So in the game I'm making at the moment, I want to have the player fall asleep and enter a dream. Logically, you wouldn't have anything with you in the dream that you had when you fell asleep, so is there any way for me to clear the player's inventory via script? I'd really appreciate the help!

// this is an object that is unknown by the game player which will hold your inventory items (which will be moved here) while in your dream

<object name="item_game_storage_object">
  <inherit name="editor_object" />
  <parent>null</parent>
</object>

<!-- -->

// this is a function that will move back your items to your inventory. Place this where you want it (such as on the script of upon going from the dream back to reality)

<function name="restore_items_function">
  foreach (obj,GetDirectChildren (item_game_storage_object)) {
    MoveObject (obj,game.pov)
  }
</function>

<!-- -->

// this is a function that will move your inventory items to an object unknown by the game player, that will hold those items, such as while in the dream. Place this where you want it (such as on the script of upon going from reality to the dream). 

<function name="item_game_storage_function">
  foreach (obj,ScopeInventory ()) {
    MoveObject (obj,item_game_storage_object)
  }
</function>

if you need help on this, please ask!, and I'll help your further!

There are 2 ways to do this...
Both of them are fairly simple. You can either
[list=1][*]Just use a new player object. Or[/*:m]
[*]If you absolutely don't want to do that for whatever reason, use this script:

<!--Optional-->
game.pov.originalinventory = ScopeInventory()

<!--Not optional-->
foreach (object, ScopeInventory()) {
  MoveObject (object, [i]some kind of container[/i])
}
ClearScreen

[/*:m][/list:o]
The optional script should be used if the player is staying in the same room as they fell asleep in when they enter the dream.
If you do the optional script, it saves your player's inventory before dropping everything, so later on, you can use this script to give the player back their stuff later on (for example, after they leave the dream)

foreach (object, game.pov.originalinventory) {
  MoveObject (object, game.pov)
}
game.pov.originalinventory = null

NOTE: The 'some kind of container' should be a random object or room that you can store the player's stuff in until they need it again. If you don't use the optional script, you can just set it to 'game.pov.parent', which will leave it in the room that the player is currently in. (I strongly recommend that if you do it this way, you keep the player in a different room during the dream.)

EDIT: Grrr HK beat me to it lol... I didn't even think to use functions.

I'm assuming you know the For each script.

To get rid of items:
For each[unique object identifier, for example invobj] [object in inventory]
Move [invobj] to [a container that player can never interact with]
Move [player] to [dreamworld]

To get them back:
For each [again a unique object identifier, example homeobj] [all objects]
If homeobj.parent = [name of your container]
Move [homeobj] to [player]

EDIT: Grr' ninjaed -- twice. Funny how all three of us gave similar answers. Maybe that is the only way.

sonic102 wrote:EDIT: Grr' ninjaed -- twice. Funny how all three of us gave similar answers. Maybe that is the only way.

Neither of you thought of simply using another player object...

yep, all 3 of our posts are the exact same, except sora offers the additional coding to save (and thus recall~"load") the two inventories (btw, very useful!), and he~she also offers the alternative method of using another player object (and thus inventory).

Mine also saves the inventory, so if you want to recover it, you can see my second script.

we all "save" the inventory, but only sora truly saves the inventory... and he~she can also save the new~dream inventory too (well... we can also, lol. But we don't have the coding line of saving the original inventory, doh!)

All the solutions are sub-optimal, especially if you have dozens of items in inventory.

If there is a need for new inventory to contain items then there should be possible to do something like this:

player.original_inventory = player.inventory
player.inventory = dream_inventory

Where player.inventory would originally point to the built-in inventory and dream_inventory would be a replacement inventory object which game would accept as a valid replacement. Restoring all items would then be a simple matter of pointing back to the original inventory:

player.inventory = player.original_inventory

That way we could avoid moving a lot of items around.

Otherwise, if you just want to hide inventory to prevent player from interacting with it, much easier would be to just have functions HideInventory() and ShowInventory().

awesome levicki !!! thank you, as I'm learning more code usage~methods~logic, hehe

HegemonKhan wrote:awesome levicki !!! thank you, as I'm learning more code usage~methods~logic, hehe

You are welcome, I am not sure if this would be doable with the current quest engine though. Maybe Alex could chime in and tell us.

