Travel Directions modification for dungeons

[jimyred]

Maybe it's just me, but when I'm moving quickly through a dungeon, I often end up clicking the wrong direction because the text above the direction links change, and my mouse is no longer positioned above the direction I want to go. An example is when I was going back to Vault of the Iron Dragon, I just wanted to go straight north to Jirin-Nol, but randomly something would pop up about hearing the sound of chains, and instead of clicking north, I would click east, or something like that. I especially notice this when I guess there are a lot of people playing, and the page load time is slowed.

What I was thinking is that if there could be a compass style button for NSEW, and it could stay in a fixed location, that would make it easier to click on the direction that you meant to, without having to worry about the links moving. I know this shouldn't be to hard with CSS or something like that, but I'm not familiar enough with PHP to know what extra difficulties that might add.

I tried to post a picture below to give you a better idea of what I'm trying to say, but it's not showing up in the previews, so here's a link to the picture in my photo album. Sorry for the rough art, graphics aren't my thing, but you would get the general idea. Thanks!

http://www.srythforum.com/album.php?albumid=23&pictureid=149

http://www.srythforum.com/album.php?albumid=23&pictureid=149

[Joddelle]

Repped, for expressing something that has irritated me for a very long time!

[Zedalion]

Fully agree, and recommend you send this to the GM. It wouldn't even require a special new directional button thing if incidental text just popped up below the directional menu.

[thingirl]

I don't know how that would work for people useing screen readers, but if it doesn't cause problems for them, I like it.

[jimyred]

So posting here doesn't go to the GM? Do I just email him?

[Tazar Yoot]

I think this would be a big plus.

[thingirl]

So posting here doesn't go to the GM? Do I just email him?

No, although if you give him a link to this thread, he will most likely read this. His email address is gamemaster@sryth.com.

[multirp]

I have to admit this is something that's 'bothered' me as well (not necessarily difficult to work around, but still a bit annoying at times). I found that on the overhead map (for places that include one), you can click on a spot directly around your character to move, but that has a similar incident to it.

Would it be difficult/possible (and within something the GM would allow) to make a Greasemonkey-type script to have a 'floating' direction pad? Then it wouldn't bother the people with screen-readers. The only problem with that would be that it'd require Firefox/Greasemonkey to use it.

Though, an additional frame along the bottom of the screen (say, a one line frame with:
North East South West Up Down
might work, with additional options in the 'main' text window itself, like to pick up items?)

[Oldschool]

Although I've become somewhat accustomed to it I agree it is bothersome.

However, IF I remember correctly someone posted on the old forum that this mechanic was implemented by the GM to help deal with bots or scripts. Whether or not that is accurate I can't say because my knowledge of bots and scripts is virtually nil.


EDIT: Read your intro in the other thread MultiRP - Welcome to the Forum. As far as difficulty/possibilty re: the type of script you mention I haven't the foggiest. However there are folks on here that I'm guessing would. As for whether it would be something the GM would allow that would be totally up to him. However this linked thread may give some insight.

http://www.srythforum.com/showthread.php?t=219

[multirp]

Although I've become somewhat accustomed to it I agree it is bothersome.

However, IF I remember correctly someone posted on the old forum that this mechanic was implemented by the GM to help deal with bots or scripts. Whether or not that is accurate I can't say because my knowledge of bots and scripts is virtually nil.


EDIT: Read your intro in the other thread MultiRP - Welcome to the Forum. As far as difficulty/possibilty re: the type of script you mention I haven't the foggiest. However there are folks on here that I'm guessing would. As for whether it would be something the GM would allow that would be totally up to him. However this linked thread may give some insight.

http://www.srythforum.com/showthread.php?t=219

Thank you for the welcome~!

That... actually does bring up a good point concerning bots and scripts. I haven't done too much research into that either in all honesty, but it seems like one would go after the link itself rather than it's spacing in a document.

Hrm... this gives me something else to think about. I've been playing around absently with Greasemonkey, for little success... though perhaps I should call that off for now, as I'm not entirely sure what type of script it would be considered, nor what someone could potentially do with it.

[scout1idf]

What I was thinking is that if there could be a compass style button for NSEW, and it could stay in a fixed location, that would make it easier to click on the direction that you meant to, without having to worry about the links moving. I know this shouldn't be to hard with CSS or something like that, but I'm not familiar enough with PHP to know what extra difficulties that might add.
Do you mean something like this? (see attachment)


This is the code that created the image. (I have it in 1 line normally but on here it scrolls so I cut it up for easier viewing)

<a href="?????">North</a><br />
West&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;East<br />
<a href="??????">South</a><br />
I have active links set to dark blue and inactive links set to black like the rest of the text on the page this came from.

