Zugg Software :: View topic - Wish-list for zMUDXP

Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:13 pm

If you want to scroll the whole window backwards, just drag the split bar for the split screen down to the bottom of the window. Then it will look and act like a normal scrolling window.

Beginner Joined: 09 Aug 2005 Posts: 17

I have a wishlist for this wishlist:

I would like each feature request to be broken out into its own thread with a poll that allows the readers to vote on it.

At 9 pages, this thread is very hard to navigate and has a lot of crap in it, like one post that says "I want X" and then another post that says "You can already do X," etc. That might all be valid stuff, but if I don't care about the feature request, or actively disagree with the request (like the one above for scrolling) I really don't want to read 10 posts about this feature. I'd rather just be able to vote, "No, I don't need this feature" and move on to the next one.

An example that the feature requests could be modelled after is here: http://www.hmailserver.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=2&sid=1de4e5254cec2eb094e4a06c264c26c5 It's just a list of polls, which anyone can create/respond to/vote for. And then there is another page here: http://www.hmailserver.com/?page=vote_results where you can see the results so you know which are the top features or which features aren't getting any response.

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 4:23 pm

Eventually the new MUD client will have it's very own forum for discussions. The purpose of this thread was really to give people a place to freely post their wishes without getting into big long discussions of each little detail. It's a good thread to give me a general idea of where people would like to see things improve.

I'm not a big fan of simple polls...they don't really tell me much. zMUD has never been about "majority rules"...even the original mapper didn't get many votes when it was first suggested many many years ago. I prefer to look at each idea and evaluate a combination of how many people are interested in it, but also how useful or unique I think the idea is and how it fits into the overall scheme of the software. It's also hard to talk about something in detail when it's still so nebulous, but when the new MUD client gets into Beta status, we have a lot more details to discuss in a new forum.

Beginner Joined: 15 Jan 2005 Posts: 13

Suggestions for the Editor:

-Can I *please* be able to ctrl+tab out of it? ... If I have 2 mud panels up, and then the editor, I can switch from the two muds fine, but when it gets to the editor it stops, and I have to move my hand all the way over to my mouse to click back into the mud window.
-AN "UNDO" FEATURE.
-A definable macro to 'send all' from the editor to whatever mud window you're in. (I do a lot of editing, and since you can't ctrl+tab out of the editor, this becomes a pain)
-Overall edibility of it: Make it more like notepad, where when you delete the text on one line the line under it moves up. It's a little buggy in this sense.
-When I "ctrl+c" to copy selected text, DON'T un-highlight the text!
-Maybe find a way to make the line #'s of the lines only report the actual lines where I have entered text (and then hit enter for a new line) - and NOT count lines that have wrapped because the window's too small.
-Make it so 'tab' works to indent text.
-Just make it as awesome as any other script editor :p (something like jEdit would be great. ie. auto-intdent etc)

Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2005 7:13 am

As posted here (top message): http://forums.zuggsoft.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=21807&start=116
I'd think that only a totally new product would justify the 'upgrade' (which wouldn't be one, but a new product) for half price.

Anyway, most posts I've been reading were about changing or adding relatively tiny aspects to the existing functionality.

What I thought was a totally new vision: a graphic version. No more text! More and more players leave and start playing those graphical worlds. First I was looking the other way and stuck to my textbased world, but the longer I think about it, the more I would like to create something more of this time. Use your mouse/keyboard to walk through your own world. Not as heavy as those MMPOGs that use 1GB of internal memory or highly expensive graphical cards.

I'd be willing to pay a LOT more for such kind of product. Even on a monthly base. Look around and check how those MMPOG's do it, with hundreds of thousands of players!

Anyway, I've got the ideas, not the team. But I'm working on that :P

Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2005 4:37 pm

This probably deserves a new thread. But you aren't going to replace text with graphics. The text is the MUDs *strength*. People who like MUDs more than MMORPGs LIKE the text and LIKE using their imaginations. MUD builders cannot create graphics that are good enough to replace your imagination. Sure, graphics in games like WoW and EQ are fantastic and might be a decent substitute for text, but the graphic designers that did WoW and EQ get paid a lot and MUDs would never be able to afford this cost. Anyone can write good descriptive text...few people can make the graphics.

So you can't get rid of the text. The text is the core part of the MUD. However, you *are* correct about a new vision. But it's not a new vision for doing graphics and getting rid of text, it's a new vision for how to embrace the text and create a better interface for playing MUDs. zMUD and other MUD clients inherit most of their interface from telnet clients, because that's what we all started with. But there are other ways to handle text interfaces. And that's where zMUDXP will go.

Anyway, beware of the MMORPG trap. MUDs and MMORPGs *are* different. If you try to make a MUD into a graphical game, then you compete *directly* with high-quality games like EQ(2), WoW, Guild Wars, etc. And unless you have a huge budget and a huge team of talented artists, you will not be able to compete. We need to focus on what makes MUDs different and embrace those differences and make them better. MUDs are about using your imagine to have areas that you could never design graphics for, and MUDs are focused on *gameplay*, deep skill systems, etc, and not on pretty graphics. That's why most of the people I know play MUDs.