I know this has been mentioned already, but it seems to keep getting glossed over. The easiest way to deal with this is having a separate "dream" character, and use Quest's POV switching command to transfer the player POV to the dream character and back. There's really no reason to do it any other way, and that's one of the reasons this feature was implemented in the first place.

sgreig wrote:I know this has been mentioned already, but it seems to keep getting glossed over. The easiest way to deal with this is having a separate "dream" character, and use Quest's POV switching command to transfer the player POV to the dream character and back. There's really no reason to do it any other way, and that's one of the reasons this feature was implemented in the first place.

That is ok if a dream is just part of storytelling without interaction. Otherwise you would have to replicate needed player object functionality on another object.

By the way, character switching is done so you can write an RPG with NPCs which can take over active party roles if the main character is incapacitated in fight or incapable of completing some task that only another party member can do (for example if you have a party memeber "mouse" they can crawl into small spaces where you cannot so it makes sense to switch the character).

levicki wrote:

"sgreig"

I know this has been mentioned already, but it seems to keep getting glossed over. The easiest way to deal with this is having a separate "dream" character, and use Quest's POV switching command to transfer the player POV to the dream character and back. There's really no reason to do it any other way, and that's one of the reasons this feature was implemented in the first place.

That is ok if a dream is just part of storytelling without interaction. Otherwise you would have to replicate needed player object functionality on another object.

By the way, character switching is done so you can write an RPG with NPCs which can take over active party roles if the main character is incapacitated in fight or incapable of completing some task that only another party member can do (for example if you have a party memeber "mouse" they can crawl into small spaces where you cannot so it makes sense to switch the character).

levicki, I like you, and you've been very helpful to several people, including myself, in the one day you've been here. However, it seems like you have a tendency to make assumptions and assertions that you're not really in a position to make. How do you know that switching the pov does not carry over "needed player object functionality?" Did you read through the code for Quest's engine to see how pov switching works in detail? And how do you know that Alex had such a specific purpose in mind when he put pov switching into Quest? I would think it could be used in any way designers come up with and use effectively.

Actually levicki, you'll find that you're quite incorrect in your assertion of what the POV switching function of Quest is. All it does is allow you to control another object that has been set to "can be a playable character." Switching the POV to another player object does not affect anything in the game world in terms of how you can interact with other objects unless you specifically design it to.

And to state that it's only purpose is for RPG games so you can switch between party members is grossly false. You could use it for that, but the reason it was added was because some users requested the feature. It really has nothing to do with RPGs at all. And as a matter of fact, a game I'm working on uses the function as a core feature of the game and there are absolutely no RPG elements in it at all. It's just an adventure game.

So, please don't make statements like that in the forum in the future unless you know for a fact what you're talking about. There are a lot of inexperienced users who browse these forums who could read that post and get the wrong idea about how something is supposed to work when that's simply not the case. We only want to disseminate accurate information on the forums. Anything else just adds to the confusion and we want to avoid that.

Wow... talk about warm welcome...

Just to check whether I understood you two correctly -- are you really saying that people never put scripts, variables, verbs, and status attributes in player object?

How can those still be accessible when you change POV to another non-default player object unless you specifically coded them to take POV into account in the first place?

Quest Wiki specifically says in its only article which mentions changing POV:

Each player object gets its own inventory and attributes. This includes status attributes, so each player could have their own health or stats, and these will be updated on-screen as the player switches between characters...

So can you please explain how exactly what I said doesn't hold true?

As for the RPG part what I meant to write was:

By the way, character switching is usually done...

But I was writing from work so it somehow slipped, you really don't have to jump all over me because of that claim given how this feature can be used for what I said.

If you feel threatened by my presence here in any way and would prefer me to stop posting just say so and I will leave.

levicki wrote:Just to check whether I understood you two correctly -- are you really saying that people never put scripts, variables, verbs, and status attributes in player object?
Quest Wiki specifically says in its only article which mentions changing POV:

Each player object gets its own inventory and attributes. This includes status attributes, so each player could have their own health or stats, and these will be updated on-screen as the player switches between characters...

