I don't know if this is particularly feasible from a coding perspective, but I assume all the timing of CF is based on a pulse which has a specific real life duration (a tenth of a second or something). My idea is that Chronomancers could affect this (actually real life) length of time in their immediate vicinity or so. Basically instead of being muter (for you Isildur) ripoffs who have something like haste, they make combat happen twice as fast (real time) or twice as slow (real time) and the like. Again I don't know if it is possible, but was something I was pondering... like who decided that the speed CF is played at is the best speed... what if you could change that speed? It's interesting to me... let me know what you think?

Sorry, I really didn't mean to steal your thread...

Time Warp: The victim of the time warp would be sent a certain distance into the future.

Basically, the victim's mind (during combat) would be sent into the future where he would have no knowledge of what happened between the time he left and when he arrived back into his body. Be it one round, two rounds, what ever. Any commands he would have put in would still go through, but he would have no knowledge of whether they worked, didn't work, was disarmed, tripped, etc. Maybe he would have a vague sense of the passage of time (see one random line of combat per round, etc)

Downside for the caster, very high lag time due to the mind power needed to perform the warp, perhap can only be used to initiate combat. Perhaps if Magic is weak, it has the possiblility to effect more than just the victim (caster groupmates, caster himself, etc).

Problems I see: The missing rounds would have to just appear as void time for the victim. Unable to input commands, and basically just sit there and wait. Because of this, it would have to be limited to a low number of rounds warped ahead. maybe 3 rounds at level 51. Sitting and waiting more than 3 rounds in a fight to even see what was going on would just tick to many people off.

Thoughts anyone?

But you'll probably only see it in a certain Area Explore.

Where you come back and the chronomancer is looting your corpse because the fight is already over, but it isn't exactly something you'd put in PC hands. I think we've all had those times where our connection went bonkers and in the middle of a raid we stop getting stuff, then we wait a few painfully long seconds until everything is spit out at us all at once. It's a painful situation (the not knowing and trying to figure out WTF just happened afterward), but if you knew it could happen for say 2 rounds, well that'd add a whole new dynamic, and wouldn't give an advantage to triggering the way Valg things my doubletime and halftime ideas would. Ohhh noes I got hit with the big time warp, hope I survive through the three rounds that is going to be spit out at me here in a few seconds.

My version is much less obnoxious than that, believe it or not.

So Nefla never got into the tower. I should have expected Nepenthian vagueness to bite me in the ass when I heard <terrain> to the <direction>, but it seemed so obvious that it was the <terrain> just <direction> of the <place> I got directions from so I didn't even really look any further. I fully expect that to either be completely understandable or totally unintelligible. I keep meaning to go back, but my current character seems highly unlikely to be successful and the one way I "know" isn't likely to work either... so... we'll see.

It is the <terrain> just <direction> of the <place>.

Although I've since updated those directions to be slightly more specific.

He said the person would find me! Damnable lying quest mobs. I wandered around that whole area and didn't see anything... apparently I missed it. Guess I'll have to try again since I've actually been enjoying exploring a little bit of late.

>He said the person would find me! Damnable lying quest mobs.
> I wandered around that whole area and didn't see anything...
>apparently I missed it. Guess I'll have to try again since
>I've actually been enjoying exploring a little bit of late.

Impatient much? You didn't find him? What did the mob say again? Think about it. :)

I need to get out more!! Is this something a PC would ever use or just be used against him? Or am I WAY outside of what I am allowed to ask and have answered? :P

In general, the 'specialness' of rare events declines as they are broken down and explained.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

At first I thought your answer had nothing to do with my question, but after think more about it, I'm guessing if I had ever had been in said area, I might understand what you mean. So it is now my goal to find this area and discover what you mean! Thanks! It's always good to have new goals!

Man I wish I had more time to play!!

I had some other ideas two. Like time displacement where a chronomancer is continually jumping just a little ahead or a little behind in time each pulse. Basically it would be sort of like bard's displacement, only they aren't there (literally) so you might try and pincer or something and they just simply aren't there, so you have to try again and hit them when they're in your same time stream.

Mostly I threw it out there to get a feasibility check on the whole idea of affecting things like the speed of rounds of combat, or (like yours) pausing the sending of combat rounds to a specific player. Stuff like that seems cool in theory, but might be technically difficult to the point of being unpossible.

Cool idea, but I'm almost positive it would necessitate a rewrite of the core CF code. So, ain't gonna happen.

Yeah. I mean, I have near 0 knowledge on coding and the like, but I think you're right. If I'm thinking right, CF time goes by at least two core things that are universal (meaning it can't just happen in one place, it has to happen in all places on the mud) and those are: Ticks and Pulses.

How would you make two rounds of combat go by at the speed of one without affecting almost everything else on the mud? Sounds pretty "core-y" to me.

However it's highly likely that in order for it to be a localized affect, the amount of coding effort might be prohibitive. For instance, in the part of the code that determines rounds of combat, there is some sort of pulse counter that determines how long until something happens, or the lag after etc. etc. Assuming that the pulse is timed in real time (and that it is passed to the function) it might be as simple as checking if someone is affected and then passing a PULSE*.5 value. Chance are though that it is used as a global constant (I seem to remember it that way from when I've poked around Diku code) in which case it becomes considerably more difficult an probably involves tweaking/rewriting significant portions of pretty much everything.

