The XML Menace!

Hey all,

Interesting update, or at least I hope so for people curious on where I hope to be going with this project in the long run.  So I've talked about a bit the sort of end goal, where version 1 will be at, so here goes a bit of explanation:

Mobile Grapevine isn't about just supporting old World of Darkness Mind's Eye Theater, it's about providing support to all games with the new technology we have in hand that is only getting better every year.  MET and backward support for Grapevine is the current stage, a test that I know I have players for on a grand scale who will report back readily.

Luckily, I think I got the right start with XML.  What it will do is three fold:

• Store and make it easier to transfer game files (characters, equipment, messages, updates)
• Hold rules for the system to quickly process through when activated
• Keep logs machine readable then display them in human readable text when required.

It also had me thinking on how basic parts of a game look.  All role playing games are essencially the varying levels of complexity of the same four components:

• Statistics - The numbers to be weighed on an object, be it a character or a weapon
• Abilities - The functions of the object
• Items - Things that can be added or removed from an object
• History - The list of what has happened to an object over time, including increasing stats, etc.

Some games have one stat, "Alive/Dead", while others have so many it needs a whole program just to take track of that (And why not Mobile Grapevine?).  Same for abilities and items.

What will differentiate them is flags and attributes.  Stats will need primary and secondary, rolled/calculated/purchased, static or spendable, et cetera, et cetera.  These will make it where having mother and daughter (or master and slave if your into that sort of lingo) for stats, abilities, and items, and not just in their own categories.  A sword has it's own set of stats, like damage; it's own abilities like slashing damage; and sub items like hilt and blade.  All of these are highly important for the item, even more so when games require a significant amount of complexity when players do wacky shenanigans like enchant each component of an item then assemble it into some sort o a Voltron esque weapon.  

The next step then is the interaction of these components per the games schema, determining how each stat works and when, where the abilities and their activation come into play, spends, and so on.  This will get very, very complex as any major game tends to have books and books of just stat and ability interactions with items upon items, and that's not looking at things like the character's own body as a item in the abstract sense of the program.  All of this will be handled by scripts, and, hopefully, be attractive to companies as well as players, and the big houses will start making these rules for players and distributing them... or paying me to enter them into the system for them!

As it stands, I'm stuck "hard coding" so everything is enforced at the moment, and it's just MET-oWoD.  Thus the stall out as I research XML.

Thanks for time and patience, if I was working on this full time I could show faster results, but alas.

ZBott out.

PS: To whoever clicked, thank you!