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altivoContinued from this entry. More about the background of Altivo the character and Wild Spirits MUSH.
At the end of the last episode, Calydor and Altivo had just received leadership of their (second hand) territories, Tornado Lands and Shadow Lands respectively. There were a lot of loose ends to be wrapped up, both OOC and IC, with 'Tivo facing perhaps more of the OOC issues while Calydor had to deal ICly with a fair number of remaining herd members.
'Tivo's first priority was to rebuild his territory into a functional whole. Whether intentionally or as a result of loss of members who had removed crucial bits of building, such as rooms or exits, the territory was broken into three pieces that were not contiguous to anyone, even the special builder entity who was the official owner. As I've mentioned before, Wild Spirits had building quotas that limited the amount of building any individual could do. The builder entities, whose sole purpose was to own and control rooms and exits that linked them, were not used in roleplaying but were controlled by the same player as the roleplaying area leader. They had larger quotas, generally around 25 rooms and 50 exits. Sometimes leaders allowed individual players to build dens or single rooms and attach them to their areas, which had apparently been done in the case of Shadow Lands.
There were several rooms included in the area designation that were not owned by the builder, which meant the builder could do nothing to alter them or exits leading from them. Exits into them could be changed as long as their destinations remained the same, but new exits into those rooms could not be added without the assistance of the actual owner. In each case, the real owner of the room and its exits was AWOL, and not expected to return. Because the builder could not assume ownership of these rooms, they would eventually evaporate as their actual owners expired through inactivity. That seemed highly undesirable.
'Tivo was able to prevail upon the chief spirit, Puma, to reassign the ownership for a couple of rooms that had been left in this state. Others he simply "cast loose" by deleting the exits that led into them. In the version of MUSH software then running, he could not unlink the exits that led from those rooms into Shadow Lands, which bothered him somewhat. In one case, he deleted his own room and recreated it whole in order to break such a link rather than suffer an unexpected entrance by someone who had access to the other room. Most of them he simply left to expire on their own once they became invisible.
There were also several "hidden" exits. These are exits leading from one room to another that are not visible to a player standing in the originating room, but if he or she knows the name of the exit (in effect, a password) then the exit may still be traversed. The primary one, which passed through a densely forested and icy river, gave access to the inner sanctum known as the Heart Lands, the main living space of Shadow Lands' herd. One entered it from a spookily described Indian burial ground, by saying the word "paradise". 'Tivo decided to leave that alone until some other loose ends were cleaned up.
There were two other kinds of loose ends. The most substantial was a litter of dormant bodies. A large number of horse characters and a handful of others, foxes, mice, ravens, etc. were strewn about the territory. Most had been absent for some time, but not long enough yet to be deleted for inactivity. Some were sleeping in sensitive spots, such as the Heart Lands itself, though most were elsewhere. These did not interfere with actual RP, since they were invisible unless one looked for them, but 'Tivo was acutely aware of them. Because of some experiences he had prior to that time, while in Seminole, he knew it could be a nuisance to have one of these apparent corpses suddenly come to life at an inopportune moment. He was particularly bothered by this because of the very evident hostility that had been shown him by prior residents, who could conceivably do much malicious damage if they returned. He could not move the sleepers if in fact they were homed or linked to the rooms where they lay, which turned out to be the case generally. The only option was to wait for them to vanish, or delete the entire room in order to be rid of the occupants (who would still exist, but be sent to a sort of limbo from which they would have to find their way back.) Deleting a room and then replacing it and all its exits was major work, and he did not do this just to be rid of sleepers.
The second type of loose end was the mysterious object. There were many of these left lying about, most in the form of shamanic or apparently magical amulets and talismans. Feathers, stones, bundles of sticks, necklaces, and other objects were scattered about. Most were owned by the absent players, and whether their functions were malevolent or merely decorative could not be determined without the aid of a spirit wizard. Puma made it clear that she couldn't be bothered and would not transfer ownership. Having seen a few objects at various times that could do unpleasant things to the unwary, 'Tivo finally decided to isolate these items, and did so by letting the builder remove them all to a cave that already existed. It made quite a mound, and he regretted the loss of the atmosphere they created, but not the potential harm they might do as listening devices or actual code altering booby traps. A couple of items that were actually owned by the builder or capable of being claimed did turn out to be listening devices of an unsavory sort. These were disarmed immediately upon discovery.
