Andreas/evennia
1
0
Fork 0
mirror of https://github.com/evennia/evennia.git synced 2026-03-21 23:36:30 +01:00
Code Issues Projects Releases Packages Wiki Activity Actions

Updated HTML docs.

Browse source
This commit is contained in:
Griatch 2022-11-15 19:43:25 +00:00
parent 59e50f3fa5
commit 06bc3c8bcd
663 changed files with 2 additions and 61705 deletions
Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

206
docs/source/Howtos/Beginner-Tutorial/Part2/Beginner-Tutorial-Game-Planning.md
View file

@ -1,206 +0,0 @@
# On Planning a Game
Last lesson we asked ourselves some questions about our motivation. In this one we'll present
some more technical questions to consider. In the next lesson we'll answer them for the sake of
our tutorial game.
Note that the suggestions on this page are just that - suggestions. Also, they are primarily aimed at a lone
hobby designer or a small team developing a game in their free time.
```{important}
Your first all overshadowing goal is to beat the odds and get **something** out the door!
Even if it's a scaled-down version of your dream game, lacking many "must-have" features!
```
Remember: *99.99999% of all great game ideas never lead to a game*. Especially not to an online
game that people can actually play and enjoy. It's better to get your game out there and expand on it
later than to code in isolation until you burn out, lose interest or your hard drive crashes.
- Keep the scope of your initial release down. Way down.
- Start small, with an eye towards expansions later, after first release.
- If the suggestions here seems boring or a chore to you, do it your way instead. Everyone's different.
- Keep having _fun_. You must keep your motivation up, whichever way works for _you_.
## The steps
Here are the rough steps towards your goal.
1. Planning
2. Coding + Gradually building a tech-demo
3. Building the actual game world
4. Release
5. Celebrate
## Planning
You need to have at least a rough idea about what you want to create. Some like a lot of planning, others
do it more seat-of-the-pants style. Regardless, while _some_ planning is always good to do, it's common
to have your plans change on you as you create your code prototypes. So don't get _too_ bogged down in
the details out of the gate.
Many prospective game developers are very good at *parts* of this process, namely in defining what their
world is "about": The theme, the world concept, cool monsters and so on. Such things are very important. But
unfortunately, they are not enough to make your game. You need to figure out how to accomplish your ideas in
Evennia.
Below are some questions to get you going. In the next lesson we will try to answer them for our particular
tutorial game. There are of course many more questions you could be asking yourself.
### Administration
- Should your game rules be enforced by coded systems or by human game masters?
- What is the staff hierarchy in your game? Is vanilla Evennia roles enough or do you need something else?
- Should players be able to post out-of-characters on channels and via other means like bulletin-boards?
### Building
- How will the world be built? Traditionally (from in-game with build-commands) or externally (by batchcmds/code
or directly with custom code)?
- Can only privileged Builders create things or should regular players also have limited build-capability?
### Systems
- Do you base your game off an existing RPG system or make up your own?
- What are the game mechanics? How do you decide if an action succeeds or fails?
- Does the flow of time matter in your game - does night and day change? What about seasons?
- Do you want changing, global weather or should weather just be set manually in roleplay?
- Do you want a coded world-economy or just a simple barter system? Or no formal economy at all?
- Do you have concepts like reputation and influence?
- Will your characters be known by their name or only by their physical appearance?
### Rooms
- Is a simple room description enough or should the description be able to change (such as with time, by
light conditions, weather or season)?
- Should the room have different statuses? Can it have smells, sounds? Can it be affected by
dramatic weather, fire or magical effects? If so, how would this affect things in the room? Or are
these things something admins/game masters should handle manually?
- Can objects be hidden in the room? Can a person hide in the room? How does the room display this?
### Objects / items
- How numerous are your objects? Do you want large loot-lists or are objects just role playing props
created on demand?
- If you use money, is each coin a separate object or do you just store a bank account value?
- Do multiple similar objects form stacks and how are those stacks handled in that case?
- Does an object have weight or volume (so you cannot carry an infinite amount of them)?
- Can objects be broken? Can they be repaired?
- Can you fight with a chair or a flower or must you use a specific 'weapon' kind of thing?
- Will characters be able to craft new objects?
- Should mobs/NPCs have some sort of AI?
- Are NPCs and mobs different entities? How do they differ?
- Should there be NPCs giving quests? If so, how do you track Quest status?
### Characters
- Can players have more than one Character active at a time or are they allowed to multi-play?
- How does the character-generation work? Walk from room-to-room? A menu?
- How do you implement different "classes" or "races"? Are they separate types of objects or do you
simply load different stats on a basic object depending on what the Player wants?
- If a Character can hide in a room, what skill will decide if they are detected?
- What does the skill tree look like? Can a Character gain experience to improve? By killing
enemies? Solving quests? By roleplaying?
- May player-characters attack each other (PvP)?
- What are the penalties of defeat? Permanent death? Quick respawn? Time in prison?
A MUD's a lot more involved than you would think and these things hang together in a complex web. It
can easily become overwhelming and it's tempting to want *all* functionality right out of the door.
Try to identify the basic things that "make" your game and focus *only* on them for your first
release. Make a list. Keep future expansions in mind but limit yourself.
## Coding and Tech demo
This is the actual work of creating the "game" part of your game. As you code and test systems you should
build a little "tech demo" along the way.
```{sidebar} Tech demo
With "tech demo" we mean a small example of your code in-action: A room with a mob, a way to jump into and test character-creation etc. The tech demo need not be pretty, it's there to test functionality. It's not the beginning of your game world (unless you find that to be more fun).