So can you please explain how exactly what I said doesn't hold true?

Okay, here's what you originally said.

levicki wrote:That is ok if a dream is just part of storytelling without interaction. Otherwise you would have to replicate needed player object functionality on another object.

I suppose that depends on one's opinion of what's needed for player functionality, but the statement comes off sounding like the player can't function or interact with anything.

wiki: Changing the player object wrote:Each player object gets its own inventory and attributes. This includes status attributes, so each player could have their own health or stats, and these will be updated on-screen as the player switches between characters. For status attributes which apply across the entire game (perhaps "score" for example), you should set these on the "game" object itself, so they will apply all the time regardless of which object is the current POV.

I don't see any reason why I would have to replicate anything needed for player functionality or interaction.

levicki wrote:As for the RPG part what I meant to write was:
"By the way, character switching is usually done..."
But I was writing from work so it somehow slipped, you really don't have to jump all over me because of that claim given how this feature can be used for what I said.
If you feel threatened by my presence here in any way and would prefer me to stop posting just say so and I will leave.

We can only respond to what's on the screen. What we saw was:

levicki wrote:... character switching is done so ...

That sounds like a very broad, firm statement, as if there are not any other reasons for doing it. Which would be false. So, because we reacted to what YOU typed (incorrectly, according to you), because a site mod (on a forum designed to help people) is trying to make sure new users are not being given misinformation, YOU'RE response is to make it personal and belittle us? Let me tell you something, I can openly admit that you seem to know a lot more about programming in general than I do, and you have a much more aggressive personality than I do, and you're very good at quickly researching information, and I don't feel the least bit "threatened" by you. I feel like you're very helpful, as well as overbearing, presumptuous, and condescending. I am usually very complaisant on the web. I DO NOT like arguing with people, but I will not be bullied, even by someone who has helped me.

No one is asking you to leave, just to be careful with how you phrase things, so new people coming in won't end up getting confused.

TriangleGames wrote:

"levicki"

Just to check whether I understood you two correctly -- are you really saying that people never put scripts, variables, verbs, and status attributes in player object?
Quest Wiki specifically says in its only article which mentions changing POV:

Each player object gets its own inventory and attributes. This includes status attributes, so each player could have their own health or stats, and these will be updated on-screen as the player switches between characters...

So can you please explain how exactly what I said doesn't hold true?

Okay, here's what you originally said...

You did not answer my questions.

TriangleGames wrote:...

"levicki"

That is ok if a dream is just part of storytelling without interaction. Otherwise you would have to replicate needed player object functionality on another object.

I suppose that depends on one's opinion of what's needed for player functionality, but the statement comes off sounding like the player can't function or interact with anything.

And I clearly stated "if a dream is just part of storytelling without interaction". If it was not obvious what I meant by that, you could have asked for clarification just like I asked you above. Instead, you did not bother to answer, but continued analyzing what I said and finding stuff to argue about.

So this time I will give an example.

Storytelling without interaction:
You fall asleep and dream about your homeland. You remember your mother and how she used to tell you than "not all that glitters is gold". You also dream about your castle dungeons and some monsters and your dream drifts into a nightmare from which you wake up screaming and covered in sweat but you do remember your mother's words, and you cannot but wonder about their importance in your current situation.
Press any key to continue

The above is what I would consider "storytelling without interaction". If that is all you want to do, then you could add:

      request (Hide, "Command")
      request (Hide, "Panes")

to your script at the beginning of the dream sequence and:

      request (Show, "Command")
      request (Show, "Panes")

after the key is pressed. The above should be enough to prevent player from interacting with the inventory without even having to change POV.

Storytelling with low interaction:
You fall asleep and dream how you have became a mouse. You remember that there was a small hole in that cavern leading into a ceremonial tomb which you couldn't access, and you decide to return there and try using the benefits of your new body form to see if you can find out who is burried inside.