A development that was rather amusing in retrospect, though Altivo found it quite disturbing at the time, resulted from two of these objects. Each was cast in the form of a talisman whose description claimed that it contained a captive spirit. One was in the possession of a mare named HawkWings who was sleeping in a hidden cavern on the territory, and contained a "horse spirit", while the other was in the form of a decorative stone sculpture marked with an outline of a bear, and supposedly contained a "bear spirit". Both were supposed to be guardians. 'Tivo was able to claim and disarm the bear totem, which was in fact a listening device, but he left it in place and gave it a new purpose, described in a moment. The other he could not touch, since it was in the possession of the sleeping mare who had been a Wild Sister. After a couple of weeks, both objects began "speaking" to him unexpectedly, from a distance. These messages arrived in the form of pages, such as a living player might send, but appeared to originate from the objects themselves. The messages purported to be from the entrapped spirits and they demanded that he set them free. This continued for several days, whenever 'Tivo was logged in. He examined the bear totem closely but could find no code in it to support such a function.
Finally Puma admitted to playing the trick. She found the idea of captured spirits offensive, and wanted the objects removed. 'Tivo re-described the bear totem to remove the captured spirit suggestion, and she left him alone thereafter. He pointed out that he could not touch the horse totem in HawkWings' possession, and Puma agreed to destroy it herself, which she did.
A massive amount of recoding and analysis was required before every room had functional exits that made sense compass wise and did not behave like the infamous "Little Maze of Twisty Passages" in the Colossal Cave. Almost a month of real time elapsed before 'Tivo was satisfied with his repairs. He did not at this time make major alterations to the layout, other than removing a couple of hidden exits. One hidden room was made visible, and converted in purpose to a place of healing, called Healers' Glade, which he designated as a neutral space welcoming to all who came in peace or truce. Moonleg and the ring-tail Chelsea took charge of Healers' Glade, and 'Tivo turned the bear totem previously mentioned into an annunciator that would page the healers, wherever they might be, when someone entered the Glade. It was not a listening device, but simply a sort of doorbell. The creation of the Healer's Glade proved popular with other characters, many of whom availed themselves of its services or used it as a safe haven within which to rest. Altivo considered it one of his greater successes while it lasted. Moonleg and Chelsea had varying techniques, but both were skilled in the RP of healing activities and created any number of interesting scenes as a result.
Eventually the sleepers timed out and were erased, and their mysterious objects followed after them. An all too brief period of relative peace and quiet followed.
Next installment: A Doomed but Golden Era
At the end of the last episode, Calydor and Altivo had just received leadership of their (second hand) territories, Tornado Lands and Shadow Lands respectively. There were a lot of loose ends to be wrapped up, both OOC and IC, with 'Tivo facing perhaps more of the OOC issues while Calydor had to deal ICly with a fair number of remaining herd members.
'Tivo's first priority was to rebuild his territory into a functional whole. Whether intentionally or as a result of loss of members who had removed crucial bits of building, such as rooms or exits, the territory was broken into three pieces that were not contiguous to anyone, even the special builder entity who was the official owner. As I've mentioned before, Wild Spirits had building quotas that limited the amount of building any individual could do. The builder entities, whose sole purpose was to own and control rooms and exits that linked them, were not used in roleplaying but were controlled by the same player as the roleplaying area leader. They had larger quotas, generally around 25 rooms and 50 exits. Sometimes leaders allowed individual players to build dens or single rooms and attach them to their areas, which had apparently been done in the case of Shadow Lands.
There were several rooms included in the area designation that were not owned by the builder, which meant the builder could do nothing to alter them or exits leading from them. Exits into them could be changed as long as their destinations remained the same, but new exits into those rooms could not be added without the assistance of the actual owner. In each case, the real owner of the room and its exits was AWOL, and not expected to return. Because the builder could not assume ownership of these rooms, they would eventually evaporate as their actual owners expired through inactivity. That seemed highly undesirable.
'Tivo was able to prevail upon the chief spirit, Puma, to reassign the ownership for a couple of rooms that had been left in this state. Others he simply "cast loose" by deleting the exits that led into them. In the version of MUSH software then running, he could not unlink the exits that led from those rooms into Shadow Lands, which bothered him somewhat. In one case, he deleted his own room and recreated it whole in order to break such a link rather than suffer an unexpected entrance by someone who had access to the other room. Most of them he simply left to expire on their own once they became invisible.
There were also several "hidden" exits. These are exits leading from one room to another that are not visible to a player standing in the originating room, but if he or she knows the name of the exit (in effect, a password) then the exit may still be traversed. The primary one, which passed through a densely forested and icy river, gave access to the inner sanctum known as the Heart Lands, the main living space of Shadow Lands' herd. One entered it from a spookily described Indian burial ground, by saying the word "paradise". 'Tivo decided to leave that alone until some other loose ends were cleaned up.