```
Try to avoid going wild with building a huge game world before you have a tech-demo showing off all parts
you expect to have in the first version of your game. Otherwise you run the risk of having to redo it all
again.
Evennia tries hard to make the coding easier for you, but there is no way around the fact that if you want
anything but a basic chat room you *will* have to bite the bullet and code your game (or find a coder willing
to do it for you).
> Even if you won't code anything yourself, as a designer you need to at least understand the basic
paradigms and components of Evennia. It's recommended you look over the rest of this Beginner Tutorial to learn
what tools you have available.
During Coding you look back at the things you wanted during the **Planning** phase and try to
implement them. Don't be shy to update your plans if you find things easier/harder than you thought.
The earlier you revise problems, the easier they will be to fix.
A good idea is to host your code online using _version control_. Github.com offers free Private repos
these days if you don't want the world to learn your secrets. Not only version control
make it easy for your team to collaborate, it also means
your work is backed up at all times. The page on [Version Control](../../../Coding/Version-Control.md)
will help you to setting up a sane developer environment with proper version control.
## World Building
Up until this point we've only had a few tech-demo objects in the database. This step is the act of
populating the database with a larger, thematic world. Too many would-be developers jump to this
stage too soon (skipping the **Coding** or even **Planning** stages). What if the rooms you build
now doesn't include all the nice weather messages the code grows to support? Or the way you store
data changes under the hood? Your building work would at best require some rework and at worst you
would have to redo the whole thing. You could be in for a *lot* of unnecessary work if you build stuff
en masse without having the underlying code systems in some reasonable shape first.
So before starting to build, the "game" bit (**Coding** + **Testing**) should be more or less
**complete**, *at least to the level of your initial release*.
Make sure it is clear to yourself and your eventual builders just which parts of the world you want
for your initial release. Establish for everyone which style, quality and level of detail you expect.
Your goal should *not* be to complete your entire world in one go. You want just enough to make the
game's "feel" come across. You want a minimal but functioning world where the intended game play can
be tested and roughly balanced. You can always add new areas later.
During building you get free and extensive testing of whatever custom build commands and systems you
have made at this point. If Builders and coders are different people you also
get a chance to hear if some things are hard to understand or non-intuitive. Make sure to respond
to this feedback.
## Alpha Release
As mentioned, don't hold onto your world more than necessary. *Get it out there* with a huge *Alpha*
flag and let people try it!
Call upon your alpha-players to try everything - they *will* find ways to break your game in ways that
you never could have imagined. In Alpha you might be best off to
focus on inviting friends and maybe other MUD developers, people who you can pester to give proper
feedback and bug reports (there *will* be bugs, there is no way around it).
Follow the quick instructions for [Online Setup](../../../Setup/Online-Setup.md) to make your
game visible online.
If you hadn't already, make sure to put up your game on the
[Evennia game index](http://games.evennia.com/) so people know it's in the works (actually, even
pre-alpha games are allowed in the index so don't be shy)!
## Beta Release/Perpetual Beta
Once things stabilize in Alpha you can move to *Beta* and let more people in. Many MUDs are in
[perpetual beta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_beta), meaning they are never considered
"finished", but just repeat the cycle of Planning, Coding, Testing and Building over and over as new
features get implemented or Players come with suggestions. As the game designer it is now up to you
to gradually perfect your vision.
## Congratulate yourself!
You are worthy of a celebration since at this point you have joined the small, exclusive crowd who
have made their dream game a reality!
## Planning our tutorial game
In the next lesson we'll make use of these general points and try to plan out our tutorial game.

41
docs/source/Howtos/Beginner-Tutorial/Part2/Beginner-Tutorial-Part2-Intro.md
View file

@ -1,41 +0,0 @@
# Part 2: What we want
```{sidebar} Beginner Tutorial Parts
- [Introduction](../Beginner-Tutorial-Intro.md)
<br>Getting set up.
- Part 1: [What we have](../Part1/Beginner-Tutorial-Part1-Intro.md)
<br>A tour of Evennia and how to use the tools, including an introduction to Python.
- **Part 2: [What we want](./Beginner-Tutorial-Part2-Intro.md)**
<br>Planning our tutorial game and what to think about when planning your own in the future.
- Part 3: [How we get there](../Part3/Beginner-Tutorial-Part3-Intro.md)
<br>Getting down to the meat of extending Evennia to make our game
- Part 4: [Using what we created](../Part4/Beginner-Tutorial-Part4-Intro.md)
<br>Building a tech-demo and world content to go with our code
- Part 5: [Showing the world](../Part5/Beginner-Tutorial-Part5-Intro.md)
<br>Taking our new game online and let players try it out
```
In Part two of the Evennia Beginner Tutorial we'll take a step back and plan out the kind of tutorial game we want to make. This is a more 'theoretical' part where we won't do any hands-on
programming.
In the process we'll go through the common questions of "where to start"
and "what to think about" when creating a multiplayer online text game.
## Lessons
```{toctree}
:maxdepth: 1
Beginner-Tutorial-Planning-Where-Do-I-Begin.md
Beginner-Tutorial-Game-Planning.md
Beginner-Tutorial-Planning-The-Tutorial-Game.md
```
## Table of Contents
```{toctree}
Beginner-Tutorial-Planning-Where-Do-I-Begin.md
Beginner-Tutorial-Game-Planning.md
Beginner-Tutorial-Planning-The-Tutorial-Game.md
```

462
docs/source/Howtos/Beginner-Tutorial/Part2/Beginner-Tutorial-Planning-The-Tutorial-Game.md
View file

@ -1,462 +0,0 @@
# Planning our tutorial game
Using the general plan from last lesson we'll now establish what kind of game we want to create for this tutorial. We'll call it ... _EvAdventure_.
