Solving the age old Exigo campfire issue

[Phantom Lamb]

Occassionally I'll shoo people from the campfire with hysterics, like speed dating. With the changes to our weather system looming, I'll probably be less annoyed with campfire carebearing.

But yes, GBX and Taco have outlined my approach as well. I won't deliver events to your laps unless I'm really, really bored.

And DBER, I think, based on what we've observed, it really has more to do with proximity to the world map than environment. Some people like the outdoors feel, but we've witnessed the social "hangout" migrate from one area to another based on how many transitions it is from the world map

[DireBadgerEntersRage]

Oh, yes that is a factor; after all, who wants to load an extra area? In an example of when a 'rural' area wasn't available to hang out, people used to pointedly gather outside the inn, granted, there were chairs and tables, instead of inside, even when it rained, just because that way they were more 'in the way' of things and people and didn't want to take chances and sit inside in hopes someone would bother to load the area to check for people.

[black hand]

That is also a factor I consider... Luckily I play elves most of the time and so the Druid glade is just a given, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who rolls the Percentile dice every time I transition between worlds for that 5% to 10% chance of the game crashing.

Although I would have my Wizard hang out more in the library were it not so removed from things, from a players perspective, the world map link is necessary to get to your intended destination quick, especially if there are people waiting for you, or a shop you need to go to and you don't have much time. But the 'feel' of the world at large I could see being lost if there was a world transition in most places, people would be treating it more as a video game rather than immersing in the role playing experience of Sundren

[Zoberraz]

All that makes me wonder how things could change if Sundren implemented the Overland Map. A good number of quests depend upon uncovering new map locations so I wonder just how much free roaming around and the prospect of random encounters (well, in the form of monsters patrolling around) would change things on the server.

Heck, is Sundren, as envisioned, even compatible with the world map system as we see it in Storm of Zehir?

[TheBlankStare]

I don't think using the SoZ world map like it's used in the campaign really makes much sense. It would take the creation of a few "random areas" that don't add much to the story other than a place to have random encounters. I read somewhere else that each area takes up a portion of the limited amount of memory that the game/server can utilize. Outdoor areas like ones on an overland map would just add to that leaving us with fewer places to adventure. Or something.

That said it would be kind of fun to have an adventure on that overland map where you're chasing down a bad guy or running from someone.

[GodBeastX]

I don't think using the SoZ world map like it's used in the campaign really makes much sense. It would take the creation of a few "random areas" that don't add much to the story other than a place to have random encounters. I read somewhere else that each area takes up a portion of the limited amount of memory that the game/server can utilize. Outdoor areas like ones on an overland map would just add to that leaving us with fewer places to adventure. Or something.

That said it would be kind of fun to have an adventure on that overland map where you're chasing down a bad guy or running from someone.

And that's why me and Grinning fool pushed for Area instancing. For overland maps. You only need to create a couple battlefields which isn't that much memory, and you instance copies of them so other people can be in the same map without bumping into you. It was required for overland map play.

[DireBadgerEntersRage]

I can see how it can work for DM events; as in preventing people from happening upon your already large group and deciding to join, thus causing a long conversation where they need to catch up on what's going on, thus stalling everybody who's been involved since the beginning including the DM who just happens to have limited time to run the event.

But isn't instancing sort of counterproductive to the ability to bump into people for RP outside of civilized areas that is discussed over several pages of this thread?

[Doubtful]

DBER; I think you've got the wrong end of the stick.

GBX is talking about the overland map and the need for instanced maps on that, as TBS mentioned the 'random' overworld maps require memory for each map. Say a server has 3-4 random map areas, enough for a little variety and not to heavy a load:

Without instancing you'll frequently run into the situation where Group A meets a random encounter, hops onto Map B and deals with it's spawns. Suddenly Group B meets a random encounter and due to luck also loads Map B and spawns its spawns. - this can lead to lots of death and annoyance and is only mitigated slightly by having tons of maps which chew up memory.

With instancing this isn't a problem as both groups hop into different instances of the same map.

[DireBadgerEntersRage]

And there is no way of loading said map B without spawning the monsters if they are already being killed by group A?

[Vala Rift]

I can imagine that a trigger could be thrown into the database that checks to see if anyone is in that area (trigger probably already exists within the 'search pc' dmfi function). When a PC enters area B, it checks to see if anyone is in area A. If not, the spawns load as normal (and visa versa). When the player leaves, the trigger is set to False and the spawning of the alternate area will commence.

This method assumes player A is killing every spawn in the alternate area, of course.

The other method would work, by setting the trigger by each creature spawn.. but its a bit more robust - uses virtually the same code though; just more instances of it. Truthfully, you could probably create one function to use for every area and every spawn if the server already has standard naming for each spawn point. (You could do it without standard naming, but I would feel -really- bad for the DEV who has to go rename everything)

[Doubtful]

DBER, that's why we have instancing, so you don't need to worry about it, see the trouble is the sheer madness of the non-instanced approach. You need loads of maps - so less actual adventuring areas, the problems of things like Group A being level 3, they've killed their goblins then a troop of 15's gets dumped in and the lev 3's get annilated - or vice versa.

Not to mention the oddness of having two groups who are on entirely different sides of the country/continent/planet hop into the same random encounter map. Spawns or not that's going to be really really odd.

Instancing is absolutely essential for the overland map. This isn't about going to static locations such as the Viridale but to random things you may encounter along the way.

[DireBadgerEntersRage]

Okay, thanks for the explanation; it's finally coming together in my head. I suppose there would still be enough of static locations out in the wild to randomly meet people.

Though would those random encounter maps be completely random or there would be some relation to the region you're going?