In the above example player is given some control and can move around, but they don't have anything in the inventory -- they are a mouse and they cannot go but "crawl". Mouse object has lower health which can be restored only by eating cheese, not apples or bread. They have no attacks so they must "sneak" past enemies. They cannot "speak to" anyone and they can't carry objects. This clearly requires changing POV to another character which has totally different stats, checks, verbs, etc.

Storytelling with high interaction:
Suddenly, your whole party is surrounded by noxious fumes and you all collapse to the ground and fall asleep. When you wake up, you are tied to the post naked and all your things are gone and your friends are nowhere to be seen. You first need to find a way to free yourself and find your equipment if you want to get to the bottom of this.

The above RPG-ish example is what I meant when I said that you need to replicate some functionality. If you empty the inventory by changing POV, how do you make new character to have the same capabilities, status attributes, commands, verbs, etc?

If you didn't plan this from the beginning and created a new object type, then make both the player and dream object inherit from that type and implemented all required player functionality in the type itself so that both objects can use it, you will face problems which if you are beginner you most likely won't know how to solve. That is why I am against just switching POV as a "one size fits all" solution to the inventory access problem -- there are many shades of gray here, many levels of interaction and you are only tutoring for one of them and insist it can be applied in every case without explaining how.

When I originally commented on this thread my most important point was that removing and adding items is an inefficient way (performance-wise) of clearing the inventory which has dozens of items, and that it would be cool if Quest allowed you to replace the inventory object itself with an empty one just by changing a variable on the player object.

TriangleGames wrote:We can only respond to what's on the screen.
...
No one is asking you to leave, just to be careful with how you phrase things, so new people coming in won't end up getting confused.

You can also ask me to clarify or if you really feel like arguing you can confront me, hopefully with less vitriol and more arguments.

I'm a little sorry I didn't get back to this sooner, but my weekends are basically all family time all the time, except for when I step outside to smoke, and I couldn't really make full response like this on my cellphone.

Since there's gotten to be a lot of mashed together quotes, I frankly don't feel like dealing with the headache of trying to build on them further (with quotes within quotes within more quotes) and arrange them all with inserted responses to each one. So, instead, I'm just going to "refresh" the whole thing to summarize what I feel are the main points of the discussion using fewer layers of quotes, and then give my current response to the whole thing.

Before I do that, however, I'd like to try and calm things down by giving a little insight to the way my mind works. I realize that there is a potential for offense even within this, but I hope it will be understood that that is not my intent.

First, I want to make it clear that I loathe interpersonal conflict to a fault. I'm the kind of person that doesn't even correct waiters when they bring me the wrong food, because it would make me feel awkward and nervous.

Second, I basically have two file folders for everyone I encounter in my life, and people get filed into them very quickly. I have "friends" and "jerks." When dealing with people who I categorize as jerks, my standard approach is to be as politely terse as is possible. If some jerk is saying rude, ignorant, or offensive things, I just smile and nod until they go away. Sometimes, I'll take a cynical satisfaction from knowing that everyone else sees what a jerk they are too, so I don't have to point it out. I can just let the idiot be himself and dig his own hole without my help.

However, if I see someone I think is cool saying or doing something that I'm afraid might give others a bad impression, I tell them, honestly and directly. Despite my hatred of arguments and awkward situations, I do it knowing full well that they may be hurt or angered, and that I will have to deal with that situation as result of my attempt to make them see what I'm seeing. I would never put forth the time and effort to do that with someone who I thought was just a "donkey" to begin with.
So, I almost NEVER resort to flat out insulting people; I wouldn't want to hurt a friend by insulting them; I wouldn't insult a jerk, because they're not worth my time.

That said, on with it.

It started with gabelance1 asking,

gabelance1 wrote:... Logically, you wouldn't have anything with you in the dream that you had when you fell asleep, so is there any way for me to clear the player's inventory via script? ...

After a bit of back and forth with different suggestions, sgreig refered back to POV, saying,

sgreig wrote:... The easiest way to deal with this is having a separate "dream" character, and use Quest's POV switching command to transfer the player POV to the dream character and back. There's really no reason to do it any other way, and that's one of the reasons this feature was implemented in the first place.