Remembering that we need to keep the scope down, let's establish some parameters.
- We want EvAdventure be a small game we can play ourselves for fun, but which could in principle be expanded to something more later.
- We want to have a clear game-loop, with clear goals.
- Let's go with a fantasy theme, it's well understood.
- We will use a small, existing tabletop RPG rule set ([Knave](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/250888/Knave), more info later)
- We want to be able to create and customize a character of our own.
- While not roleplay-focused, it should still be possible to socialize and to collaborate.
- We don't want to have to rely on a Game master to resolve things, but will rely on code for skill resolution and combat.
- We want monsters to fight and NPCs we can talk to. So some sort of AI.
- We want some sort of quest system and merchants to buy stuff from.
## Game concept
With these points in mind, here's a quick blurb for our game:
_Recently, the nearby village discovered that the old abandoned well contained a dark secret. The bottom of the well led to a previously undiscovered dungeon of ever shifting passages. No one knew why it was there or what its purpose was, but local rumors abound. The first adventurer that went down didn't come back. The second ... brought back a handful of glittering riches._
_Now the rush is on - there's a dungeon to explore and coin to earn. Knaves, cutthroats, adventurers and maybe even a hero or two are coming from all over the realm to challenge whatever lurks at the bottom of that well._
_Local merchants and opportunists have seen a chance for profit. A camp of tents has sprung up around the old well, providing food and drink, equipment, entertainment and rumors for a price. It's a festival to enjoy before paying the entrance fee for dropping down the well to find your fate among the shadows below ..._
Our game will consist of two main game modes - above ground and below. The player starts above ground and is expected to do 'expeditions' into the dark. The design goal is for them to be forced back up again when their health, equipment and luck is about to run out.
- Above, in the "dungeon festival", the player can restock and heal up, buy things and do a small set of quests. It's the only place where the characters can sleep and fully heal. They also need to spend coin here to gain XP and levels. This is a place for players to socialize and RP. There is no combat above ground except for an optional spot for non-lethal PvP.
- Below is the mysterious dungeon. This is a procedurally generated set of rooms. Players can collaborate if they go down the well together, they will not be able to run into each other otherwise (so this works as an instance). Each room generally presents some challenge (normally a battle). Pushing deeper is more dangerous but can grant greater rewards. While the rooms could in theory go on forever, there should be a boss encounter once a player reaches deep enough.
Here's an overview of the topside camp for inspiration (quickly thrown together in the free version of [Inkarnate](https://inkarnate.com/)). We'll explore how to break this up into "rooms" (locations) when we get to creating the game world later.
![Last Step Camp](../../../_static/images/starting_tutorial/Dungeon_Merchant_Camp.jpg)
For the rest of this lesson we'll answer and reason around the specific questions posed in the previous [Game Planning](./Beginner-Tutorial-Game-Planning.md) lesson.
## Administration
### Should your game rules be enforced by coded systems by human game masters?
Generally, the more work you expect human staffers/GMs to do, the less your code needs to work. To support GMs you'd need to design commands to support GM-specific actions and the type of game-mastering you want them to do. You may need to expand communication channels so you can easily talk to groups people in private and split off gaming groups from each other. RPG rules could be as simple
as the GM sitting with the rule books and using a dice-roller for visibility.
GM:ing is work-intensive however, and even the most skilled and enthusiastic GM can't be awake all hours of the day to serve an international player base. The computer never needs sleep, so having the ability for players to "self-serve" their RP itch when no GMs are around is a good idea even for the most GM-heavy games.
On the other side of the spectrum are games with no GMs at all; all gameplay are driven either by the computer or by the interactions between players. Such games still need an active staff, but nowhere as much active involvement. Allowing for solo-play with the computer also allows players to have fun when the number of active
players is low.
**EvAdventure Answer:**
We want EvAdventure to work entirely without depending on human GMs. That said, there'd be nothing stopping a GM from stepping in and run an adventure for some players should they want to.
### What is the staff hierarchy in your game? Is vanilla Evennia roles enough or do you need something else?
The default hierarchy is
- `Player` - regular players
- `Player Helper` - can create/edit help entries
- `Builder` - can use build commands
- `Admin` - can kick and ban accounts
- `Developer` - full access, usually also trusted with server access
There is also the _superuser_, the "owner" of the game you create when you first set up your database. This user
goes outside the regular hierarchy and should usually only.
**EvAdventure Answer**
We are okay with keeping the default permission structure for our game.
### Should players be able to post out-of-characters on channels and via other means like bulletin-boards?
Evennia's _Channels_ are by default only available between _Accounts_. That is, for players to communicate with each
other. By default, the `public` channel is created for general discourse.
Channels are logged to a file and when you are coming back to the game you can view the history of a channel in case you missed something.
> public Hello world!
[Public] MyName: Hello world!
But Channels can also be set up to work between Characters instead of Accounts. This would mean the channels would have an in-game meaning:
- Members of a guild could be linked telepathically.
- Survivors of the apocalypse can communicate over walkie-talkies.
- Radio stations you can tune into or have to discover.
_Bulletin boards_ are a sort of in-game forum where posts are made publicly or privately. Contrary to a channel, the messages are usually stored and are grouped into topics with replies. Evennia has no default bulletin-board system.