As for TG's question about screen readers, I'm not sure how they work, but the directional control is just text so I don't see why they wouldn't.


I'm currently trying to teach myself about HTML, CSS (which I've got down pretty good if I keep my reference handy) and now I am 1/2 way through my JavaScript book.

CSS has been a god-send! Using an external Style Sheet makes building multiple pages easy!

As for PHP, all I can say is Huh? What's that?

Sorry for the rambling. I hope my input helps.

[Doolipalally]

Don't know about the programming, but like Joddelle, this has been bugging me for ages - repped and I hope your suggestion works out!

[Young Ned]

PHP is a programming line designed for... what's the phrase? Server-side scripting, I believe. Javascript is a scripting language that runs on the client side, i.e. in the web browser of the person surfing the web. PHP programs run on the web server that person is currently surfing. Any time you see .php at the end of a URL, that page is actually a PHP script rather than an HTML document.

PHP is particularly used for generating HTML on the fly, which is then presented to the browser as if it were a standard HTML page. This is used to handle anything from little things like "if the player doesn't have Necromancy at 60+, italicize the line for that skill on the list of possible skills that can be applied here and make it plain text instead of a link" on up to rolling random numbers for attacks and defenses, calculating the entire processing of a round of combat, and outputting the HTML code to display the specific results of that round.

Quite a few browser-based games are written with a combination of PHP and Javascript these days: Sryth and Kingdom of Loathing are the two I'm most familiar with. A lot of forum software seems to be written in PHP, too, such as the phpBB system.

-----

On the topic of discussion, I'd be in favor of some solution to the moving-up-and-down problem, too, as long as it's not really done deliberately to foil scripting. (Some scripts are written to hit certain coordinates on the screen in certain orders, simulating mouse clicks, so if the locations bob up and down at random then that could hinder the performance of such scripts.)

It doesn't even have to involve introducing a new element. Simply ensuring that the links for moving around and the map (if any) start at the same height every time would do it. A crude example:

If a random element does not appear, do

<descriptive text>
<blank line>
<blank line>
<blank line>
<link to move north>
<link to move east>
etc.

but if the random element does appear, do

<descriptive text>
<blank line>
A sudden loud bellow is heard.
<blank line>
<link to move north>
<link to move east>
etc.

That way the links are the same number of lines below the descriptive text, whether or not a loud bellow is heard just then.

[wetheril]

Well said, Young Ned. I like your suggestion too. Either a separate graphical compass, or something that prevents the vertical shifting of the directional links when an event pops up would do.

[multirp]

<snip> (Some scripts are written to hit certain coordinates on the screen in certain orders, simulating mouse clicks, so if the locations bob up and down at random then that could hinder the performance of such scripts.) </snip>

Ah. Thanks, Young Ned. This is what I was looking for. I wasn't sure if scripts were set up to catch the coordinates of links (it'd make more sense, to me, to hit the link itself. Especially considering the links for, say, moving North are all the same, regardless of their location on the screen). But if we assume they can and do (which, now that my fully-rested mind recalls some games that 'crept' buttons over the screen to avoid that very thing with limited amounts of success), I'll definitely hold off doing any modifications (like page edits with Greasemonkey) until I figure out both what I'm doing more effectively, and what said ramifications would be. But, assuming it's 'not that big of a deal' (I couldn't see it as being anything more than a convenience though. Potentially you have the ability to write out a script that hits those newly placed links and can completely play a dungeon, so I'm a bit wary at jumping into the quagmire in that regard) then I'll see if I can bash out a quick Greasemonkey script or something.

I'm afraid my programming skills in the 'newer' languages (such as Javascript. Hey, I'm old, that's new to me!) are sharply limited, but I'll most certainly do what I can.

[Young Ned]

Well, some scripts or macros are created by a program that simply monitors your keystrokes and mouse clicks and plays them back on demand. I think those are the ones that would tend to record mouse clicks by actual coordinates on the screen. Whereas scripts that are actually written in some programming language are more likely to be able to find links by their names.

(Note: I've never really done much scripting, apart from modifying or creating a few Greasemonkey scripts (which are written in Javascript), so I'm not an expert by any means. The above is my vague impression of how some things I've read about in computer magazines work, nothing more.)

[psychoadept]

I too have long wished for stationary movement links. It's one of the major reasons I don't do Tarn more often, because I hate the way the links bounce around. I've almost emailed the gm about it in the past. Totally for somebody giving him a shout.

[thingirl]

I started a Tarn run yesterday. I'm still not done. Mostly because I've been doing other things.

[multirp]

I guess macro'ing keyboard/mouse usage would be accurate for a script, at least some of them, so yeah, I can definitely see where you're coming from, Young Ned. I think a lot of that was it being five in the morning when I posted... heh.