There were two other kinds of loose ends. The most substantial was a litter of dormant bodies. A large number of horse characters and a handful of others, foxes, mice, ravens, etc. were strewn about the territory. Most had been absent for some time, but not long enough yet to be deleted for inactivity. Some were sleeping in sensitive spots, such as the Heart Lands itself, though most were elsewhere. These did not interfere with actual RP, since they were invisible unless one looked for them, but 'Tivo was acutely aware of them. Because of some experiences he had prior to that time, while in Seminole, he knew it could be a nuisance to have one of these apparent corpses suddenly come to life at an inopportune moment. He was particularly bothered by this because of the very evident hostility that had been shown him by prior residents, who could conceivably do much malicious damage if they returned. He could not move the sleepers if in fact they were homed or linked to the rooms where they lay, which turned out to be the case generally. The only option was to wait for them to vanish, or delete the entire room in order to be rid of the occupants (who would still exist, but be sent to a sort of limbo from which they would have to find their way back.) Deleting a room and then replacing it and all its exits was major work, and he did not do this just to be rid of sleepers.
The second type of loose end was the mysterious object. There were many of these left lying about, most in the form of shamanic or apparently magical amulets and talismans. Feathers, stones, bundles of sticks, necklaces, and other objects were scattered about. Most were owned by the absent players, and whether their functions were malevolent or merely decorative could not be determined without the aid of a spirit wizard. Puma made it clear that she couldn't be bothered and would not transfer ownership. Having seen a few objects at various times that could do unpleasant things to the unwary, 'Tivo finally decided to isolate these items, and did so by letting the builder remove them all to a cave that already existed. It made quite a mound, and he regretted the loss of the atmosphere they created, but not the potential harm they might do as listening devices or actual code altering booby traps. A couple of items that were actually owned by the builder or capable of being claimed did turn out to be listening devices of an unsavory sort. These were disarmed immediately upon discovery.
A development that was rather amusing in retrospect, though Altivo found it quite disturbing at the time, resulted from two of these objects. Each was cast in the form of a talisman whose description claimed that it contained a captive spirit. One was in the possession of a mare named HawkWings who was sleeping in a hidden cavern on the territory, and contained a "horse spirit", while the other was in the form of a decorative stone sculpture marked with an outline of a bear, and supposedly contained a "bear spirit". Both were supposed to be guardians. 'Tivo was able to claim and disarm the bear totem, which was in fact a listening device, but he left it in place and gave it a new purpose, described in a moment. The other he could not touch, since it was in the possession of the sleeping mare who had been a Wild Sister. After a couple of weeks, both objects began "speaking" to him unexpectedly, from a distance. These messages arrived in the form of pages, such as a living player might send, but appeared to originate from the objects themselves. The messages purported to be from the entrapped spirits and they demanded that he set them free. This continued for several days, whenever 'Tivo was logged in. He examined the bear totem closely but could find no code in it to support such a function.
Finally Puma admitted to playing the trick. She found the idea of captured spirits offensive, and wanted the objects removed. 'Tivo re-described the bear totem to remove the captured spirit suggestion, and she left him alone thereafter. He pointed out that he could not touch the horse totem in HawkWings' possession, and Puma agreed to destroy it herself, which she did.
A massive amount of recoding and analysis was required before every room had functional exits that made sense compass wise and did not behave like the infamous "Little Maze of Twisty Passages" in the Colossal Cave. Almost a month of real time elapsed before 'Tivo was satisfied with his repairs. He did not at this time make major alterations to the layout, other than removing a couple of hidden exits. One hidden room was made visible, and converted in purpose to a place of healing, called Healers' Glade, which he designated as a neutral space welcoming to all who came in peace or truce. Moonleg and the ring-tail Chelsea took charge of Healers' Glade, and 'Tivo turned the bear totem previously mentioned into an annunciator that would page the healers, wherever they might be, when someone entered the Glade. It was not a listening device, but simply a sort of doorbell. The creation of the Healer's Glade proved popular with other characters, many of whom availed themselves of its services or used it as a safe haven within which to rest. Altivo considered it one of his greater successes while it lasted. Moonleg and Chelsea had varying techniques, but both were skilled in the RP of healing activities and created any number of interesting scenes as a result.
Eventually the sleepers timed out and were erased, and their mysterious objects followed after them. An all too brief period of relative peace and quiet followed.
Next installment: A Doomed but Golden Era
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-21 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-21 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-23 07:32 am (UTC)Sleepers are a pain, even in a much less structured environment like my RP group. (Especially, even, since we don't have an automatic time-out mechanism to blame and we're all too nice or squeamish to delete people.)
Kudos on the maze of twisty passages ref. ;p
no subject
Date: 2006-03-23 07:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-23 07:49 am (UTC)It was indeed like the infamous maze. I first encountered that on an IBM mainframe, the original program, written in FORTRAN. That must have been about 1982. I spent two or three days of illicit time mapping it out by dropping objects and drawing diagrams until I had the whole thing and knew the routes through it by heart.
In Shadow Lands, you would take a path to the west, and arrive into the adjacent area from the west! I assume it was deliberate obfuscation, but I suppose the area's designer may have been dislexic or just didn't understand how @success and @osuccess messages actually worked. It took me a lot of time and mapping to straighten them all out, and probably no one ever noticed but me.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-23 08:03 am (UTC)