**EvAdventure Answer**
In EvAdventure we will just use the default inter-account channels. We will also not be implementing any bulletin boards; instead the merchant NPCs will act as quest givers.
## Building
### How will the world be built?
There are two main ways to handle this:
- Traditionally, from in-game with build-commands: This means builders creating content in their game client. This has the advantage of not requiring Python skills nor server access. This can often be a quite intuitive way to build since you are sort-of walking around in your creation as you build it. However, the developer (you) must make sure to provide build-commands that are flexible enough for builders to be able to create the content you want for your game.
- Externally (by batchcmds): Evennia's `batchcmd` takes a text file with Evennia Commands and executes them in sequence. This allows the build process to be repeated and applied quickly to a new database during development.
It also allows builders to use proper text-editing tools rather than writing things line-by-line in their clients. The drawback is that for their changes to go live they either need server access or they need to send their batchcode to the game administrator so they can apply the changes. Or use version control.
- Externally (with batchcode or custom code): This is the "professional game development" approach. This gives the builders maximum power by creating the content in Python using Evennia primitives. The `batchcode` processor
allows Evennia to apply and re-apply build-scripts that are raw Python modules. Again, this would require the builder to have server access or to use version control to share their work with the rest of the development team.
**EvAdventure Answer**
For EvAdventure, we will build the above-ground part of the game world using batch-scripts. The world below-ground we will build procedurally, using raw code.
### Can only privileged Builders create things or should regular players also have limited build-capability?
In some game styles, players have the ability to create objects and even script them. While giving regular users the ability to create objects with in-built commands is easy and safe, actual code-creation (aka _softcode_ ) is not something Evennia supports natively.
Regular, untrusted users should never be allowed to execute raw Python
code (such as what you can do with the `py` command). You can
[read more about Evennia's stance on softcode here](../../../Concepts/Soft-Code.md). If you want users to do limited scripting, it's suggested that this is accomplished by adding more powerful build-commands for them to use.
**EvAdventure Answer**
For our tutorial-game, we will only allow privileged builders and admins to modify the world.
## Systems
### Do you base your game off an existing RPG system or make up your own?
There is a plethora of options out there, and what you choose depends on the game you want. It can be tempting to grab a short free-form ruleset, but remember that the computer does not have any intuitiion or common sense to interpret the rules like a human GM could. Conversely, if you pick a very 'crunchy' game system, with detailed simulation of the real world, remember that you'll need to actually _code_ all those exceptions and tables yourself.
For speediest development, what you want is a game with a _consolidated_ resolution mechanic - one you can code once and then use in a lot of situations. But you still want enough rules to help telling the computer how various situations should be resolved (combat is the most common system that needs such structure).
**EvAdventure Answer**
For this tutorial, we will make use of [Knave](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/250888/Knave), a very light [OSR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_School_Renaissance) ruleset by Ben Milton. It's only a few pages long but highly compatible with old-school D&D games. It's consolidates all rules around a few opposed d20 rolls and includes clear rules for combat, inventory, equipment and so on. Since _Knave_ is a tabletop RPG, we will have to do some minor changes here and there to fit it to the computer medium.
_Knave_ is available under a Creative Commons Attributions 4.0 License, meaning it can be used for derivative work (even commercially). The above link allows you to purchase the PDF and supporting the author. Alternatively you can find unofficial fan releases of the rules [on this page](https://dungeonsandpossums.com/2020/04/some-great-knave-rpg-resources/).
### What are the game mechanics? How do you decide if an action succeeds or fails?
This follows from the RPG system decided upon in the previous question.
**EvAdventure Answer**
_Knave_ gives every character a set of six traditional stats: Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. Each has a value from +1 to +10. To find its "Defense" value, you add 10.
You have Strength +1. Your Strength-Defense is 10 + 1 = 11
To make a check, say an arm-wrestling challenge you roll a twenty-sided die (d20) and add your stat. You have to roll higher than the opponents defense for that stat.
I have Strength +1, my opponent has a Strength of +2. To beat them in arm wrestling I must roll d20 + 1 and hope to get higher than 12, which is their Strength defense (10 + 2).
If you attack someone you do the same, except you roll against their `Armor` defense. If you rolled higher, you roll for how much damage you do (depends on your weapon).
You can have _advantage_ or _disadvantage_ on a roll. This means rolling 2d20 and picking highest or lowest value.
In Knave, combat is turn-based. In our implementation we'll also play turn-based, but we'll resolve everything _simultaneously_. This changes _Knave_'s feel quite a bit, but is a case where the computer can do things not practical to do when playing around a table.
There are also a few tables we'll need to implement. For example, if you lose all health, there's a one-in-six chance you'll die outright. We'll keep this perma-death aspect, but make it very easy to start a new character and jump back in.
> In this tutorial we will not add opportunities to make use of all of the character stats, making some, like strength, intelligence and dexterity more useful than others. In a full game, one would want to expand so a user can utilize all of their character's strengths.
### Does the flow of time matter in your game - does night and day change? What about seasons?
Most commonly, game-time runs faster than real-world time. There are
a few advantages with this:
- Unlike in a single-player game, you can't fast-forward time in a multiplayer game if you are waiting for something, like NPC shops opening.
- Healing and other things that we know takes time will go faster while still being reasonably 'realistic'.
The main drawback is for games with slower roleplay pace. While you are having a thoughtful roleplaying scene over dinner, the game world reports that two days have passed. Having a slower game time than real-time is a less common, but possible solution for such games.
