posted 18-12-2002 22:01 GMT        

As I wrote in another thread, I've just started to look at QuestNet and the lack of adequate documentation on how to use it has quickly discouraged me from pursuing it any further at present.

The basic difference between Quest /Quest net (as I understand it) is the multi player functionality - and the documentation on how that actually works is, to say the least, pretty flimsy. Very first thing I needed to do was set properties for player objects. Just how does one do that in QuestNet? I've tried every logical variation of the standard approaches for setting properties I can think of but nothing works for me.

I simply don't have the inclination to mess around playing to "guess the syntax" for hours (that's assuming it is possible of course).

I was intending to re-work my 'typelib' library to be suitable for QuestNet, but that just isn't possible until
there's a rather more detailed manual or at least a reasonably detailed explanation of how to work with these multiple player objects.

As a matter of interest - I thought it was not possible in Quest to have objects and rooms with the same name - yet QuestNet seems to empty a room called "player1" when an object called 'player1' disconnects...

Ho hum. This is the sort of thing that needs explaining!

posted 18-12-2002 22:47 GMT            

O.K. I finally found a way to set properties for the player objects, but it requires a bit of wierdness! In Alex's ARENA example I had to put the following three lines into the 'player startscript' (making then the last three before the closing bracket).

quote:

---

set string <thisplayer;player%userid%>
msg <>
property <#thisplayer#; player>

---

I can understand (to a point) that the epression 'player%userid%' needs to be turned into a string before I can use it in a property assignment, what I don't understand is why, if I don't have the 'do nothing' msg <> in between the usefuls code there, Quest Pro 3.12 crashes when trying to log on!

Got to be a nasty little bug I think.

posted 19-12-2002 12:50 GMT            

quote:

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player objects

---

Oh, and is your code in the startscript or something? I remember reading that you need to set variables ect... in gamestartscript or something...
#goes off to read documentation another 10 times#

posted 19-12-2002 14:36 GMT            

quote:

---

Al, could you just expand on that please?
Do you mean the objects a player picks up/owns or the actual players themselves?
Oh, and is your code in the startscript or something? I remember reading that you need to set variables ect... in gamestartscript or something...
#goes off to read documentation another 10 times#

---

I mean the player objects themselves, I want (say) player1 to have a boolean property 'male' for example.

As I say I now have got that to work, but there is fairly obviously a bug in there - you shouldn't need that empty msg <> tag to avoid crashes!

I've put my property assignment immediately following Alex's setting of the player's 'money' array variable - and it DOES work there, providing I put the dummy msg <> in.

Al

posted 19-12-2002 19:31 GMT            

There's no actual room called "player1", just as there's no actual room called "inventory" in a standard Quest game - it's just a label associated with a particular object so Quest knows "where" it is.

As for this:

quote:

---

set string <thisplayer;player%userid%>
msg <>
property <#thisplayer#; player>

---

I really don't know why you need the "msg <>" in there - it runs fine on my system without it (with this as the only change to ARENA.ASL - have you made any other changes?)

You can actually reduce that all to one line:

property <player%userid%; player>

posted 19-12-2002 20:15 GMT            

quote:

---

I really don't know why you need the "msg <>" in there - it runs fine on my system without it (with this as the only change to ARENA.ASL - have you made any other changes?)

You can actually reduce that all to one line:

property <player%userid%; player>

and it works... for me anyway.

---

I've made no other changes. as I say, I find the 'all in one line' version (which is exactly what I tried first of course!) is completely ignored, while with the second broken into stages version without the 'msg <>' My Quest Pro 3.12 crashes with an 'error 5' on attempting to logon.

Somewhat puzzling!

posted 19-12-2002 20:53 GMT            

From the completely bizarre stuff for which there is no obvious explanation department...

I opened the original arena.asl, saved as a copy and made sure that ran properly and I could log on. I then put the one line version of the code in and voila! it worked just fine, players with properties. :-)

So I opened my problematical altered copy of arena.asl, ran it and tried to log on... KERRASH!

Thinks, O.K. so what's different about these two files... there has to be something causing this. Alter code back to the one line verion, run, log on - and the property setting is ignored. Split into two stages, and Quest 3.12 STILL crashes on log on unless that 'msg <>' is in there, but works fine if it is.

(Tried hard to avoid tearing out hair at this stage.)

Now this is where it got bizarre... I changed the code back to the single line style again, only this time I removed the 'comment that preceded the code.

YES! IT NOW WORKS!

So it was the 'comment causing the trouble eh. Just put the 'comment back in and run to prove that was the problem...

D'Oh?? It still works!

So, somehow removing and retyping a 'comment line "cured" the problem and now I cannot even replicate it.

Ooooh my brain hurts!