Cornucopia continued...

[trollson]

The discussion on The Cornucopia on the suggestions forum has drifted into more technical areas which it may not be useful to discuss there.

 

Issues:

• Managing single instance objects.
  
• Area effects (centered on a character).
  

On Area Effects

I would expect that area affects are an important tool in games like this, so it is worth us understanded what it possible.

Wouldn't the effect be done from the viewpoint of the artifact user?

No, because it will affect the one that manufactures, not the one that holds the artefact.

The point here is whether a new range search is required. The holder is the source of the effect, which applies to all in visual range with respect to him/her; this set of subjects is already known, as its used by the client.

 

So the effects can be applied either periodically, by iterating through the holders list of actors in range, or by applying/removing tags to actors as they enter/leave this set. There is no new searches required.

 

So long as an area affect is centered on an actor, and has a range not greater than the visual range, it should avoid the need for more range searches.

 

Inactive characters?

What do you do when the holder gets locked? Or decides to take a break?

I assume you mean that an artifact can get "lost" in the inventory of an inactive character.

 

Say that an artifact will be lost if held by a character who is inactive for 6 months. A monthly sweep of the character database to identify artifact holders inactive for 5 months+. This can be performed off-line (I assume date of last log-on is recorded?). Highlight these characters, and if they do not login over the next month, then delete the artifact from their record.

 

The nice thing with artifacts is that they are not always available; they could be hiding in hbags for years, and like Schrödinger's cat, its not certain until the bag is found and opened. Prime ground for lazy searches.

[Derin]

Would it be a bad thing if the artifact had effect on everybody sporting the same guild tag, not just the ones in visual range? Would that make the programming/implementation easier?

 

What do you do when the holder gets locked? Or decides to take a break?

 

Once found there should be a set timer (if possible) for the artifact. I would like to see something like 1 hour per point in will or something similar. This assumes that the item cannot be traded, stored or dropped and then retrieved again.

If you do anything of the above the item is lost. If you reach the timer limit (on-line or off-line), the item is lost. If you die, the item is lost.

[Learner]

When thinking about things ... just pretend there is NO player database! We don not want anything that has to scan through all the players at any time!!!!!

[Derin]

KK, so its "see actor" "activate seen actor" that will be the smoothest

[trollson]

An alternative approach to tracking inactive artifacts -- since there are only a finite set of artifacts, a seperate record can be kept, in addition to the items entry in a character inventory or bag. This would record:

• The location of the artifact (character ID or h/bag location).
  
• A timestamp of its last use.
  

This servers two purposes:

1. Guards against accidental duplication of the artifact (much more critical when dealing with unique items). If a character uses the item, and doesn't match the entry in the artifact record, he discovers that it is a fake and breaks.
   
2. Allow periodic (~monthly) check for items lost in inactive characters. This can either be against last use (easiest to record), or a subsequent check against character last login (if available).
   

This requires the server to track the location of critical items in the game.