes are in gold coins, or some common commodity (like gems) as long as all parties involved uses the same type of wager. The use of gold coins is, by far, the most common practice.

On a player’s turn s/he throws the two dice and places a coin on the corresponding number.

When a given number has three coins on it the next to roll that number gets the three coins.

If a player rolls a pair of 1s, s/he has rolled a “Shadow spawn” and must place a coin on each of the numbers (total of 9) and s/he cannot pick up any coins for that turn, even if the stack on one number is 3 or higher.

If a player rolls a double 6, s/he has rolled “Selain’s Steal” and is allowed to take or “steal” all the coins on the table.

The game is usually end on the 3rd “Selain’s Steal” but can go on for any time, given the conditions are set before the game begins.

 

A typical Valley Vault game table: