Re: CF: ice cubes

[Hwei Sheng TEOH <hsteoh@cs.toronto.edu>]

On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Mark Wedel wrote:

[snip]
>  That said, I don't see a bit problem with adding bottles.  In reality, they are
> probably special containers.  But how to deal with them is interesting.
> 
>  The most obvious, and easiest, is to treat them exactly like containers.  To
> empty a bottle, you open it like a container, and then take out the contents. 
> And likewise to fill it.  There should probably be a LIQUID flag or the like,
> which means the player can't have it in their inventory, and it is allowed in
> these special containers (and these containers can only hold one liquid at a
> time.)

Exactly what I have in mind. Liquid will have to be transferred from container
to container. I'm not sure about allowing someone to pour it out on the
ground. How "realistic" is it to be able to pour water (or any liquid for that
matter) on the ground and be able to collect it all back into the bottle? :-)
I guess I'm thinking about how exactly does a player collect something like a
water elemental's residue? Certainly he won't be able to collect every last
drop... which means that some of the stuff will be lost if the player pours it
out and tries collecting it again. Or maybe just make it simple and disallow
pouring out completely, and only allow transferring into another container.
(or make pouring out completely waste the liquid).

Also, we'd have to differentiate between containers like bookshelves and
cauldrons -- while cauldrons may contain objects other than liquids, they can
also hold liquid, so that we can pour out the contents of our potions into the
cauldron when brewing something. But I don't think you'd want to let players
"store" liquid in a bookshelf. :-)

>  The problem is actually applying it.  If you have to open the container, and
> then apply the liquid inside the container to drink it, that makes things more
> difficult, especially in combat.
> 
>  I suppose you could add a new command like 'drink'  which does both those
> steps.

Hmmm, interesting point. If we make these bottles exactly like other
containers, how would the player, during combat, tell exactly which bottle
contains what potions (if there's more than one bottle with the same colored
liquid)? Does he actually have to open the bottle to find out what's in it???
Or should we treat them specially and change their names according to what
they contain? (eg. "bottle of healing potion" or "flask of magic power potion"
etc.)

Also, is it really necessary to be able to open a bottle when you apply it? I
guess this is for transferring the contents of the bottles -- but if they can
only hold one thing at a time, why not just make it so that you can only
"open" empty bottles, and be able to transfer the contents of another bottle
into the empty one by "dropping" it (like we do with bags and stuff now)?
Is it safe to assume that applying a non-empty bottle means you want to drink
whatever's in it?

Although, if we do it this way, we may make it impossible to empty out a
bottle of unwanted stuff (have to differentiate between dropping the bottle
itself and dropping the contents out of the bottle).

>  That said, I don't see a problem with adding such containers.  I think having
> specialized bottles might be overkill (ie, this can hold a magic power potion,
> but will mess up your oil of speed).

The only reason I mentioned this was to avoid having to create new graphics
for existing potions which already have their own "look". I was thinking that
by restricting potion contents to "potion-shaped" bottles we might avoid the
need to create a dozen or so versions of a healing potion, etc.. But I suppose
it's better to go for the general solution.


T

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