Anyway, like I said, probably should be a new thread to talk about the Mud vs MMORPG issue since it's such a big topic.

Beginner Joined: 15 Jan 2005 Posts: 13

I think you just lost a customer Zugg!

But I totally agree, as I'm sure everyone here does. I like mud's because I have control, imagination, and the community of friends seems way closer. I can macro around to any area in a milliseconds (and hopefully faster with zmudxp :p). I like the fact that muds are way more expandable. It would take a quarter of the time to make a new mud area than in a MMORPG. I don't know why else I like them - I guess you seem to be noticed more, where in an MMORPG you just kinda fit in.

Zorbaine, 3-Kingdoms, www.3k.org:3000

Beginner Joined: 15 Jan 2005 Posts: 13

Another suggestion for the editor: It truncated(at the top) a file that I tried to open that was 52kb. Dunno what the limit is, but it shouldn't truncate files. Please, just make the editor more powerful in the new version. :)

Beginner Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 27

Room flags for the mapper. Preferably user-configurable, and preferably with a way to echo the flags to the active screen.

There are already any number of flags in the mapper, and perhaps I'm missing something in what is already there, but I'll outline what I mean by "room flags". There are any number of special behaviors that can be specific to a room: peace rooms, silent rooms, pain rooms, etc. The number of flags is limited only by the imagination and coding abilities of the various implementors. On any given mud, there rapidly develops a subset of flags that it would be interesting to know about a given room. To a certain extent, this can be managed by coloring the rooms. However, rooms can only be a single color. So if a room has multiple flags (peace, no-magic, silent, for instance), there is no way (that I am aware of) to reflect this in the mapper in a way that is immediately visible to the user, without leaving the properties dialog up all the time.

Something where the user could create their own flag labels, and then toggle them off and on for each room, and then allow for outputting the set of toggled-on flags to the active screen would be great.

Wizard Joined: 25 Mar 2003 Posts: 1113 Location: USA

I agree completely about the need for room flags. It would be infinitely useful if I were able to flag rooms as water rooms, for example, and maybe even cut them out of my speedwalk paths if I don't have my waterwalking boots on. I also like to tag rooms by terrain type (i.e., mountain, hills, forest, ocean, etc.) and use the information in various ways. Not sure how I'd implement it, but user-configurable flags for rooms (and exits) would be very useful things indeed.

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 5:56 pm

As with many of the mapper requests in this thread, different room types can already be done using zMapper. If you want enhanced mapper functionality, look at zMapper...that's where it's implemented. Enhanced mapping functions will likely remain as a plugin even in future versions of zMUD.

In zMUD, each room already has a User-defined Integer value as well as a User-defined String value. You can use these values for anything you want in your own scripts.

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

For those wondering, the User-defined String value Zugg refers to appears as "Label" in the right-click menu for that room. You can place this label at any point on the compass or simply not show it (however, in this case the label still stays as the mouse-over hint instead of being cleared).

The user-defined integer is the room cost value for figuring out whether the mapper should go through that room when speedwalking. If I'm not mistaken, setting it to a specific number in the 32000 range equates to Do Not Enter.

Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 2:51 am

Actually, it's more than that. If you select the Properties for any room and go to the Other tab you will see a "User defined integer" to the right of the room cost, and a "User defined string" below that. This is different than the room label. These values can be accessed via the zMapper COM scripting via the Room Object properties UserInt and UserStr (as documented in the zMapper help file).

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

Oh, yeah, mixed it up with the shortname. My bad.

Novice Joined: 26 Dec 2002 Posts: 33 Location: USA

Wish-List for zMUDXP (also known as: what it'd likely take to get me to buy a new version and recommend it to others):
----
I don't particularly care for new features, although I'm sure there are nifty things I haven't thought of. What I want to see is Current problems fixed.

1 - Hourly alarms firing twice (http://forums.zuggsoft.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=9662)

2 - Lack of an integer &d option in %format() (http://forums.zuggsoft.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=21507)
2a - a double-precision floating point option would solve this issue as well, as the problem comes up as you reach the precision limit of 32-bit fp

3 - The horrible Settings Editor when editing Triggers/etc. Once the code gets slightly complicated, the wordwrap wreaks havoc with code as you're trying to type. It will jump current focus and begin writing elsewhere from where you were, pasting will sometimes double-paste with the second one being added somewhere else, etc.

4 - Use something else for the Mapper, it still takes way too long to load, and Finding a room still has weird issues like having to have the desired area selected in order for clicking on a room in the Find to properly highlight the room, which defeats the point of searching All Areas in the first place.

5 - Change/fix how Prefs and things are stored. It seems like you randomly chose which data/prefs are stored in the .MUD file, the .lay file, global.mud, etc. It should be clear that, for example, all my Settings (aliases, triggers, etc) are in the .MUD file, all Preferences are in a specific file for each character, colors can be set per character and easily found, etc. When I was trying to set up a second char and accidentally used the same layout, it seemed like even the port connection was being used from the .lay file rather than what was set for the char, that seems odd.

