Seeing some discussion on the GDB about the Gone command, I decided to post some documentation on what we currently have implemented in the game engine for the gone command. Note that when we started designing the game engine, we have aimed to make it easily configurable and modifiable on the fly. That said, some of what is posted about in 'Code' posts about the Game Engine may never be used by Armageddon Reborn, but I include it here to show you the process we've gone through.
The gone command itself remains largely unchanged. It is an out of character command that lets you notify others in the room with you that you are no longer actively playing the game. The syntax, remains the same:
[Everybody oooh and ahh that there's a consistent 'syntax' command...you're welcome]
Here's an example of using the gone command:
The following is an excerpt from an internal doc (modified for the audience) on the features the game engine provides to support the gone command.
Gone Warning [engine default true]
If you're marked gone, a message is sent to anyone who refers to you in a command. For instance, if Amos (the brown-haired man) is gone, and you want to give him some coins, you would see:
Notice the command still happened, you'll just get a warning letting you know that they're gone.
Gone shows in rooms [engine default true]
[GONE] is placed in front of gone character's long descriptions. A user settable option to show this or not is something that likely will be added.
Example:
Idle Gone Timeout [engine default 5 minutes]
A timeout can be set to automatically mark you gone if you're idle for longer than a specified # of seconds. The message is 'You are gone idling.' This likely will also get a user option to disable it.
Idle Timeout [engine default 1 hour]
If you're idle for more than the specified time your link is automatically dropped, leaving you link-dead.
Link-dead Timeout [engine default 30 minutes]
If you're link-dead for more than the specified time, you are automatically extracted from the game.
Note that if we chose to use the link-dead timeout, it will allow a ranger-quit for non-rangers with the cost of having to leave yourself exposed for the delay specified.
In closing, please remember that this is just what the engine currently supports, more features could be added, and some, if not all of these might not be used at all.
Posted by Morgenes at January 4, 2008 12:00 PMLove it.
Posted by: Qzzrbl at January 4, 2008 02:22 PMOH thank GOODNESS.
There have been so many times that i wished Arm had this when my internet dropped while i was out in the middle of nowhere sweating every minute while my character sat exposed all night. I even at one point suggested it citing that the reward was far greater then the possible abuse since no one wants to risk they're character being exposed for half an hour or an hour and yet anyone that unintentionally gets disconnected would gladly trade half an hour to an hour rather then the 9 hours or so it takes to get the connection problems rectified.
This will probably save the life of my character some day.
Posted by: Rhyden at January 9, 2008 11:24 PMThank you for sharing this with us, Morgenes. Bits like this are welcome and reassuring.