Community Nexus

[nathan2055]

Actually, I remember that! Still, none of the novels mention KIs.

Novels aren't entirely reflective of canon... sometimes...

That may be right...

[Egon]

I think that currently there should be change from all those inf files (like "AvailableLinks.inf") to some kind of xml file storing all necessary configuration data.

Believe me, you really don't want to know how it was before diafero organized it like this.

I didn't say that they are bad. They are simple and served they purpose. It just now, to include most of ideas from this thread, this file format it just isn't enough

[nathan2055]

I think that currently there should be change from all those inf files (like "AvailableLinks.inf") to some kind of xml file storing all necessary configuration data.

Believe me, you really don't want to know how it was before diafero organized it like this.

I didn't say that they are bad. They are simple and served they purpose. It just now, to include most of ideas from this thread, this file format it just isn't enough

I'm kind of confused, does this mean we will have to implement something new?

[diafero]

I think that currently there should be change from all those inf files (like "AvailableLinks.inf") to some kind of xml file storing all necessary configuration data.

Ugh, even if I knew a Python XML parser of hand, I think that'd be too much bloat. An ini-like configuration file is perfectly enough for our purposes, using an [agefilename] header per age and key-value-pairs below. When I started, I thought a fixed (4) number of values per age would be enough, which is why the file looks the way it does
It is not easy to get the sequence prefix of an age in Python, ZURI, but I think Dustin has some code to do exactly that in this UAM KI Plugin. It's GPL, so we can use it . However, I do not even think it is necessary - the Nexus should work on a list of ages it displays, not on a list it excludes (from my experience, that is much more maintainable, seeing there are quite some ages you should not be able tor each at any time). We could then simply set the flag we want on those Cyan ages we want to see.
Also, nathan, we sure will have to implement tons of new stuff to get this going once we agree on what we want, and find people to do it...

Nexus interface "has something to do" with instances of ages in such mater that it should allow player (adletst in most of cases) to go not only to public but also to private (or hood) instance of an age (depending on what player wishes to do, and what kind of instances age supports).
Adleast that should be in case of Writer's Nexus, because it was also suggested that normal Nexus should link only to public instances.

Leaving only the D'ni locations would result in public instances only, if I did not miss anything - of course, provided we make the city and GZ public, which is the only sane choice IMHO. Well, the list of hoods would of course be hood-instanced, but I guess that's kind of obvious . But then, these decisions are mostly independent from the interface.

However, I see some hints towards instancing fan-ages, which gives me a headache. Not only would that mean either proper linking rules or another hack in Alcugs (to be able to have both a public and a bunch of private instances of fan-ages), it could also result in HUGE AgesIOwnFolders of players that use many private instances. Not to mention that almost all age writers do not understand linking rules properly, so weird linking behaviour is to be expected. And of course, links between fan-ages would either always go to the public instance, or to the private instance of the one who links (anyone feeling like implementing book sharing in their age...?) or need some hacks to go to the instance of the player that instanced the age we are in (like, storing the AgesIOwn folder of the player in the age, the same way as Relto does). Linking is already complicated now, with fan-ages linking to Cyan ages, but having instancing for all of them will result in a huge mess

Some other remarks to what I read:
- Cyan's Nexus has just four categories. Considering hoods and invites, there are just two left for our "D'ni ages" list. So, we do not have that much space to "categorize" the D'ni location list to keep it short.
- The point of separating the Nexi was that we would not have to edit Cyan's Nexus. If, according to nathan, we want the hood interface in there - we need to touch it anyway, so I see no point in two Nexi. We could then just replace Cyan's by our own one and do as we wish.

[ZURI]

Thanks for the info Diafero. I guess you could categorize me as as a writer who doesn't really understand how linking works.

In response to your last post, I for one, do not want my ages instanced. IMO, the whole point behind this Writers' community is to provide public ages for online explorers (just my opinion, everyone.) If it comes to pass that some fan ages can be instanced; will it be up to the author(s) to decide which ages are public only?

[Egon]

If it comes to pass that some fan ages can be instanced; will it be up to the author(s) to decide which ages are public only?

Well I certain hope so, that is authors who will decide whenever they want particular age to be public only, private only, or both.
It's all the matter of designing particular age. Most of Fan Ages don't even present any puzzles, so they might stay public without any harm to exploring them.
Some event are designed as public ages (I'm looking at You Ahra Pahts). But even then players might want to explore them without extra lag from other players.

And there are ages which just scream for ability to have private instance. I think that prime example is "DRA Officle": puzzles, story, whole design of the age. I think that because of this kind of ages "resetage" command was introduced (BTW: try to IC that), which just shows that instances i just needed sometimes.

[Tweek]

All of mine will be public Ages, I hate instancing with a passion.

[ZURI]

We can agree on that then, Tweek. The whole "Instancing" bit kinda kills the storyline for me. Yea, I understand how important it is for some puzzles - but somehow I can't get my head around having thousands of separate yet identical ages.... It just doesn't jive well for me. Besides, it would be cool to see 50 people hanging out in Eder Taygahn together.

[nathan2055]

Leaving only the D'ni locations would result in public instances only, if I did not miss anything - of course, provided we make the city and GZ public, which is the only sane choice IMHO. Well, the list of hoods would of course be hood-instanced, but I guess that's kind of obvious . But then, these decisions are mostly independent from the interface.

However, I see some hints towards instancing fan-ages, which gives me a headache. Not only would that mean either proper linking rules or another hack in Alcugs (to be able to have both a public and a bunch of private instances of fan-ages), it could also result in HUGE AgesIOwnFolders of players that use many private instances. Not to mention that almost all age writers do not understand linking rules properly, so weird linking behaviour is to be expected. And of course, links between fan-ages would either always go to the public instance, or to the private instance of the one who links (anyone feeling like implementing book sharing in their age...?) or need some hacks to go to the instance of the player that instanced the age we are in (like, storing the AgesIOwn folder of the player in the age, the same way as Relto does). Linking is already complicated now, with fan-ages linking to Cyan ages, but having instancing for all of them will result in a huge mess

Some other remarks to what I read:
- Cyan's Nexus has just four categories. Considering hoods and invites, there are just two left for our "D'ni ages" list. So, we do not have that much space to "categorize" the D'ni location list to keep it short.
- The point of separating the Nexi was that we would not have to edit Cyan's Nexus. If, according to nathan, we want the hood interface in there - we need to touch it anyway, so I see no point in two Nexi. We could then just replace Cyan's by our own one and do as we wish.

On instancing - Hmm, maybe we could make it so Ages are "cleared" from the system upon leaving the instance. To explain better:
1. At the WNexus, Player A hits the "Toggle Private" button.
2. Player A links to Janga.
3. The system creates the Age "Player A's Janga" and links Player A to it.
4. Player A uses /nexus to leave to the WNexus.
5. While Player A links, the system deletes "Player A's Janga".
I can see this causing problems, as any puzzles cleared would be reset upon leaving. It could be possible to make some kind of an instance manager in the WNexus GUI, but there is no reason to do that when it's clear we should not consider Fan Age instancing. But it's best we don't mess with any of the Cyan Ages instancing system.
Note - It is very important we instance the Nexus to prevent lines!!!!

On Nexi - Perfect! We should have three sections, one for Cyan Ages, another for Fan Ages, and a third for invites. Thus, we can create an ultimate Nexus and apply most of the concepts we have talked about!

[Paradox]

Ages are never deleted from the Vault (at least in MOULa, and most UU servers). To clean up "orphaned" nodes requires some extra garbage collection script to be running, or for someone to manually delete them with a vault editor.