It is however _not_ recommended to let game-time exactly equal the speed of real time. The reason for this is that people will join your game from all around the world, and they will often only be able to play at particular times of their day. With a game-time drifting relative real-time, everyone will eventually be able to experience both day and night in the game.
**EvAdventure Answer**
The passage of time will have no impact on our particular game example, so we'll go with Evennia's default, which is that the game-time runs two times faster than real time.
### Do you want changing, global weather or should weather just be set manually in roleplay?
A weather system is a good example of a game-global system that affects a subset of game entities (outdoor rooms).
**EvAdventure Answer**
We'll not change the weather, but will add some random messages to echo through
the game world at random intervals just to show the principle.
### Do you want a coded world-economy or just a simple barter system? Or no formal economy at all?
This is a big question and depends on how deep and interconnected the virtual transactions are that are happening in the game. Shop prices could rice and drop due to supply and demand, supply chains could involve crafting and production. One also could consider adding money sinks and manipulate the in-game market to combat inflation.
The [Barter](../../../Contribs/Contrib-Barter.md) contrib provides a full interface for trading with another player in a safe way.
**EvAdventure Answer**
We will not deal with any of this complexity. We will allow for players to buy from npc sellers and players will be able to trade using the normal `give` command.
### Do you have concepts like reputation and influence?
These are useful things for a more social-interaction heavy game.
**EvAdventure Answer**
We will not include them for this tutorial. Adding the Barter contrib is simple though.
### Will your characters be known by their name or only by their physical appearance?
This is a common thing in RP-heavy games. Others will only see you as "The tall woman" until you introduce yourself and they 'recognize' you with a name. Linked to this is the concept of more complex emoting and posing.
Implementing such a system is not trivial, but the [RPsystem](../../../Contribs/Contrib-RPSystem.md) Evennia contrib offers a ready system with everything needed for free emoting, recognizing people by their appearance and more.
**EvAdventure Answer**
We will not use any special RP systems for this tutorial. Adding the RPSystem contrib is a good extra expansion though!
## Rooms
### Is a simple room description enough or should the description be able to change?
Changing room descriptions for day and night, winder and summer is actually quite easy to do, but looks very impressive. We happen to know there is also a contrib that helps with this, so we'll show how to include that.
There is an [Extended Room](../../../Contribs/Contrib-Extended-Room.md) contrib that adds a Room type that is aware of the time-of-day as well as seasonal variations.
**EvAdventure Answer**
We will stick to a normal room in this tutorial and let the world be in a perpetual daylight. Making Rooms into ExtendedRooms is not hard though.
### Should the room have different statuses?
One could picture weather making outdoor rooms wet, cold or burnt. In rain, bow strings could get wet and fireballs fizz out. In a hot room, characters could require drinking more water, or even take damage if not finding shelter.
**EvAdventure Answer**
For the above-ground we need to be able to disable combat all rooms except for the PvP location. We also need to consider how to auto-generate the rooms under ground. So we probably will need some statuses to control that.
Since each room under ground should present some sort of challenge, we may need a few different room types different from the above-ground Rooms.
### Can objects be hidden in the room? Can a person hide in the room?
This ties into if you have hide/stealth mechanics. Maybe you could evesdrop or attack out of hiding.
**EvAdventure Answer**
We will not model hiding and stealth. This will be a game of honorable face-to-face conflict.
## Objects
### How numerous are your objects? Do you want large loot-lists or are objects just role playing props?
This also depends on the type of game. In a pure freeform RPG, most objects may be 'imaginary' and just appearing in fiction. If the game is more coded, you want objects with properties that the computer can measure, track and calculate. In many roleplaying-heavy games, you find a mixture of the two, with players imagining items for roleplaying scenes, but only using 'real' objects to resolve conflicts.
**EvAdventure Answer**
We will want objects with properties, like weapons and potions and such. Monsters should drop loot even though our list of objects will not be huge in this example game.
### Is each coin a separate object or do you just store a bank account value?
The advantage of having multiple items is that it can be more immersive. The drawback is that it's also very fiddly to deal with individual coins, especially if you have to deal with different currencies.
**EvAdventure Answer**
_Knave_ uses the "copper" as the base coin and so will we. Knave considers the weight of coin and one inventory "slot" can hold 100 coins. So we'll implement a "coin item" to represent many coins.
### Do multiple similar objects form stack and how are those stacks handled in that case?
If you drop two identical apples on the ground, Evennia will default to show this in the room as "two apples", but this is just a visual effect - there are still two apple-objects in the room. One could picture instead merging the two into a single object "X nr of apples" when you drop the apples.
**EvAdventure Answer**
We will keep Evennia's default.
### Does an object have weight or volume (so you cannot carry an infinite amount of them)?
Limiting carrying weight is one way to stop players from hoarding. It also makes it more important for players to pick only the equipment they need. Carrying limits can easily come across as annoying to players though, so one needs to be careful with it.
**EvAdventure Answer**
_Knave_ limits your inventory to `Constitution + 10` "slots", where most items take up one slot and some large things, like armor, uses two. Small items (like rings) can fit 2-10 per slot and you can fit 100 coins in a slot. This is an important game mechanic to limit players from hoarding. Especially since you need coin to level up.
### Can objects be broken? Can they be repaired?
Item breakage is very useful for a game economy; breaking weapons adds tactical considerations (if it's not too common, then it becomes annoying) and repairing things gives work for crafting players.