In a response quoting sgreig, levicki said,

levicki wrote:... That is ok if a dream is just part of storytelling without interaction. Otherwise you would have to replicate needed player object functionality on another object.
By the way, character switching is done so you can write an RPG with NPCs which can take over active party roles ...

My response, quoting levicki, was to say,

TriangleGames wrote:... levicki, I like you, and you've been very helpful to several people, including myself, in the one day you've been here. However, it seems like you have a tendency to make assumptions and assertions that you're not really in a position to make. How do you know that switching the pov does not carry over "needed player object functionality?" Did you read through the code for Quest's engine to see how pov switching works in detail? And how do you know that Alex had such a specific purpose in mind when he put pov switching into Quest? I would think it could be used in any way designers come up with and use effectively.

Following that, sgreig said,

sgreig wrote:Actually levicki, you'll find that you're quite incorrect ... " Switching the POV to another player object does not affect anything in the game world in terms of how you can interact with other objects unless you specifically design it to.
And to state that it's only purpose is for RPG games so you can switch between party members is grossly false. You could use it for that, but the reason it was added was because some users requested the feature. ...
So, please don't make statements like that in the forum in the future unless you know for a fact what you're talking about. There are a lot of inexperienced users who browse these forums who could read that post and get the wrong idea about how something is supposed to work when that's simply not the case. We only want to disseminate accurate information on the forums. Anything else just adds to the confusion and we want to avoid that.

Levicki responded to all of that with,

levicki wrote:Wow... talk about warm welcome...
Just to check whether I understood you two correctly -- are you really saying that people never put scripts, variables, verbs, and status attributes in player object?
How can those still be accessible when you change POV to another non-default player object unless you specifically coded them to take POV into account in the first place?
Quest Wiki specifically says in its only article which mentions changing POV:

Each player object gets its own inventory and attributes. This includes status attributes, so each player could have their own health or stats, and these will be updated on-screen as the player switches between characters...

So can you please explain how exactly what I said doesn't hold true?
As for the RPG part what I meant to write was:
[quote]By the way, character switching is usually done...

But I was writing from work so it somehow slipped, you really don't have to jump all over me because of that claim given how this feature can be used for what I said.
If you feel threatened by my presence here in any way and would prefer me to stop posting just say so and I will leave.[/quote]

My next statement was long and filled with a variety of quotes (and quotes within quotes) using underlines to try and highlight what I felt were the key points of the discussion and the part of the wiki that answered one of livicki's questions. All of that was an effort to illustrate to levicki why we were saying that his/her original statement was wrong. At the end of all that I said,

TriangleGames wrote:... We can only respond to what's on the screen. What we saw was:

"levicki"

... character switching is done so ...

That sounds like a very broad, firm statement, as if there are not any other reasons for doing it. Which would be false. So, because we reacted to what YOU typed (incorrectly, according to you), because a site mod (on a forum designed to help people) is trying to make sure new users are not being given misinformation, YOU'RE response is to make it personal and belittle us? Let me tell you something, I can openly admit that you seem to know a lot more about programming in general than I do, and you have a much more aggressive personality than I do, and you're very good at quickly researching information, and I don't feel the least bit "threatened" by you. I feel like you're very helpful, as well as overbearing, presumptuous, and condescending. I am usually very complaisant on the web. I DO NOT like arguing with people, but I will not be bullied, even by someone who has helped me.
No one is asking you to leave, just to be careful with how you phrase things, so new people coming in won't end up getting confused.

Which brings it up to levicki's most recent post, which I will now respond to.

Levicki said,

levicki wrote:

"TriangleGames"

[quote="levicki"]Just to check whether I understood you two correctly -- are you really saying that people never put scripts, variables, verbs, and status attributes in player object?
Quest Wiki specifically says in its only article which mentions changing POV:

Quote: "Each player object gets its own inventory and attributes. This includes status attributes, so each player could have their own health or stats, and these will be updated on-screen as the player switches between characters..."

So can you please explain how exactly what I said doesn't hold true?

Okay, here's what you originally said...

You did not answer my questions.[/quote]
(I hope that made sense. There were too many layers of quote there for the forum to handle them all.)

