A R C H I P E L A G O

USING DYNAMIC MOB LANGUAGE
This is an introduction to the dynamic mob language. A simple, one thread program containing the essentials of an interactive mob named Elsa will be outlined here.


  start: wait_for_enter
         say ^hi^
         wait_for_say 0 ^hello^
         say ^I'm glad you came, the cows are getting restless.^
         goto start

This script is simple, and straightforward. A player enters, Elsa says hi, and waits for a hello before talking about cows. start: is a label in the program that a goto command can go to if needed, so this program loops back to start.


  start: wait_for_enter
         say ^hi^
         wait_for_say 6 ^hello^
         say ^I'm glad you came, the cows are getting restless.^
         echoch ^You hear cows mooing anxiously outside.^
         goto start

wait_for_say 0 ^hello^ causes Elsa to wait until infinity for the player to say hello. Perhaps a time limit is in order, so if we change the 0 into a 6, Elsa will now only wait 6 rounds, or 12 seconds for the hello. Notice, we also added an echoch command where some text about restless cows is echoed to the player. echoch and echonotch works only if the mob remembers the char, so make sure a wait_for_enter, a randomchar, or a trap command is used prior to the echoes.


  start: wait_for_enter
         say ^hi^
         wait_for_say 6 ^hello^
         iffalse ignore
         say ^I'm glad you came, the cows are getting restless.^
         echoch ^You hear cows mooing anxiously outside.^
         goto start
  ignore: emote ^touches your face, and smiles warmly.^
         say ^There are cows out back who need milking.^
         say ^and I, myself, have work to do, bye bye.^
         goto start

Here, we added an ignore: loop to the script where we want Elsa to ignore people who don't say hello after 6 rounds. Notice we proceeded the wait_for_say 6 ^hello^ with an iffalse ignore command. We could also have used an iftrue command after the wait_for_say where the program jumps somewhere when hello is said. Note, the iffalse, and iftrue commands only execute when the command preceding wait_for_say had assigned a true/false flag. In this case, we had to wait 6 rounds before a flag was assigned.

Some players may inevitably fight the mob while it is in mid-script. To stop the mob from just babbling away while it is being attacked, it is a good idea to add an isfighting check into the thread. So we have this, now finished, one-thread program.


  start: wait_for_enter
         say ^hi^
         wait_for_say 6 ^hello^
         iffalse ignore
         say ^I'm glad you came, the cows are getting restless.^
         echoch ^You hear cows mooing anxiously outside.^
         goto start
  ignore: isfighting
         iftrue gofight
         emote ^touches your face, and smiles warmly.^
         say ^There are cows out back who need milking.^
         say ^and I, myself, have work to do, bye bye.^
         goto start
  gofight:  wait 1
         isfighting
         iftrue gofight
         goto start

The above program is more than adequate for a mob, but oftentimes, more realism is needed. You can always add fighting sequences inside the gofight loop. A sequence where Elsa hands you a bucket by using the loadobject and giveobj commands can also be added. Additional threads to check and trap player commands and actions might be useful. There is a lot you can do with this scripting language.

The following are very basic example scripts you can use and modify. Ask xero for examples of more elaborate, and multi-thread scripts when online.


  petcheck: trap 442
    hasarg ^cat^
    iffalse petcheck
    block
    echoch ^You pet a black cat.^
    echonotch ^$n pets a black cat.^
    emote ^bares its teeth, and hisses.^
    goto petcheck

trap is a special command used to trap certain player actions. 442 is the command number for pet as listed in interpreter.c. To make sure the cat was being petted, [hasarg] was used. Notice that a $n was used in echonotch. $n will insert the name of the player being targetted here. $N, if used, will insert the name of the mob.


  givetrap: trap 72
    hasarg ^coins^
    iffalse givetrap
    hasarg ^beggar^
    iffalse givetrap
    block
    echoch ^You give the beggar some coins.^
    echonotch ^$n gives the beggar some coins.^
    say ^Oh, thank thee kindly.^
    goto givetrap

72 is the command number for 'give'. Since there are several ways one can give coins to a beggar, e.g., 'give coins beggar', 'give 10 coins beggar', 'give beggar coins', you have to use two hasarg commands to cover each. Even if there was one way, you still would have to use two hasarg commands because hasarg doesn't accept anything longer than one word, unless you are specifically using isarg to match an exact phrase.