**EvAdventure Answer**
In _Knave_, items will break if you make a critical failure on using them (rolls a native 1 on d20). This means they lose a level of `quality` and once at 0, it's unusable. We will not allow players to repair, but we could allow merchants to repair items for a fee.
### Can you fight with a chair or a flower or must you use a special 'weapon' kind of thing?
Traditionally, only 'weapons' could be used to fight with. In the past this was a useful
simplification, but with Python classes and inheritance, it's not actually more work to just let all items in game work as a weapon in a pinch.
**EvAdventure Answer**
Since _Knave_ deals with weapon lists and positions where items can be wielded, we will have a separate "Weapon" class for everything you can use for fighting. So, you won't be able to fight with a chair (unless we make it a weapon-inherited chair).
### Will characters be able to craft new objects?
Crafting is a common feature in multiplayer games. In code it usually means using a skill-check to combine base ingredients from a fixed recipe in order to create a new item. The classic example is to combine _leather straps_, a _hilt_, a _pommel_ and a _blade_ to make a new _sword_.
A full-fledged crafting system could require multiple levels of crafting, including having to mine for ore or cut down trees for wood.
Evennia's [Crafting](../../../Contribs/Contrib-Crafting.md) contrib adds a full crafting system to any game. It's based on [Tags](../../../Components/Tags.md), meaning that pretty much any object can be made usable for crafting, even used in an unexpected way.
**EvAdventure Answer**
In our case we will not add any crafting in order to limit the scope of our game. Maybe NPCs will be able to repair items - for a cost?
### Should mobs/NPCs have some sort of AI?
As a rule, you should not hope to fool anyone into thinking your AI is actually intelligent. The best you will be able to do is to give interesting results and unless you have a side-gig as an AI researcher, users will likely not notice any practical difference between a simple state-machine and you spending a lot of time learning
how to train a neural net.
**EvAdventure Answer**
For this tutorial, we will show how to add a simple state-machine AI for monsters. NPCs will only be shop-keepers and quest-gives so they won't need any real AI to speak of.
### Are NPCs and mobs different entities? How do they differ?
"Mobs" or "mobiles" are things that move around. This is traditionally monsters you can fight with, but could also be city guards or the baker going to chat with the neighbor. Back in the day, they were often fundamentally different these days it's often easier to just make NPCs and mobs essentially the same thing.
**EvAdventure Answer**
In EvAdventure, Monsters and NPCs do very different things, so they will be different classes, sharing some code where possible.
### _Should there be NPCs giving quests? If so, how do you track Quest status?
Quests are a staple of many classic RPGs.
**EvAdventure Answer**
We will design a simple quest system with some simple conditions for success, like carrying the right item or items back to the quest giver.
## Characters
### Can players have more than one Character active at a time or are they allowed to multi-play?
Since Evennia differentiates between `Sessions` (the client-connection to the game), `Accounts` and `Character`s, it natively supports multi-play. This is controlled by the `MULTISESSION_MODE` setting, which has a value from `0` (default) to `3`.
- `0`- One Character per Account and one Session per Account. This means that if you login to the same
account from another client you'll be disconnected from the first. When creating a new account, a Character
will be auto-created with the same name as your Account. This is default mode and mimics legacy code bases
which had no separation between Account and Character.
- `1` - One Character per Account, multiple Sessions per Account. So you can connect simultaneously from
multiple clients and see the same output in all of them.
- `2` - Multiple Characters per Account, one Session per Character. This will not auto-create a same-named
Character for you, instead you get to create/choose between a number of Characters up to a max limit given by
the `MAX_NR_CHARACTERS` setting (default 1). You can play them all simultaneously if you have multiple clients
open, but only one client per Character.
- `3` - Multiple Characters per Account, Multiple Sessions per Character. This is like mode 2, except players
can control each Character from multiple clients, seeing the same output from each Character.
**EvAdventure Answer**
Due to the nature of _Knave_, characters are squishy and probably short-lived. So it makes little sense to keep a stable of them. We'll use use mode 0 or 1.
### How does the character-generation work?
There are a few common ways to do character generation:
- Rooms. This is the traditional way. Each room's description tells you what command to use to modify your character. When you are done you move to the next room. Only use this if you have another reason for using a room, like having a training dummy to test skills on, for example.
- A Menu. The Evennia _EvMenu_ system allows you to code very flexible in-game menus without needing to walk between rooms. You can both have a step-by-step menu (a 'wizard') or allow the user to jump between the
steps as they please. This tends to be a lot easier for newcomers to understand since it doesn't require
using custom commands they will likely never use again after this.
- Questions. A fun way to build a character is to answer a series of questions. This is usually implemented with a sequential menu.
**EvAdventure Answer**
Knave randomizes almost aspects of the Character generation. We'll use a menu to let the player add their name and sex as well as do the minor re-assignment of stats allowed by the rules.
### How do you implement different "classes" or "races"?
The way classes and races work in most RPGs is that they act as static 'templates' that inform which bonuses and special abilities you have. Much of this only comes into play during character generation or when leveling up.
Often all we need to store on the Character is _which_ class and _which_ race they have; the actual logic can sit in Python code and just be looked up when we need it.
**EvAdventure Answer**
There are no races and no classes in _Knave_. Every character is a human.
### If a Character can hide in a room, what skill will decide if they are detected?
Hiding means a few things.
- The Character should not appear in the room's description / character list
- Others hould not be able to interact with a hidden character. It'd be weird if you could do `attack <name>`
or `look <name>` if the named character is in hiding.
- There must be a way for the person to come out of hiding, and probably for others to search or accidentally
find the person (probably based on skill checks).
