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Fharron · 12-11-2003, 03:38 PM

Why limit it to rooms? I’m not sure what zone system you are using, whether each zone is allocated 100 rooms or whether variable room allocations are an attribute of your codebase.

Wouldn’t it be simpler and cleaner to assign populations to zones and then use Boolean functions to draw from these total figures? You could even add a series of zone specific population flags, say

Small Population 001 – 1001
Medium Population 1001 – 5000
Large Population 5001 – 10000 and so on

For example town A has a small population flag giving it 1000 people.

If room sector = street then present population = 20 (totalpop/50) (1000/50)

If room sector = indoors then present population = 5
(total pop/200) (1000/200)

If room sector = street & time = night then present population = 2
((total pop/20)/10) (1000/20)/10)

You could even spice up the system by embellishing the information associated with the zone flags. Perhaps change the base population from a simple fixed number and add a random element, or develop it further and link NPC type breakdowns to it.

Small city encounters suffix

00-50 Peasant
50-60 Artisan
70-90 Soldier
90-100 Noble

Two people see the player in the street during the nighttime hours. One of them is a peasant and the other a soldier of the watch.

Moving further along why not tie the present population representatives to different motivational forces, perhaps the zone has an alignment and there is less chance of PPR’s bothering if they see a PK attempt in evil zones. My personal preference would be to parse the generated PPR’s through a character/motivation function giving them attributes from a list – scoundrel, justicar, timid, screamer, and so on. In this way the villainous character could be spotted by a scoundrel who simply ignores them, a justicar that takes them to task, or a drunken justicar who cant be bothered making a fuss, whatever degree of complexity floats your boat.

You could call the creation of PPR’s in response to specific acts performed or in line with room entry passing write over variables to the room. These could be used to pop mobiles, provide data for a look/scan assessment, activate emotes or whatever.

The system could also provide the opportunity to cross-reference the population data with other city systems, if there is a drought lower population, if shop trade is high increase frequency of traders, if town monetary supply is low then reduce frequency of guards and so on.

Hard coding it and linking it to an internal system would remove the need for builders to think about every individual room, the parameters you set would do the work for them, thereby reducing the possibility of errant allocations and the potential for game balance deficits between areas.

12-11-2003, 03:38 PM	#6
Fharron New Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 26	Why limit it to rooms? I’m not sure what zone system you are using, whether each zone is allocated 100 rooms or whether variable room allocations are an attribute of your codebase. Wouldn’t it be simpler and cleaner to assign populations to zones and then use Boolean functions to draw from these total figures? You could even add a series of zone specific population flags, say Small Population 001 – 1001 Medium Population 1001 – 5000 Large Population 5001 – 10000 and so on For example town A has a small population flag giving it 1000 people. If room sector = street then present population = 20 (totalpop/50) (1000/50) If room sector = indoors then present population = 5 (total pop/200) (1000/200) If room sector = street & time = night then present population = 2 ((total pop/20)/10) (1000/20)/10) You could even spice up the system by embellishing the information associated with the zone flags. Perhaps change the base population from a simple fixed number and add a random element, or develop it further and link NPC type breakdowns to it. Small city encounters suffix 00-50 Peasant 50-60 Artisan 70-90 Soldier 90-100 Noble Two people see the player in the street during the nighttime hours. One of them is a peasant and the other a soldier of the watch. Moving further along why not tie the present population representatives to different motivational forces, perhaps the zone has an alignment and there is less chance of PPR’s bothering if they see a PK attempt in evil zones. My personal preference would be to parse the generated PPR’s through a character/motivation function giving them attributes from a list – scoundrel, justicar, timid, screamer, and so on. In this way the villainous character could be spotted by a scoundrel who simply ignores them, a justicar that takes them to task, or a drunken justicar who cant be bothered making a fuss, whatever degree of complexity floats your boat. You could call the creation of PPR’s in response to specific acts performed or in line with room entry passing write over variables to the room. These could be used to pop mobiles, provide data for a look/scan assessment, activate emotes or whatever. The system could also provide the opportunity to cross-reference the population data with other city systems, if there is a drought lower population, if shop trade is high increase frequency of traders, if town monetary supply is low then reduce frequency of guards and so on. Hard coding it and linking it to an internal system would remove the need for builders to think about every individual room, the parameters you set would do the work for them, thereby reducing the possibility of errant allocations and the potential for game balance deficits between areas.