I'm sorry if my answer was unclear. My answer was in the form of quoting the wiki article, where the full paragraph that you quoted the first half of says,

Changing the player object wrote:Each player object gets its own inventory and attributes. This includes status attributes, so each player could have their own health or stats, and these will be updated on-screen as the player switches between characters. For status attributes which apply across the entire game (perhaps "score" for example), you should set these on the "game" object itself, so they will apply all the time regardless of which object is the current POV.

So, the reason that what you said—

levicki wrote:... That is ok if a dream is just part of storytelling without interaction. Otherwise you would have to replicate needed player object functionality on another object. ... are you really saying that people never put scripts, variables, verbs, and status attributes in player object?

—is not true, is that you do not have to replicate needed functionality, do to the fact that, as the wiki suggests, any vital custom attributes one might want to add could be placed on the game object rather than the player object and would remain available after switching POV.

levicki wrote:And I clearly stated "if a dream is just part of storytelling without interaction". If it was not obvious what I meant by that, you could have asked for clarification just like I asked you above. Instead, you did not bother to answer, but continued analyzing what I said and finding stuff to argue about.

I had no inclination that I might be misunderstanding you. It seemed like a very clear, straightforward statement. So, I had no reason to ask for clarification. It is not anyone else's responsibility to double check what the author of a post meant, especially if nothing looks unclear. In the pure text world of the net, without vocal tones or body language, it is one's own responsibility to ensure that the way they've stated things clearly communicates their point. If and when someone clearly has misunderstood something, all that can be done restate the point in another way to try and help them understand. Personally, if someone reacts strongly to my statements, but I can see that they've obviously mistaken my meaning, I re-explain my point and ignore their negative response, because it was a response to a misunderstanding. I couldn’t say how most people deal with that, though.

levicki wrote:So this time I will give an example.

Storytelling without interaction:
You fall asleep and dream about your homeland. You remember your mother and how she used to tell you than "not all that glitters is gold". You also dream about your castle dungeons and some monsters and your dream drifts into a nightmare from which you wake up screaming and covered in sweat but you do remember your mother's words, and you cannot but wonder about their importance in your current situation.
Press any key to continue

The above is what I would consider "storytelling without interaction". If that is all you want to do, then you could add:

      request (Hide, "Command")
      request (Hide, "Panes")

to your script at the beginning of the dream sequence and:

      request (Show, "Command")
      request (Show, "Panes")

after the key is pressed. The above should be enough to prevent player from interacting with the inventory without even having to change POV.

Okay, that is exactly what I thought you meant when you said,

levicki wrote:... That is ok if a dream is just part of storytelling without interaction …

So, you clearly meant NO INTERACTION at all. Now, you’re even going so far as to suggest that the command line and panes may as well be removed, because the player won’t be able to use them properly. That is patently false. I can prove that it is false, with the following game, where the player object is switched with nothing being copied or recreated whatsoever. The object “playerb” is a raw object I have done nothing to except to set the option for “Can be a player.”

levicki wrote: Storytelling with high interaction:
Suddenly, your whole party is surrounded by noxious fumes and you all collapse to the ground and fall asleep. When you wake up, you are tied to the post naked and all your things are gone and your friends are nowhere to be seen. You first need to find a way to free yourself and find your equipment if you want to get to the bottom of this.

The above RPG-ish example is what I meant when I said that you need to replicate some functionality. If you empty the inventory by changing POV, how do you make new character to have the same capabilities, status attributes, commands, verbs, etc?

All of the basic NEEDED functionality remains in place without having to do anything, and as the wiki says, any custom attributes (including verbs, commands, scripts, etc.) could be placed on the game object instead of the player object so that they remain available regardless of POV.

levicki wrote:If you didn't plan this from the beginning and created a new object type, then make both the player and dream object inherit from that type and implemented all required player functionality in the type itself so that both objects can use it, you will face problems which if you are beginner you most likely won't know how to solve.