I'll think a bit longer before giving the GM a shout (unless he gets redirected here), because I've had some seriously weird but awesome ideas today concerning that. But I think that might be best left for another day when I can actually produce something other than 'wouldn't it be cool if...?'

[Joddelle]

Almost any 'macro-recording' software is going to use screen position to know where to click the mouse. Any scripts that try to 'bust' Sryth would fail miserably using that technology even without the loud bellows of the ice troll.

The game parts without maps vastly outnumber the part with maps, and a real programming language or even a scripting language (as opposed to a macro recorder), has better ways to track links than by screen position.

That said, a fixed link position would make it -slightly- easier for a certain small group of script-kiddies to hack the game. I think the distraction/usage hit to legitimate users far outweighs any consideration of such abuse in this case.

[Oldschool]

Any scripts that try to 'bust' Sryth would fail miserably using that technology even without the loud bellows of the ice troll.



Ahhhh, so that's the reason for that and the chains clinking or whatever the description is we get in the Vault of the Iron Dragon.

[Young Ned]

That said, a fixed link position would make it -slightly- easier for a certain small group of script-kiddies to hack the game. I think the distraction/usage hit to legitimate users far outweighs any consideration of such abuse in this case.

Well said! When you put it that way, I agree completely. :D

[claytonp9]

Why not have North, South, East and West the arrow keys, or failing that why not have the ability to choose the keys that you would like to set.

ie. w=north
a=west s=east
z=south

[Oldschool]

First welcome to the forum claytonp9 and nice necrothreading. :)

And I skimmed over the posts since it's been awhile since it was "new" so I may have glanced over this fact. If so pardon me.

But if not I'm curious that no one (including myself) mentioned the fact that one can move around mapped areas, like Tarn, via the mouse (on the map) and forego the text directions.

Anyhoo, just found that interesting.

Still a fixed compass would be nice. And a boon in text only dungeons and I would think for screen reader users as well.

Again welcome to the forum claytonp9.

[Tetracapillactomist]

Why not have North, South, East and West the arrow keys, or failing that why not have the ability to choose the keys that you would like to set.

ie. w=north
a=west s=east
z=south

I like that idea and second it - in fact often wondered why there aren't keyboard alternatives for such things?!

I wore out a trackball worth ~$60 - $80 (its 'left-click' micro-switch, actually... which amounts to a useless, busted trackball, in effect), clicking away in battles, refreshing wait times, travelling, ..., ..., ... (Well, I have strong hands, so thar! In the heat of battle, and such, I forget what my Mega Newton speed-clicking can do to relatively flimsy, mostly-plastic actuators and switches... :D)

But if not I'm curious that no one (including myself) mentioned the fact that one can move around mapped areas, like Tarn, via the mouse (on the map) and forego the text directions.

Anyhoo, just found that interesting.

Still a fixed compass would be nice. And a boon in text only dungeons and I would think for screen reader users as well.

Again welcome to the forum claytonp9.

Well, in that case I've got news for you, OS: the maps also bounce and leap like fleas dipped in cayenne! And I swear, when it looks like the map is intentionally and wickedly trying to avoid (!!!) my pointer and foil my efforts to advance, I start clicking on that button as if I was attempting to crush a walnut shell with my thumb (yes, on the trackball I use for this purpose, one of Logitech's cordless ones, left-click is done with the thumb, and to say I'm used to it would be an understatement, which is why I do not care to change that, even though I could :)).

The usual accompaniment of these link-chasing efforts (especially when short on time and in a hurry), are words I can't type out here (innocuous little familiar things like "Oh, for !&@$'s sake!!! Will you sit still already!?!")...

:o:D

Come to think of it, I reported this from within the game at least once, during one of my hot-headed moments, but in the end I didn't follow up with an email suggestion to the same effect - the idea having been the same as Young Ned's - 'space padding' separating the game text from both the textual directional links, and the map, so that both these remained stationary and more comforting of my remaining shred of relative sanity; or, that the reference points for the position of both text and map were independent of the game text... Just to stop that bloody map from acting like a psychotic jumping bean, which can drive me barking... :D Oh, well... In the end I guess I bowed my head, resigned to the fact that I'm dealing with an 'unstable feature,' and I should be patient and understanding... ;)

But no more! I am pinning that bugger down if it takes me physically sinking pins or staples into the screen! :D (Hear that, GM sir? The next portion of 'disposable income' will have to go towards the replacement of trackballs and monitors! :D;):D)

Yes, only kidding... :rolleyes: ... mostly... well, to some degree, in any case. :eek:

Anyway... I second any motion to nail those suckers down - ah, and finally:

hello and very welcome to the forum, Claytonp9! (Don't worry: passing bouts of my apparent insanity are not contagious... supposedly... ;):D)