6 - The new spellcheck-capable MS editbox! I think the thread about that mentioned a newer version that doesn't have some of the drawbacks regarding highlight color/etc and I really don't care for a red squiggle, I'm perfectly capable of spellchecking on my own and miss the functionality of things like ctrl-left after hitting enter.

4-6 can basically be summarized as: Make it more modular by character and by person. When I go somewhere and visit a friend with zMUD, it's almost useless bringing my .MUD file since I need to bother them by changing half their Prefs and things to how I want, which they need to change back when they use their character again. I guess you might be hesitant to support multiple Users' tastes, but imo Prefs should entirely be char-specific (but not to the point where it breaks something if you want to use the same Prefs file for multiple chars, like layout files breaking).

7 - Fix how the status window works as far as being On Top. I know you've blamed Windows in a past thread, but I refuse to believe there's nothing you can do about it. Sometimes it's not visible and I have to go to Windows->Status to get it to show up again (even though it's already Checked), sometimes it stays on top of non-zmud windows, etc, that's annoying as all hell. I should also be able to choose to have the status window show up when focused on one Char and go away when focused on another char's tab/window.

8 - Test your public releases better, I never bother with a x.y0 version because you're always up to x.y2 within a week or two from some "horrible crashing bug" or something. As it is I've almost always spent about an hour tweaking settings and things after every single upgrade since 4.62. That's why I haven't jumped on 7.20 (oops, already 7.21) yet, I'm sure 7.22 or 7.23 will be here soon?

I'm sure there's more, that's all I could come up with by myself in 20 minutes. Those're all things I'd expect from polished software. Stop adding new things until other things are all working Properly and Nicely, while being useful/intuitive.

Beginner Joined: 15 Jan 2005 Posts: 13

Editor request:

Be able to 'pin' files. When you open a new file, it leaves the pinned one in a tab up top. Then you can switch between tabs to different files you want to edit.

Newbie Joined: 09 May 2005 Posts: 4

Only read the first 5 pages of posts, hope im not repeating ppl.

1. Tab complete should ignore numbers followed by a dot.
e.g.
drink 2.wa
then tab-complete should suggest 2.water or whatever.

2. Expand variables with tab, just like aliases are expanded.
e.g.
dc
you press tab
drink @container
you press tab again
drink waterskin

There are also many editor bugs, bug I guess they will be fixed. Right now nothing shows up when i click alias etc. also if you go to an alias in the end of the body code then you press
return
write a
press backspace
press return
write a
press backspace

then the 1st sequence behaves differently than the 2nd sequence.

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 1:36 pm

Sorry if I am repeating something already said..

I'd love to have multiple status windows.

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

You can, they just won't be like the original and you'll have to do your own updating since the extra windows won't work with the #STATUS command.

Newbie Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 7

Don't know if anyone suggested (probably has but hey no harm in putting more support behind it if so) this previously because I haven't read the thread yet, but I'd like it if you could highlight some text within zmud and right click it and get a context menu of options. Say you want to make a trigger for "You are thirsty" drag the cursor along those words to highlight, right lick, select make trigger from context then it'll popup a little box that shows the text you highlighted, so you can edit it if you like, and then an input box for what you want sent to the mud when that shows up. Yeah I know it is easy enough to just open the trigger menu and do it through that but hey a nice simple wizard style shortcut would be cool too, and I'm just crazy about right click context menus. Make it work for aliases, colorizing certain words or phrases, adding certain words and phrases to predefined DB's etc. All via context menu and wizard style interfaces.

I'd also like to make things like hyper linked within the client and have a multiple choice drop down list for actions directed at the linked term. For example I drag the cursor across the word "troll" then right click it and select something along the lines of "associate actions" then a wizard like interface pops up and I can type in different actions I want to associate with "troll" and then quickly do them just by clicking and then selecting from a drop down list of actions. For example, kill, examine, consider, search, and loot. So I could click the linked troll text, then select kill to and it will input kill troll into the client and send it to the mud, when the fight is over I can click troll again and select search or loot. Hell make it so you can link things to urls or stuff you have locally on your HD. Say if you had a lengthy IC conversation with someone in your mud and you saved a log of it, make the log linkable to their name so the next time you bump into them you could click it and the log loads up in notepad or whatever software you prefer and you can quickly refresh your memory on what you previously discussed.

This and make it so the mapper is easier to get to work flawlessly with nonstandard muds (I tried for a long time with much frustration trying to get it to work well with ArmageddonMud) and I'd upgrade to pro.

Apprentice Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 121

I suggest a standard for type loop:

for (var = 0, var <= 9, var++) {
stuff to happen 10 times
}

Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 9:39 pm

#LOOP <number> {dostuff}

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 10:25 am

There's an old tintin++ standard that does #10 do_this, it should still exist inside zMUD

Apprentice Joined: 08 Dec 2002 Posts: 152

There should be feature that allows me to do a time stamp and command to get total hours/minutes/seconds OR hours, minutes and minutes elapsed from that time stamp, easily.
At the present there is none that works 100%.
If my zmud crashes, alarm wont work.
Playing near midnight gets %secs screwd.
%time needs to be conversion.

Apprentice Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 121

I know that those exist, but there's also more functionality in a for loop, example: