Zugg Software :: View topic - Extensive data capture and comparison- Dragonrealms

Wanderer Joined: 03 Sep 2007 Posts: 88

So, I'm playing dragonrealms and its a fairly huge mud with 700+ people on at peak time. I've been having a hard time remembering everyone and so I got to thinking...

Heres what I want to be able to do:

I want to be able to look at a character and have it saved somewhere, text file, array, etc etc(not sure what the best option is). Where i can then recall it with a mud command without actually looking again.

You see Darkling Caliza, Enforcer of Elanthia, a Halfling.
Caliza has almond-shaped jade eyes and an upturned nose. Her red-gold hair is long and wavy, and is worn in a deceptively careless-looking arrangement of upswept locks held in place by an engraved black gold starburst haircomb set with tiny moonstone chips. She has smooth skin and a curvaceous figure.
A shimmering black diamond skull rests on her forehead, just above her eyes.
She is a kneebiter for a Halfling.

She is holding a carved wooden cricket dangling from a string in her right hand.
She is wearing a dark spidersilk gem pouch embroidered with the barely visible image of a crouching panther, a black nightsilk duffel bag clasped with a small silver skull, a barrel-staved quiver, a purple velvet bodice accented by ornate black needlework done in fine spidersilk, a black leather war belt riveted with blued-steel studs, a slender silver eyebrow ring, a platinum jadeite gwethdesuan, a leather sheath, some sheer pink spidersilk stockings dusted with tiny crystal dewdrops, a black thigh pouch with a delicate silver cobweb overlay, a black leather pack with a skull and crossbones branded into the front, some steel-toed footwraps with silver buckles, some tight-fitting leggings of supple black leather with an overskirt of knotted ribbons, a shadowy-black sling with spidersilk whipcords, a bronze armband inlaid with a cambrinth wolf, a midnight black velvet tabard embroidered with Damaris' panther, a keg-shaped steel badge stamped "Drink Drank Drunk" and a light crossbow.

Secondly, I want to be able to have this "info" linked to more info, my notes etc, her class if i know it, level etc. And finally, I want it to be able to check to see if there is already a "look" file in existence. If so, I want it to check the file for equipment changes, feature changes, hair etc. If there is new additions, I want CMUD to be able to tell me what is new, or what is missing.

Why? Well, equipment is a pretty big deal in Dragonrealms. So it would be super usefull if i could comment to someone if i noticed they got a haircut, or if i could say "Hey I really like your new pants." Or ... "What happened to that diamond ring you had on"? Or.... I really like your new tatoo. This would be so friggin awesome.

Notice all the gear above is seperated by commas(except the last item is AND), so I really think it is doable.

Another thought I had was to be able to store the gear in a database, and then be able to enter item properties etc.

Any ideas would be GREATLY appreciated. I really want to make this happen!

Thanks!
-Bryan

Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 5:27 am

Well what you're asking for is fairly involved but as you mentioned it's doable. First you need to determine how you want to store the person. Because of the amount of detail you want to capture I would suggest DB. You come up with a DB design that captures all the data you want into fields. Then it's a matter of triggering the description to store the people you're interested in. It would helpful to check for duplicates when you doing this. The EQ info is a little trickier.

You probably have you're own EQ database so you have to choices here. The first is much easier, just keep a list of the EQ with id references into you EQ db. If you don't have an entry then a place holder entry will do. When you update the persons info you can check for new list entries. The other alternative is to have a complete body map for the person, and match EQ to body part but I think that would be overkill. Checking eq list changes is probably done best by doing existence checks of your new list in your old list