Quote:

Well to begin with, we want to give people the same tools we have.

Yay! Real tools!

So excited....can't sit still...

Well count me in if there are Ages to be written - I guess that will mean forming or joining a new Guild of Writers. Perhaps the sheer amount of stuff (some good, probably most bad) that will get writ means needing to restrict the tools to people (gild members) who get some form of qualifications - in fact, just like the D'ni controlled the creation of Ages.

But then, the idea of a 'holodeck' chamber for people to use to learn the art is a good one - they could get the tools, compose their Ages, compile them and run them (virtually) in the learning chamber (a bit like writing a VB program and running it in debug mode )

Writing would have to be via a dumbed down kind og gui/script - -you would choose a template for the Age from a library (hey, another use for the Library! ), then have a large selection of properties to customise it - so you would not (as I assume the D'ni did) have to describe every single blade of grass, or leaf on tree or pebble, but would
instead choose prt of the floor to have a lawn, choose to have hedges, or have some ground with 100% coverege of pebbles (like Eastbourne beach at hightide), etc

For example, based in the old INI file format:

[Age]
name=Riven
chambers = 5
background=ocean
boundary=none (ie. to horizon)
linkinposition=1 (chamber 1)

[chamber 1]
name=Island1
boundarytype=cliffs <cliffparameters>
boundarytexture=rock
xposn=128
yposn=78
shapebase=Ellipse.<parameters for ellipse> (others migh be square, circle, random)
shapevariance=fractalrock (others might be none (or smooth)
linkdest=2,3
linktype=bridge,tunnel

[chamber 2]
name=Island2
boundary=cliffs
xposn=1000
yposn=550
linkdest=1
linktype=bridge

[chamber 3]
name = Island3
boundary=beach
xposn=1
yposn=784
linkdest=1
linktype=tunnel

In fact, there really is no great difficulty in describing Riven fully, becuase you won't be describing every little detail, just describing where library objects are and customising them.

This is what I am thinking

Someone else say some words now....

Ini files are flat and make it impossible to write ages with nested objects. I suggest XML or YAML:

Code:

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Tiran wrote:

Ini files are flat and make it impossible to write ages with nested objects. I suggest XML or YAML:

Code:

<age name="Riven">
    <background><ocean color="blue" /></background>
    <island name="Island1"> ... </island>
</age>


Yer right of course - I was just illustrating a point. Maybe users would not use INI or XML directly, but have something like a 3d version of Visio with a nice big library of objects, or a very high level script maybe. But even so, if Cyan provides a library of Age templates, and a library of customisable objects and behaviours, the number of combinations will be very large such that there would be minimal duplication. Also would allow a degree of control over what users can put in their ages (ie no antisocial or over the top grafitti etc).

Perhaps if a user Age meets some sort of quality or interest etc set out by CYan, they (Cyan) could then take the work that had been done and produce it as an actual Age - up to that point, the user Age will be virtual in this 'holodeck' idea.