- The room will also need to be involved, maybe with some modifier as to how easy it is to hide in the room.
**EvAdventure Answer**
We will not be including a hide-mechanic in EvAdventure.
### What does the skill tree look like? Can a Character gain experience to improve? By killing enemies? Solving quests? By roleplaying?
Gaining experience points (XP) and improving one's character is a staple of roleplaying games. There are many
ways to implement this:
- Gaining XP from kills is very common; it's easy to let a monster be 'worth' a certain number of XP and it's easy to tell when you should gain it.
- Gaining XP from quests is the same - each quest is 'worth' XP and you get them when completing the test.
- Gaining XP from roleplay is harder to define. Different games have tried a lot of different ways to do this:
- XP from being online - just being online gains you XP. This inflates player numbers but many players may
just be lurking and not be actually playing the game at any given time.
- XP from roleplaying scenes - you gain XP according to some algorithm analyzing your emotes for 'quality',
how often you post, how long your emotes are etc.
- XP from actions - you gain XP when doing things, anything. Maybe your XP is even specific to each action, so
you gain XP only for running when you run, XP for your axe skill when you fight with an axe etc.
- XP from fails - you only gain XP when failing rolls.
- XP from other players - other players can award you XP for good RP.
**EvAdventure Answer**
We will use an alternative rule in _Knave_, where Characters gain XP by spending coins they carry back from their adventures. The above-ground merchants will allow you to spend your coins and exchange them for XP 1:1. Each level costs 1000 coins. Every level you have `1d8 * new level` (minimum what you had before + 1) HP, and can raise 3 different ability scores by 1 (max +10). There are no skills in _Knave_, but the principle of increasing them would be the same.
### May player-characters attack each other (PvP)?
Deciding this affects the style of your entire game. PvP makes for exciting gameplay but it opens a whole new can of worms when it comes to "fairness". Players will usually accept dying to an overpowered NPC dragon. They will not be as accepting if they perceive another player as being overpowered. PvP means that you
have to be very careful to balance the game - all characters does not have to be exactly equal but they should all be viable to play a fun game with.
PvP does not only mean combat though. Players can compete in all sorts of ways, including gaining influence in a political game or gaining market share when selling their crafted merchandise.
**EvAdventure Answer**
We will allow PvP only in one place - a special Dueling location where players can play-fight each other for training and prestige, but not actually get killed. Otherwise no PvP will be allowed. Note that without a full Barter system in place (just regular `give`, it makes it theoretically easier for players to scam one another.
### What are the penalties of defeat? Permanent death? Quick respawn? Time in prison?
This is another big decision that strongly affects the mood and style of your game.
Perma-death means that once your character dies, it's gone and you have to make a new one.
- It allows for true heroism. If you genuinely risk losing your character of two years to fight the dragon,
your triumph is an actual feat.
- It limits the old-timer dominance problem. If long-time players dies occationally, it will open things
up for newcomers.
- It lowers inflation, since the hoarded resources of a dead character can be removed.
- It gives capital punishment genuine discouraging power.
- It's realistic.
Perma-death comes with some severe disadvantages however.
- Many players say they like the _idea_ of permadeath except when it could happen to them.
- Some players refuse to take any risks if death is permanent.
- It may make players even more reluctant to play conflict-driving 'bad guys'.
- Balancing PvP becomes very hard. Fairness and avoiding exploits becomes critical when the outcome
is permanent.
For these reasons, it's very common to do hybrid systems. Some tried variations:
- NPCs cannot kill you, only other players can.
- Death is permanent, but it's difficult to actually die - you are much more likely to end up being severely hurt/incapacitated.
- You can pre-pay 'insurance' to magically/technologically avoid actually dying. Only if don't have insurance will
you die permanently.
- Death just means harsh penalties, not actual death.
- When you die you can fight your way back to life from some sort of afterlife.
- You'll only die permanently if you as a player explicitly allows it.
**EvAdventure Answer**
In _Knave_, when you hit 0 HP, you roll on a death table, with a 1/8 chance of immediate death (otherwise you lose
points in a random stat). We will offer an "Insurance" that allows you to resurrect if you carry enough coin on you when
you die. If not, you are perma-dead and have to create a new character (which is easy and quick since it's mostly
randomized).
## Conclusions
Going through the questions has helped us get a little bit more of a feel for the game we want to do. There are many, many other things we could ask ourselves, but if we can cover these points we will be a good way towards a complete,
playable game!
In the last of these planning lessons we'll sketch out how these ideas will map to Evennia.

145
docs/source/Howtos/Beginner-Tutorial/Part2/Beginner-Tutorial-Planning-Where-Do-I-Begin.md
View file

@ -1,145 +0,0 @@
# Where do I begin?
The good news is that following this Starting tutorial is a great way to begin making an Evennia game.
The bad news is that everyone's different and when it comes to starting your own game there is no
one-size-fits-all answer. Instead we will ask a series of questions
to help you figure this out for yourself. It will also help you evaluate your own skills and maybe
put some more realistic limits on how fast you can achieve your goals.
> The questions in this lesson do not really apply to our tutorial game since we know we are doing it
> to learn Evennia. If you just want to follow along with the technical bits you can skip this lesson and
> come back later when you feel ready to take on making your own game.
## What is your motivation for doing this?
So you want to make a game. First you need to make a few things clear to yourself.
Making a multiplayer online game is a _big_ undertaking. You will (if you are like most of us) be
doing it as a hobby, without getting paid. And you’ll be doing it for a long time.