There would be no need to create a new type to be shared by the two objects, and even if there was a long list of custom attributes on the player object itself, it would not be as complicated to resolve as you are making it sound. All one would have to do is copy the player object and paste it in somewhere else, there’s even new functionality to improve object replication in 5.4 beta, so that Quest automatically makes the new object’s alias be the original object’s name, and the new object's name “object1” or “object2” as needed. As a copy of the player object, the new object would have any and all custom attributes that had been implemented.

levicki wrote:

"TriangleGames"

We can only respond to what's on the screen.
...
No one is asking you to leave, just to be careful with how you phrase things, so new people coming in won't end up getting confused.

You can also ask me to clarify or if you really feel like arguing you can confront me, hopefully with less vitriol and more arguments.

When you said,

levicki wrote:If you feel threatened by my presence here in any way and would prefer me to stop posting just say so and I will leave.

I immediately felt that you were insulting our intelligence and/or trying to intimidate/bully us, because in the 31 years I have been alive, I’ve heard people say things like, “if I make you feel threatened,” or “oh, am I making you feel threatened?” many times, to myself as well others around me, and the ONLY implication it has ever had, in my personal experience, is to insult and intimidate. So, if that’s not what you were trying to do, let me tell you, when you say “if you feel threatened by me” to someone, they will mostly likely take that statement as a threat in itself, and it is extremely vitriol. Also, at that point in the discussion, the only thing remotely insulting that anyone had said to was, “You are wrong. Please don’t tell people that, because you are going to confuse them.” Well, you were wrong, and sgreig even said “please.” So, apparently, being told you were wrong was so offensive to you that you felt the need to make it personal and try to demean us.

As for my own "vitriol" comments,

TriangleGames wrote: I feel like you're very helpful, as well as overbearing, presumptuous, and condescending. I am usually very complaisant on the web. I DO NOT like arguing with people, but I will not be bullied, even by someone who has helped me.
No one is asking you to leave, just to be careful with how you phrase things, so new people coming in won't end up getting confused.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I would not waste my time and energy, or risk getting into (what is for me) a very stressful argument just to insult someone. When I said, “I feel like you’re…” all those things, my goal was not to start a flame war with you. I’ve never been in one, and I have NO desire to ever do so. I’m still not convinced that you really are like that in general, but you sometimes sound that way. My hope was that you would take another look at the way you phrase things and consider being a little more careful not to give people the wrong impression of yourself. There have been a few comments you’ve made on the boards that sounded that way. I’m not going to reference all of them here in public, because I don’t want you to feel like I am attacking you. I will just suggest that you review everything that has happened in this topic, and see if you can understand why some of your statements might [i]sound that way.

TriangleGames,

I already do feel like you are attacking me.

Referencing my (in your opinion) wrong, misleading, or otherwise unhelpfull comments won't make me feel any worse.

TriangleGames wrote:So, you clearly meant NO INTERACTION at all.

When I say "no interaction" I usually mean it.

TriangleGames wrote:Now, you’re even going so far as to suggest that the command line and panes may as well be removed, because the player won’t be able to use them properly. That is patently false.

Again you are accusing me that what I said is false just because it doesn't apply to what you had in mind.

TriangleGames wrote:I can prove that it is false, with the following game, where the player object is switched with nothing being copied or recreated whatsoever. The object “playerb” is a raw object I have done nothing to except to set the option for “Can be a player.”

Except that it does not prove anything. I have already said in which particular case command line and panes could be disabled -- when there is no interaction at all. I gave three different bloody examples. I am sorry but I am not a native English speaker -- I can't explain things simpler than I already did.

You on the other hand seem to be misunderstanding me on purpose at this point and that can mean only two things -- you have either already classified me into your neat little (more likely big) "jerks" folder or you have no capacity or will to understand what I am talking about.

In any case, you are going to my forum Foe list right now, because I have better things to do than to argue with such people.

I'm really sorry to hear that you feel that way. I won't try to argue the topic any further, but I hope you'll hear me out on what I have left to say about our arguing itself.

Not that I necessarily expect you to change your mind about me at this point, but I am sincerely sorry for making you feel attacked and anything else I've said that hurt or offended you. And, I want you to know that I have no intention of ever referencing this conversation in any other topic, or in any way "holding a grudge" over it. I see you all over the site helping people out and offering useful suggestions and alternatives, so I really don't think you are a jerk. I just think we had a serious disagreement that we were unable to resolve, which is unfortunate.