The thing is the effect would be awesome. Imagine a cabal raid happening at half speed so that you can actually follow what is happening. Or that same raid happening at double speed in the hope that defenders can't get back in time. Or same thing, but they do get back in time, and you've got a big group vs group fight happening at double speed which would be beyond nuts.

Ranking time or recovery could be halved (in real time). Of course if you're ranking at double speed, it might be unwise to go to the Mausoleum, but hey.

I just think it would be a change in the mudding Dynamic that is unique and unseen. Every MUD moves at about the same speed. CF is actually a little bit slower because of walking lag etc than some. Imagine if that speed changed significantly. It would require a new level of skill to handle.

The only ways to approach this would be if the spell somehow impacted the entire game.

Beyond that, you're only impacting OOC rate by that action. Characters who spammed commands quickly enough (or more likely, sped the game up and relied on triggers) would still perform them at the same rate relative to their surroundings. NPCs wouldn't notice anything and would act just like nothing happened.

Basically, the IC effect of "speeding up time" in the fashion you suggest would be that PCs got dumber and only used simple button-mashing tactics.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Yes, of course it would be harder to keep up. Triggers might be more "effective" but they'd be even more likely to get you killed. I also can't fathom any reason why it couldn't be a localized effect, but I'll take your word for it. Not really, but I'm not in a position to intelligently argue, so I'll agree to disagree.

Assuming it is possible, how is this different from large group vs group fights? It's pretty hard to keep up with everything that is happening just to you, let alone everyone else. In these situations something like a disarm trigger is already incredibly effective, and "button mashing" (picking your strongest attack and more or less spamming it) is already the case.

I realize that I'm mostly affecting OOC rate by that action, and basically viewed in Log form combat would appear identical, but actually playing in that environment would be an entirely different beast. If you have the capability, set up a test mud with half or 2/3 pulse length as see how it feels. I'd love to hear feedback on that. The IC effect would be that PC's got dumber, but the OOC effect would be something entirely new, which was essentially my point.

Yes, of course it would be harder to keep up. Triggers might be more "effective" but they'd be even more likely to get you killed.

Vs. doing nothing, or reacting blind because you can't read the text quickly enough? Hardly. Even a very primitive AI gets exponentially more useful as reaction window is decreased.

Counterexample: If the game moved very slowly, triggers would be utterly worthless. You'd take the time to assess the situation and input any commands you needed.

I also can't fathom any reason why it couldn't be a localized effect, but I'll take your word for it. Not really, but I'm not in a position to intelligently argue, so I'll agree to disagree.

You'd have to rewrite the code entirely if you wanted two rounds to pass for Person A and one round to pass for person B.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>Yes, of course it would be harder to keep up. Triggers
>might be more "effective" but they'd be even more likely to
>get you killed.
>
>Vs. doing nothing, or reacting blind because you can't read
>the text quickly enough? Hardly. Even a very primitive AI
>gets exponentially more useful as reaction window is
>decreased.

True. How many primitive AI's do we have playing CF? Not for nothing, but it's a complex enough game that even a disarm trigger can and will get you killed (if say, you are being tripped). I don't think that reacting blind or doing nothing would be the case, but rather something like... Awww #### this is way too fast I'll spam bash, or spam geyser. If you are ranking though, I could easily keep up with double speed combat if my tank is good.

>Counterexample: If the game moved very slowly, triggers would
>be utterly worthless. You'd take the time to assess the
>situation and input any commands you needed.

Which is why I suggested that in a big raid situation, you'd probably want half time or slow motion or whatever you want to call it.

>I also can't fathom any reason why it couldn't be a
>localized effect, but I'll take your word for it. Not really,
>but I'm not in a position to intelligently argue, so I'll
>agree to disagree.
>
>You'd have to rewrite the code entirely if you wanted two
>rounds to pass for Person A and one round to pass for person
>B.

I didn't say that it would be easy, I've specifically stated I thought it would hard, probably to the point of being undoable, or "not worth it", but that doesn't mean I don't think it's cool.

Also, it seems that what I suggest would have to be a room effect, because obviously having someone trip you every one of your rounds, while also getting two rounds of offense would be insane.

Again, if possible, set up double speed on a test mud and let me know what if *feels* like. If for nothing else, because I'm insanely curious and it'll (probably) shut me up.

>valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>You'd have to rewrite the code entirely if you wanted two
>rounds to pass for Person A and one round to pass for person
>B.

Hypothetically, could you not suppress the output (e.g., Warrior's slash grazes you.) from melee combat for 2 rounds (from the victim's POV)? Tie this with a 2 round lag to defer commands. Then simply segue to the first round after time warp but also then implement all adverse consequences suffered during that time warp at once and end victim's command denial? This would equal 2 skipped rounds of melee.

That might work for the "Time Warp" spell but not for the "slow down" or "speed up" time spells. The slow/speed spell would need to actually mess with Tick and pulse timers, the time warp would only mess with output.