TinyMUX 2.6:  REALMS
Last Update:  January 2006

What are Realms?:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Usually, you dig a room, everyone is in the room. Your control over who
sees who is limited. Either you see everyone, you see no one, or you ask
everyone to use a separate set of commands, or you and a buncha crack
softcoders use @addcommand and much skill to craft something specific to
your game.

Hardcode support for for World of Darkness style realms provides another
answer for that genre.

It allows thing-to-thing visibility rules. Everyone is in the same room
and yet, whether they can -see- each others poses, speech, and existence
depends on WoD-type factors. In addition, what is seen is also controlled
in a fine-grain thing-to-thing way.

The Umbra. The Shadowlands, Obfuscations, Matrix, Peering, Warded exits,
Chimera and Fae.

    look, examine, movement, say, pose, other room emits that you cause.


How to turn Realms on:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Edit your Makefile and include -DWOD_REALMS in the build line.


Should I use Realms?:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It does require helper softcode. The reason for this is that while the
hardcode is very effective at separating people in the same room, it may be
too effective in some cases. These cases need further softcode to increase
the potential for interaction.


How is the Realms support used?:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Realm code adds the following flags which are described in the help files:

    OBF(o) HSS(k) UMBRA(y) SHROUD($) MATRIX(/) MEDIUM(^) FAE(0) CHIMERA(1)
    PEERING(2),

uses the following attributes:

    OBF_LEVEL, HSS_LEVEL, PEERING_REALM, SHROUD_WARED, UMBRA_WARDED,
    OBFDESC, UMBRADESC, WRAITHDESC, MATRIXDESC, and FAEDESC,

add adds one hardcode function:

    CANSEE()

Out of Character (OOC) commands like page, @mail, etc. are not effected by
the realms rules. If you don't set any flags, the realms rules do not
affect anything except possibly performance very slightly if at all.

Even with use of these flags and attributes, if you are wizard, royalty,
or staff, you are always seen, and you see everything. This allows staff to
administrate the situation from the 'outside'.

Let's talk about Obfuscation and Auspex first. There are many races that
have different gifts or ways of tapping into this feature, so don't get too
attached to the names for it. If a player is marked OBF, then the code
starts looking for a special attribute: OBF_LEVEL. If OBF_LEVEL is 1, then
they are invisible as long as they don't move through an exit. OBF_LEVEL of
1 will trigger exits. OBF_LEVEL of 2 and above no longer trigger exits.

If a player is marked HSS, then the code starts looking for a special
attribute: HSS_LEVEL. If HSS_LEVEL of the looker is greater than the
OBF_LEVEL of the lookee, then the lookee's Obfuscation has been thwarted
and if OBF_LEVEL is thwarted above level 3, the looker sees the lookee's
true form (OBFDESC). If OBF_LEVEL is the same as HSS_LEVEL, it's a coin
toss whether Obfuscation will be thwarted or not. This attribute like all
the other DESCriptions defined here default to the normal DESC if the
special ones aren't present.

UMBRA, SHROUD, MATRIX, and a normal 'unflagged' person are the four
realms. Except for SHROUD things and players being able to see normal
things and players, a player or thing can only see things and players in
that realm.  For example, take two players in the same room. Let's say one
is marked UMBRA, and the other is marked SHROUD. When and UMBRA player does
look, they will see the room's UMBRADESC and they will -not- see the other
SHROUD player. If they speak, the SHROUD player will not see it. If they
pose, the SHROUD player will not see it. If they try to examine the SHROUD
player, the game will behave as if the SHROUD player does not exist.

Players and things are grouped together and can exist in only -one- realm.
Exits and rooms are grouped together and are generally available to all
realms with potentially different appearance. Exits can also be flagged
for a particular realm which makes them exclusive to that realm and hidden
from all other realms and unusable.

Rooms -could- be flagged for a particular realm, but that's not generally
useful. It just has the effect of making the room DARK to characters in
other realms.

What about wizard things? If the wizard thing is in your room, it honors
the realm rules. If the wizard thing is located in the master room, it is
not affected by the realm rules. The reason for this is that some local
things such as cars, terminal, gadgets in the same room typically must be
wizard in order operate correctly. For example, a car would not appear in
the SHROUD realm and neither would that car's emits been seen by anyone in
the SHROUD realm. On the other hand, global code needs to work for everyone
regardless of what realm they are in. For example, +time needs to work for
you regardless of which realm you're in.

There is also FAE and CHIMERA. FAE can see normal people. They see the
FAEDESC of other FAE people and CHIMERA people. CHIMERA are only seen by
FAE.

Finally, we have the PEERING flag, and PEERING_REALM. These two allow
you to be seen and heard in one realm (the one you are marked for), and
yet see and hear -only- things, people, rooms, etc. from another realm.
@set the PEERING flag, and then set PEERING_REALM to one of the following:
NORMAL, MATRIX, UMBRA, SHROUD, FAE, CHIMERA, or BLIND.

By default, UMBRA and SHROUD characters pass the locks on exits. To prevent
this, an attribute (UMBRA_WARDED/SHROUD_WARDED) can be set on the exit.  If
present, that particular exit will behave for UMBRA and SHROUD characters
in the same way it does for NORMAL-realmed characters.

This is also useful and necessary for any global exit with a lock that
purposefully fails (You can't go in that direction type stuff) in the master
room. Without setting this UMBRA_WARDED and SHROUD_WARDED, your SHROUD and
UMBRA players will easily find themselves somewhere you did not intend.
