MMP Specification

Iron Realms Entertainment (IRE) games are in the process of creating a way to export our in game map data so that clients (or players) can easily access and download this data to use as needed. Rather than creating an IRE specific protocol, it would be much better if this was a universal system for all muds and clients to use and implement.

This page is barely fleshed out, so hopefully over the next few days we can get this looking much more formalized.

Purpose

Significant testing in the IRE introductory tours has shown a significant drop off of players when they reach portions of the game where movement is involved. This protocol will allow clients to provide quick graphical maps for their users. Of course, this means that introductory clients used for the game (java and flash) should also provide some kind of basic mapping display as this is where new players will first experience your game.

Map Data

IRE is currently exporting the data in the form of a single XML file OR as several XML files. Here are some links to the current files from Imperian.

What Data?

What data should we be sending out? Here are my initial thoughts:

Areas
- ID Number
- Name
Rooms
- ID Number
- Area ID
- Room Title or Brief Desc
- Room Coordinates
- Room Exits and attached room
- Room Features (shop, forge, healer, teacher, etc)
Environments
- ID Number
- Name
- Color

Areas will allow clients to

Format

Should we continue to use XML to do this, we need to make sure the format is standard. Here is an example of what we are currently doing.

 <?xml version="1.0"?>
 <map>
  <areas>
   <area id="1" name="the ruins of Caanae" />
   <area id="2" name="the Khuno Acropolis" />
 
    ... areas
 
   <area id="194" name="Alcine Estate" />
   <area id="195" name="Abandoned Tower" />
  </areas>
  <rooms>
   <room id="8463" area="1" title="Aryana's Spring" environment="8">
    <coord x="0" y="0" z="0" />
    <exit direction="north" target="8472" />
    <exit direction="east" target="8458" />
    <exit direction="south" target="8453" />
    <exit direction="west" target="8465" />
    <exit direction="down" target="8558" />
    <exit direction="in" target="17200" />
   </room>
 
   ... more rooms
 
   <room id="8472" area="1" title="The empty northern square" environment="8">
    <coord x="0" y="1" z="0" />
    <exit direction="northeast" target="8519" />
    <exit direction="southeast" target="8458" />
    <exit direction="south" target="8463" />
    <exit direction="southwest" target="8465" />
    <exit direction="in" target="7172" />
   </room>
  </rooms>
  <environments>
   <environment id="1" name="Dark Forest" color="2" />
   <environment id="2" name="Constructed underground" color="3" />
 
   ... more environments
 
   <environment id="78" name="Scrublands" color="2" />
   <environment id="79" name="Tower" color="7" />
  </environments>
 </map>

Examples

All Area, Room, and Environment Data http://www.imperian.com/maps/map.xml

The Northern Celidon http://www.imperian.com/maps/10.xml

The Waelin River http://www.imperian.com/maps/12.xml

Towne of Tirhin http://www.imperian.com/maps/106.xml

Problems

The following may or may not be problems, based on how you feel maps should be displayed.

Exploration

Part of the fun of playing a new game is exploring the world, learning about new places, and discovering their treasures. One thing we should try to avoid is simply dumping every single room instantly out to the new player. Players who have been around for a while will not mind this, as they know the world already.

This is probably something that would mainly need to be addressed client side, in how those rooms are hidden, revealed, and displayed.

Overlapping Rooms

Some people will consider this a problem, others will not. IRE does not like overlapping rooms. It seems most clients do not care. I think it will be up to games to export their data as they want those maps displayed.

Standards:MMP

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