So the very first thing you should ask yourself (and your team, if you have any) is
_why am I doing this_? Do some soul-searching here. Here are some possible answers:
- I want to earn recognition and fame from my online community and/or among my friends.
- I want to build the game so I can play and enjoy it myself.
- I want to build the same game I already play but without the bad people.
- I want to create a game so that I can control it and be the head honcho.
- A friend or online acquaintance talked me into working on it.
- I work on this because I’m paid to (wow!)
- I only build this for my own benefit or to see if I can pull it off.
- I want to create something to give back to the community I love.
- I want to use this project as a stepping-stone towards other projects (like a career in game design
or programming).
- I am interested in coding or server and network architectures, making a MUD just seems to be a good
way to teach myself.
- I want to build a commercial game and earn money.
- I want to fulfill a life-long dream of game making.
There are many other possibilities. How “solid” your answer is for a long-term development project
is up to you. The important point is that you ask yourself the question.
**Help someone else instead** - Maybe you should _not_ start a new project - maybe you're better off
helping someone else or improve on something that already exists. Or maybe you find you are more of a
game engine developer than a game designer.
**Driven by emotion** - Some answers may suggest that you are driven by emotions of revenge or disconcert. Be careful with that and
check so that's not your _only_ driving force. Those emotions may have abated later when the project
most needs your enthusiasm and motivation.
**Going commercial** - If your aim is to earn money, your design goals will likely be very different from
those of a person who only creates as a hobby or for their own benefit. You may also have a much stricter
timeline for release.
Whichever your motivation, you should at least have it clear in your own mind. It’s worth to make
sure your eventual team is on the same page too.
## What are your skills?
Once you have your motivations straight you need to take a stock of your own skills and the skills
available in your team, if you have any.
Your game will have two principal components and you will need skills to cater for both:
- The game engine / code base - Evennia in this case.
- The assets created for using the game engine (“the game world”)
### The game engine
The game engine is maintained and modified by programmers (coders). It represents the infrastructure
that runs the game - the network code, the protocol support, the handling of commands, scripting and
data storage.
If you are just evaluating Evennia, it's worth to do the following:
- Hang out in the community/forums/chat. Expect to need to ask a lot of “stupid” questions as you start
developing (hint: no question is stupid). Is this a community in which you would feel comfortable doing so?
- Keep tabs on the manual (you're already here).
- How's your Python skills? What are the skills in your team? Do you or your team already know it or are
you willing to learn? Learning the language as you go is not too unusual with Evennia devs, but expect it
to add development time. You will also be worse at predicting how 'hard' something is to do.
- If you don’t know Python, you should have gotten a few tastes from the first part of this tutorial. But
expect to have to refer to external online tutorials - there are many details of Python that will not be
covered.
### Asset creation
Compared to the level of work needed to produce professional graphics for an MMORPG, detailed text
assets for a mud are cheap to create. This is one of the many reasons muds are so well suited for a
small team.
This is not to say that making “professional” text content is easy though. Knowing how to write
imaginative and grammatically correct prose is only the minimal starting requirement. A good asset-
creator (traditionally called a “builder”) must also be able to utilize the tools of the game engine
to its fullest in order to script events, make quests, triggers and interactive, interesting
environments.
Assuming you are not coding all alone, your team’s in-house builders will be the first ones to actually
“use” your game framework and build tools. They will stumble on all the bugs. This means that you
need people who are just not “artsy” or “good with words”. Assuming coders and builders are not the
same people (common for early testing), builders need to be able to collaborate well and give clear
and concise feedback.
If you know your builders are not tech-savvy, you may need to spend more time making easier
build-tools and commands for them.
## So, where do I begin, then?
Right, after all this soul-searching and skill-inventory-checking, let’s go back to the original
question. And maybe you’ll find that you have a better feeling for the answer yourself already:
- Keep following this tutorial and spend the time
to really understand what is happening in the examples. Not only will this give you a better idea
of how parts hang together, it may also give you ideas for what is possible. Maybe something
is easier than you expected!
- Introduce yourself in the IRC/Discord chat and don't be shy to ask questions as you go through
the tutorial. Don't get hung up on trying to resolve something that a seasoned Evennia dev may
clear up for you in five minutes. Also, not all errors are your faults - it's possible the
tutorial is unclear or has bugs, asking will quickly bring those problems to light, if so.
- If Python is new to you, you should complement the tutorial with third-party Python references
so you can read, understand and replicate example code without being completely in the dark.
Once you are out of the starting tutorial, you'll be off to do your own thing.
- The starting tutorial cannot cover everything. Skim through the [Evennia docs](../../../index.md).
Even if you don't read everything, it gives you a feeling for what's available should you need
to look for something later. Make sure to use the search function.
- You can now start by expanding on the tutorial-game we will have created. In the last part there
there will be a list of possible future projects you could take on. Working on your own, without help
from a tutorial is the next step.
As for your builders, they can start getting familiar with Evennia's default build commands ... but
keep in mind that your game is not yet built! Don't set your builders off on creating large zone projects.
If they build anything at all, it should be small test areas to agree on a homogenous form, mood
and literary style.
## Conclusions
Remember that what kills a hobby game project will usually be your own lack of
motivation. So do whatever you can to keep that motivation burning strong! Even if it means
deviating from what you read in a tutorial like this one. Just get that game out there, whichever way
works best for you.
In the next lesson we'll go through some of the technical questions you need to consider. This should
hopefully help you figure out more about the game you want to make. In the lesson following that we'll
then try to answer those questions for the sake of creating our little tutorial game.