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Apprentice Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 134 Location: USA

In this mud the quest master sends me on a quest for multiple different items. I would like to create a trigger that will capture all of the items stores them to a temp variable of some type, and checks the room for a patter match, if there is a match then remove that item from the list. My cmud skills are not very good, and I was hoping to get some help.

String to match

%1 tells you 'Look for a %w somewhere in the vicinity of*

%w can be a string with multiple values, but always one of about 20. the trick here is that I cant pick up %w.

So for example :

Jimmy tells you 'Look for a scroll of the world's history somewhere in the vicinity of Turn in the cave!'

%w = scroll of the world's history.

pick up %@questItem does not work since it sends the whole string. But in this instance pick up scroll works. Any idea how to handle this?

Wizard Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 1547

Best idea would be to figure out how many different quest items there are and match the strings to some keys in a record variable, so, for instance:

scroll of the world's history

would be matched to scroll

Where they key is: scroll of the world's history
And the value is: scroll

When the pattern matches you can make a trigger to %db( @name_of_db_var, $var_from_pattern)

And it will send the keys to grab the pattern. Unless, of course, there's just too many different possible quest items to record them all.

If you give me more info, I'll consider making this for you. What I need:
- All possible quest items (their strings and the keys to pick them up)
- An example of a full phrase of the quest master listing off items
- An example of an item laying on the ground

Apprentice Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 134 Location: USA

Thank you for the offer, I want to get better, so I am going to play with it some tomorrow. If I get stuck I will give you what you need.

Apprentice Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 134 Location: USA

Here is where I am at, I have a var with the name of the quest items @questItems
and a data base with the a Name field, and a PickUp field.
and a trigger in its own class called MatchQuest

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

You cannot start a command line with a %function or @variable. You must start it with a command. In this case, you want to use #SEND %db(@questItems,PickUp)
The #SEND command will send its argument to the mud.

Wizard Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 1547

Yup, apologies for not clarifying that. I simply meant that %db() would give you the keys you needed if you arranged it properly, but you'll always need to submit it into something like a #SEND, besides, you need to preface it with "get" anyways, no?

#SEND %concat( "get ", %db(stuff, stuff))

Apprentice Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 134 Location: USA

I see what the problem is but I am not sure how to fix it. When i search the database for the value of the quest item I seem to be searching for the whole list the really long string that makes up the list of quest items.
To try and get around that I added a local variable, key, but it is still being set the value of the whole list, rather then just the one item.

Wizard Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 1547

CMUD should be able to search through a "really long list" rather easily, you won't need to use any #IF or #SWITCH statements for it. You shouldn't need to at least. If you make the quest item shorts (not the keys, but what you see come up) into the key values for the record variable, you can use that in the trigger pattern (as you're doing) in order to get a match. Now, the neat thing about CMUD trigger patterns (this was true in zMUD too) is that you can "capture" variable aspects about them by surrounding what you want to capture in parentheses. So, in this case, we would surround the variable. It should also be noted that because the variable is a list, we'll want the surround it in {} too, this basically turns it into an appropriate "OR" matching pattern.

So, based upon what you gave us in your first post, this is what I would use for a pattern. Bear with me, I tend to use REGEX instead of zscript for patterns:

Apprentice Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 134 Location: USA

First, thank you for explaining this process to me, its really helpful. I have made a few adjustments this morning and I am still getting some strange results in its current form.

The database is named: Items ( I plan to extend this to selling loot items later on)
The database has two fields currently : Name : GetCmd

This part works perfectly for inserting values into the questItems list

Wizard Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 1547

Are you setting up an actual database for this? I'd probably just suggest using a record variable than a whole database. Also, if the line is just the quest items, then you shouldn't need * at all, just use the variable surrounded by parentheses.

Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2010 5:28 pm

Btw, you don't need to use %concat. The following will work fine:

Wizard Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 1547

Ah, thanks Zugg. I've been using %concat() a lot more now since you've been trying to shy away from implicit concatenation, but I've also known that using {} has been long suggested and I have simply avoided it (sorry!) I'll try to implement that more in a lot of my scripts so that I remember to suggest it to potential scripters ;)

Apprentice Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 134 Location: USA

Got it!! I was doing it all backwards thank you so much for the help, my trigger ended up looking like this.

Wizard Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 1547

I'm glad you got it working. Let me know if I can help further. Smile

Apprentice Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 134 Location: USA

This afternoon I tricked out my trigger to also handle items for sale, when I look at my inventory with a specific alias command it will place the "known" items into lists that are relevant to where the items can be sold, so a list of weapons and a list of armor, ect. My question for you is how long can these "know" lists get, in the case of the questHelper its only about 20-25 items, but when it comes to weapons potentiality I could be dealing with hundreds, even thousands. (Im adding them as I encounter them).

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

There is no real limit for the length of string lists or database variables. People have successfully used lists and database variables with many thousands of elements.

Apprentice Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 134 Location: USA

Ahh sweet, thanks.

Wizard Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 1547

My Clan Highlighter is at 2500 records and growing. Very Happy