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Eilserus
Master of Realmslore
USA
1446 Posts |
 Posted - 28 Feb 2014 : 01:10:17
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Hi all,
I'm not sure about anyone else, but I have something like a 2 1/2 foot stack of loose papers with notes, NPCs, places etc scribbled on them and it keeps growing as the years go on. Really it's more characters and info than I'll ever use.
So an idea hit me, and I've only really thought about it in the most basic form. But here goes:
We have a giant map of Faerun, scanned in and slapped onto a website. We'll make all the city names hyper-link to the various maps that go with them.
Now I've been toying with putting up a Realms website just so I can better organize notes, maps and all that jazz. But I was thinking, what if I could write a program, that on any given day, tells me where Horl, Breeder of Mules is located. Or Jarsoun the manywares merchant.
If X merchant runs from Suzail to Hillsfar, you just have to figure out how many days between both places, travel time, a bit of math and I should be able to click a button under my Suzail area and see what traders are in town on the 15th day of Mirtul.
The point of all of this would be to click a button and have a handy list of detailed NPCs available to call upon. And they travel around like real life. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think it would be fun to click a button and run into Horl six hex spaces out of Arabel for instance.
I'll have to play around with this idea when I get more time. Kind of sounds like a granddaddy of all encounter decider type thing. Or more likely I'm just insane. ;)
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Edited by - Eilserus on 28 Feb 2014 01:11:29
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Mapolq
Senior Scribe
Brazil
466 Posts |
Posted - 28 Feb 2014 : 03:07:24
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You sound very insane, which is a really good thing in my book. 
Seriously though, awesome idea. If you can pull it off, I'll take my hat off to you. Maybe (big maybe) it would encourage WotC to actually do something useful with its "interactive platforms" as well, if it gets popular!
But I think you're going to need a team. What language are you planning to code this in? I'm thinking you'll want to get a server to host your site, and which will run your program 24/7, so it knows where all the NPCs are at any time (should be fairly trivial processing for a few thousand NPCs, unless you try to do really fancy math for each). I would be willing to help some, but you can probably find better candidates - I do scientific programming in FORTRAN, but I know little about what you'll need here.
Also, if you're going with 3E geography, I suggest trying to get HandsomeRob's permission to use his map as base. It's an awesome 800MB tapestry of a .tif file. |
Never sleep under the jackfruit tree.
Tales of Moonsea - A Neverwinter Nights 2 Persistent World. Check out our website at http://www.talesofmoonsea.com and our video trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am304WqOAAo&feature=youtu.be, as well as our thread here at Candlekeep: http://www.forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12955
My campaign thread: http://www.forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16447 |
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Mapolq
Senior Scribe
Brazil
466 Posts |
Posted - 28 Feb 2014 : 04:13:28
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(Keep in mind my terminology and structure here is largely taken out of my posterior, I have no experience with this kind of work).
I guess you should begin with turning the map into a very large grid, with each pixel being given an (x,y) coordinate. Every site and every person will occupy a single pixel (and more than one person can be on the same pixel). Of course, the names and icons for cities, etc. will cover more than one pixel, but as far as the code is concerned, that's irrelevant - just choose a pixel in the middle.
Now you'll have to code some usual behaviours, like trading, small and large trips, or even adventuring, raiding, pirating, patrolling. Decide what is best for each actor and put them on a predetermined script, but throw a bit of randomness on. Say, if Trader X is in Suzail, he's 50% likely to do the Suzail-Arabel run, 20% likely to do the Suzail-Wheloon run, 20% likely to stay put in his home in the capital, and 10% likely to visit his son in Marsember. More complex actors could be allowed to change "bases" so they'd do a single-way trip to another city and then start using another set of actions. Say, an adventuring gruop that decided to relocate from Baldur's Gate to Iriaebor and will now run around doing things around that city. Script these actions so that the actor will make the trip, stay some slightly random time in the destination and go back. Clicking on the a city name would show a list of the actors who are currently "parked" there, and a list of those who're "based" there, maybe. And, of course, make a nice user interface and pile it up with as much lore and maps as you can. 
Now what may be the biggest work you'll need to do: routes. If you mindlessly tell a code to move someone from (10,92) to (45,67) in a straight line, you'll get people doing all sorts of ridiculous things. Roads will be irrelevant, rivers, lakes and oceans will be irrelevant, and so on. So what I would do is make sure actors can only move through pre-determined routes, which will be a sequence of pixels. Then each actor will have to choose the route they'll take depending on parameters set for themselves. The simplest approach here is to specify each action can only follow a single route (so going from Suzail to Westgate by ship is a different action than doing that by road). You may want to experiment with labelling the routes as "road", "river", "sealane", "wilderness" etc. and giving a little more choice to your actors, but it may turn to be too much of a hassle. It would also be simpler from the coding standpoint to make all the routes you're interested in individually, so if you say "Suzail to Athkatla" the code doesn't have to figure out which way it goes from Purskul, it just runs from beginning to end. More monkey work to crank all the (basic) possibilities, but getting a really complex code with dynamic intersections to function would be daunting, I think. Maybe something to try after there's a first version done.
If you or anyone actually knows how to do this stuff, please feel free to correct me. |
Never sleep under the jackfruit tree.
Tales of Moonsea - A Neverwinter Nights 2 Persistent World. Check out our website at http://www.talesofmoonsea.com and our video trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am304WqOAAo&feature=youtu.be, as well as our thread here at Candlekeep: http://www.forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12955
My campaign thread: http://www.forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16447 |
Edited by - Mapolq on 28 Feb 2014 04:22:48 |
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LordXenophon
Learned Scribe
USA
147 Posts |
Posted - 28 Feb 2014 : 17:19:12
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| This has already been done in the form of CAD files and a dedicated reader. It's called "The Forgotten Realms Atlas." I never DM without it. |
Disintegration is in the eye of the Beholder. |
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hashimashadoo
Master of Realmslore
United Kingdom
1150 Posts |
Posted - 28 Feb 2014 : 17:27:08
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quote:
Originally posted by LordXenophon
This has already been done in the form of CAD files and a dedicated reader. It's called "The Forgotten Realms Atlas." I never DM without it.
To an extent, yes but it's practically impossible to get a hold of the FRIA these days without using shady download sites and a CD burner.
From what little has been said so far, this project would be far more expansive, and more user-friendly. It would probably work on an OS more recent than WinXP without a lot of hassle too. |
When life turns it's back on you...sneak attack for extra damage.
Head admin of the FR wiki:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/ |
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Mapolq
Senior Scribe
Brazil
466 Posts |
Posted - 28 Feb 2014 : 18:06:51
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From what I understood about the poster's idea, it goes far beyond the FRIA in one important aspect, which is tracking NPCs in real time to offer a model of the movement of people (and potentially monsters, goods, and whatever the creator wants to include) in the Realms. Mind you, it'd be way, way over my head to do this alone, so unless Eilserus is serious about it and gets a team together, it's just a fancy idea.
Edit: I mean, like Voyager 1 over my head. |
Never sleep under the jackfruit tree.
Tales of Moonsea - A Neverwinter Nights 2 Persistent World. Check out our website at http://www.talesofmoonsea.com and our video trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am304WqOAAo&feature=youtu.be, as well as our thread here at Candlekeep: http://www.forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12955
My campaign thread: http://www.forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16447 |
Edited by - Mapolq on 28 Feb 2014 20:07:04 |
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Interactive Realms