I promise I'm not misunderstanding you on purpose. I tried to consider your comments as thoroughly as possible before rejecting them, and at this point we've both restated our points so many ways that I have to admit it seems like there's no use carrying on any further with it. To be honest, I still don't understand your position, so I have to assume there is something I've seriously overlooked or misunderstood, because I can't imagine that you and I are picturing the same thing and understanding it so differently.

As far as English being a second language for you, I'm very impressed and surprised to hear that. I know that English is considered by many people to be the hardest language to learn for anyone who is not a native speaker, and you seem to speak it very well (better than some native speakers I know). So, I couldn't say whether or not that's part of our problem here. If it has had anything to do with our misunderstandings, I wouldn't even know where exactly it might have come into play, so that would be very unfortunate, since I wouldn't know what to clarify or apologize more specifically for misunderstanding.

Again, whatever the cause may be, I have to assume at this point that one or both of us are just seriously misunderstanding the other, because I can't see any other reason why we haven't been able to agree yet. And, again, I'm very sorry for anything I've said that may have offended you.

Ooh! This turned ugly pretty quickly, didn't it? lol.

I will offer apologies if my response seemed condescending or reprimanding. I still meant everything I said, but I was very tired when I wrote it and probably could have made it a bit friendlier. So sorry for that.

My only point of contention here is that it's dangerous to make statements that appear as definitive even if they aren't intended to, as we get a LOT of newbies that lurk on these forums and take what's written for gospel and go home.

I also had no idea you weren't a native english speaker, as your written english is quite good (better than some native english speakers I might add) and I was perhaps arrogant in making the assumption. After re-reading what you wrote in the new light to which you provided, you are correct in that those are ways the feature could be used. It did, however, come across like you were saying those were the only ways they should be used and to use POV switching for anything else is pointless. I understand that's not what you were trying to say, that's just how it was read, and to what I initially responded to.

So, with that being said, we definitely don't want anyone to feel like they're not welcome around here. We have a friendly atmosphere (99.9% of the time) and experienced programmers are always an asset to have around to help both the newbies and those of us who are more experienced, but still far from being masters of the craft.

So let's all just chalk this up to a small misunderstanding and move forward, united as brethren under the banner that the siblinghood of Quest provides us. (Was that too melodramatic? I was watching lifetime this weekend. )

sgreig wrote:I know this has been mentioned already, but it seems to keep getting glossed over. The easiest way to deal with this is having a separate "dream" character, and use Quest's POV switching command to transfer the player POV to the dream character and back. There's really no reason to do it any other way, and that's one of the reasons this feature was implemented in the first place.

Quoted for truth.

When you come up with an effective method to do something, there always seems to be an easier and more effective way to do it.

This seems to be the easiest by a considerable amount, as all it requires is to change the POV once with a single script, then change it back with another.

Just my first impression. Also, you said that (paraphrasing) "logically one cannot bring items with them into a dream". Well, yes and no. A dream is whatever your mind makes it to be. So you could dream that you were still carrying all of those items. I think you could have a dream sequence with all of the items still in your inventory. But I also agree that changing POV to a character with an empty inventory is also much cleaner and makes the fact that you are in a dream more apparent.

(Carefully tiptoeing around the flaming bodies...)

As far as sharing functionality among the various POVs, you can easily create a base type that they all inherit from, which would allow sharing of scripts and other common functionality.

If you wish to share dynamically changing data, then the easiest way would be with a separate state object that they all share.

jaynabonne wrote:(Carefully tiptoeing around the flaming bodies...)

As far as sharing functionality among the various POVs, you can easily create a base type that they all inherit from, which would allow sharing of scripts and other common functionality.

If you wish to share dynamically changing data, then the easiest way would be with a separate state object that they all share.

From a programmer's point of view what you suggest is the cleanest way to do it. Unfortunately, not many people think that far ahead.

@sgreig:
No problems with me here, sorry if what I wrote wasn't clear enough but as I said I was writing in a hurry from work.