Need help on "the World Enhancer"

IseriSwiftsong · 05-06-09, 05:26 AM

So this is my earth-shattering idea for an addon with RP in mind. I call it the world enhancer, and so far there IS a prototype in the works. My Lua is unfortunately very limited, and so I work with someone who knows a little more than me.

We've not had much progress, but the idea is there and the first major features has been implemented, the rest - not so much.

I will explain the idea briefly, but first allow me to introduce a problem in RP. Whether we roleplay or not, we all know that the world is more or less static. I as a player have no influence the world. Now, for those who don't RP this is mostly a bummer, but nothing serious. For those of us who do, it's also a huge bump in the road sometimes.

What roleplayers usually do is "RP around it." So if there is a table and you put a seven course meal on it, we RP a seven course meal. If we mercilessly impale a bandit's head with a spear and place that on our lawn *cough* then we just have to tell everyone we RP with in the area that there is this impaled bandit there.

Telling everyone over and over again can get very cumbersome.

Now, since addons cannot modify the ACTUAL game world (i.e. models, terrain, so on) we cannot do that, however, it's very possible to have "emotes." I did just say, emotes. But who's going to emote them, you may ask? Well here is my idea.

We can locate ourselves in the world using:
* Names of maps.
* Coordinates on that map (X,Y)

It is possible for me to calculate a straight line from the player's coordinates to another coordinate, say, point P.

Now, let's imagine point P is where the bandit on a stick is. Let's say it's visible from distance D away. I can define a circle around the point with radius D.

Now suppose I also defined a string of text. Something like "The head of a human male appears impaled on a spear." And every time you stepped into the circle we defined, you will see that text. That means I don't have to go OOC to tell everyone what they're seeing and that I don't have to bother too much thinking about it, either.

That's the idea, essentially.

Now if I have a treasure hunt plot with my friends, I can define circles to work as clues. That's a new use for it, as they wouldn't need me either, and I can just place clues all over the world. It's an idea, and a use enabled by this.

It has its downfalls. How do I prevent idiots from spamming the world with useless points? Your group of friends will be in a channel, a password protected one, where each peer is assumed to be 100% trusted. This will be done because:
1. Not everyone is around all of the time.
2. Encryption and signing of points would be a major overkill for this.
3. If you don't like someone who's in your channel, you and your friends can leave the channel.

And lastly, I know everyone's going to ask about this. I firmly believe that no feature should be hidden from the user. And if a user truly wishes to spoil the end of a plot for themselves, so be it. When I buy a book, I choose not to look at the end because I like to experience the plot.

But then again there are these people who don't. And that is perfectly up to them, and besides, they will find a way to do it anyhow.

So when I make a new point I will publish it to the channel, and all clients will add it to their database. If I've been gone for some time, I will issue a request for all points between the time I've last logged out and now and get an update on all points.

There is a working prototype, as I mentioned before. It doesn't do channel sharing. I would like some more people to help us out. This could be a very useful addon, and I want to see it being developed, moreover I want to USE it, because I'm absolutely certain it will be useful.

Code available per request. Note it's mostly not my own work, but my code monkey's work. He does the coding, I do the thinking and talking. I guess that's something too. The algo probably needs some work too, I sense global coords would have been better.

Iseri Swiftsong

PS: the name World Enhancer is derived from the World Enlarger, in case you were wondering.

voodoodad · 05-06-09, 05:32 AM

I thnk it sounds like a really good idea and I hope you can develope it into whatever you need. That being said, your post makes me infinitely more happy to not be on an RP sever.

nickyjean · 05-06-09, 10:50 PM

your gonna be so mad at me. I think I have a notion of what you are talking about. I even had an addon that allowed you to create quests, I was using it for hints (kind of like a Tour guide) recorder of my very own. But it was too much for my little to no rp'ing. I just can't remember what it was called.

It would allow you to enter coords (or start a recorder) and then almost like a raid warning or a subzone alert would say what you programmed in. You could share it with others who had the addon (no matter your distance from the player). So when you got to say a bridge, you would get a remark on your screen saying "turn left here". as an example.

I wish I could remember the name. The only thing I remember was that it had an annoying quill (I think) as an icon for it on the Minimap. Annoying because when I moved my minimap around the icon would go weird and not get out to the way. I spent some time looking for it but I can't grasp the name at all. But it should give you the small glimmer of hope that it can be done.