48 lines
2.2 KiB
Plaintext
48 lines
2.2 KiB
Plaintext
chapter 31 "Overview of the Quick Creation System"
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First, let me clarify that the QCS is not intended to replace
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good coding habits. It is also not designed to handle every possible
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need of a builder. The QCS is just a handy tool for making the
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most tedious parts of building easier.
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The amount of time it takes to hand-code an area of 100 rooms
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(a small area, that is), with all the appropriate descriptions and
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monsters and weapons and such is just mind-boggling. As a grown-up,
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I just don't have time for building stuff line by excruciating line
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in raw LPC, because I also need to work, maintain my house, say hello
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to my family on occasion, etc.
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At the same time, I would need a team of dedicated LPC code
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fetishists to make a creation system that covers every last possible
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thing you could do in LPC. The QCS is somewhere in between those
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two extremes.
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Therefore please view the QCS as a quick way to get bulk building
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done, and not as a be-all end-all solution. You still need to learn
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LPC to do really cool stuff. But to hammer out an area with a quest,
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QCS lets you sail through the process of thingmaking with little hassle.
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The design philosophy of the system itself involves object files
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stored in /secure/modules. These files are inherited by an object which
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you need to carry with you in order to use the QCS system. The code
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for these creation modules is fairly messy and inelegant, but the
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result is clean, indented code that compiles, so let's keep the
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mockery to a minimum, shall we?
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It is important to keep in mind the QCS isn't an editing system.
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It's real live on-line modification, meaning that to modify a thing,
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it actually has to be in the same room you are in, or it has to be that
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room itself.
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Once you modify something, it will typically update, so that if
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you change the name of an npc, you're going to need to use the new name
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to modify it further.
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The next few chapters in this manual are nominally QCS specific,
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but in reality this is pretty much my only chance to document some
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of the changes in Dead Souls since version 1, so even if you never
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intend to use QCS, it's worth poking through these chapters.
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- Cratylus @ Frontiers
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2 January 2006
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