Mattcrampy
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This sun height problem is easily solved.

By popular demand, the sun now goes higher.

Okay, here's how I figure - seeing as the water is gushing through from north to south, it will have a horizontal velocity. It won't turn into steam immediately, but it will turn into steam very quickly, within a few seconds, say. This is during the day - during the night it'll probably become plasma.

So it has enough horizontal momentum to be away from the north point.

Now the other thing is that I understand air normally blows from hot areas of the Earth to cold areas, as the hot areas make the air expand. So as Sun Island is so hot (as the sun visits twice a day, and heats the island up tremendously during the night), there will be wind perpetually blowing south, which will force the steam up and out of the sun's hidey-hole.

There will be a bit of steam around the rim, but not much.

Matt

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agaricus5
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Skylancer64 wrote:
Another problem I see with the sun being only some miles up. Wouldn't the area directly below it and southward be tremendously hot? Now, if the sun were cool enough not to incinerate the center, then the south a thousand miles down would be perpetually frozen. Even the difference on earth of a small tilt makes winter very different than in summer, affecting the angle the sun strikes the ground and the time the sun is visible.

Exactly what I said, except not in so detailed terms. The thing is, distance is inversely proportional to the square of the intensity of the sun's rays. This means that doubling the distance from the sun to the point at which you are measuring decreases the intensity of the sun by 1/4. The thing is, though, there will be a ring of fire around the outer rim very far above the ground which should also heat up the south, so only the middle will be perpetually frozen.

Mattcrampy wrote:
Okay, here's how I figure - seeing as the water is gushing through from north to south, it will have a horizontal velocity. It won't turn into steam immediately, but it will turn into steam very quickly, within a few seconds, say. This is during the day - during the night it'll probably become plasma.So it has enough horizontal momentum to be away from the north point.

Now the other thing is that I understand air normally blows from hot areas of the Earth to cold areas, as the hot areas make the air expand. So as Sun Island is so hot (as the sun visits twice a day, and heats the island up tremendously during the night), there will be wind perpetually blowing south, which will force the steam up and out of the sun's hidey-hole.

There will be a bit of steam around the rim, but not much.

You will have an infinitely powerful steam jet emanating from the central line because all the steam/water is forced into an infinitely small point. Since pressure is equivalent to force/area, and the central line has an infinitely small surface area, the pressure will be infinite at that point, and so it should blast through the entire mountain and travel for a few miles at least, destroying the sun when it comes down because the pressure should blow it apart. Plus, the mountain rises far above sea level, so all the steam/water will be inside the mountain, so you'd get a giant steam jet shooting out of the cone (If it can withstand the amount of pressure from the steam it's going to get).

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Mattcrampy
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Geez, you have a point.

I'm interested what mechanic we can come up with instead of the north/south wraparound, as it's getting a little too relativistic for my liking. Perhaps people just get incinerated.

Matt

(P.S. The steam cloud is now magic steam until such time as we work this baby out.)

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agaricus5
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Mattcrampy wrote:
(P.S. The steam cloud is now magic steam until such time as we work this baby out.)

Perfect explanation for the time being.

If you want me to help you to work out a solution to the problem, then I'd be perfectly happy to help.

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Mattcrampy
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Well, it's Erik's baby. He probably should be involved.

Matt

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Oneiromancer
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Speaking as someone who is about 1 year away from a Ph.D. in Physics...just call it magic and be done with it. Who says their sun gives off light and heat the same way ours does? Just because our universe has an inverse square law and all that Stefan-Boltzmann stuff doesn't mean it will be the same way in another universe. Magic is supposed to let you have fun with things, get away from the boring sameness of reality.

Game on,

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agaricus5
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Oneiromancer wrote:
...get away from the boring sameness of reality.

That's what I was afraid someone would say.

It's offputting to a very large degree, if that sort of thing is a serious opinion of many. I just know that if there is this sort of sentiment in general, then I just won't bother trying to contribute anything to the Eighth because people are going to say "Oh that's too 'realistically' closely mimicking the way that it would work/look like on the Earth and makes the Eighth too 'realistic'".

I'm considering scrapping my plan to draw anything now, mostly because I don't want to spend time on something that people are just going to be negative towards for the reason that "it's too realistic".

Oh, and if you were worried, I'm not angry with anyone/thing (not sarcastically), just a little in a hurry for no actual reason, so the message will appear to carry a more upset tone than I do.



Edit: Listening to some music has changed my mind again. I suppose I was being a little irrational just now, although I really do think that I meant it at the time. I suppose I'll just go think up a convincing size of central vent for Sun Island that coupled with magic will be able to withstand the steam problem.

[Edited by agaricus5 on 01-02-2004 at 08:10 PM GMT]

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Skylancer64
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Mattcrampy wrote:

Now the other thing is that I understand air normally blows from hot areas of the Earth to cold areas, as the hot areas make the air expand.

I thought hot air generally rises, creating lower pressures beneath that draw in air. Then it cools, sinks down around after going outwards from the hot area, then flows back in to it, gets heated, rises... etc. Convection. That means that there should be a current of air flowing northwards for the northern part of the Eighth, and a current of air flowing southward for the southern half, from the cooler zone (the middle, in between the ring of fire and the sun) to the warmer zone, (the sun and ring around the edge)

I agree with Oneiromancer, lets just call this whole thing magic.

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ErikH2000
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Oneiromancer wrote:
Speaking as someone who is about 1 year away from a Ph.D. in Physics...just call it magic and be done with it.

It's a good point. I guess I like to have logical explanations for things, and then it's like I'm leading people on, because I don't have the knowledge or will to generate explanations very deep. Occasionally, Wesley or other people hit on something that seems pretty important to me, so I correct it. (i.e. I didn't like the idea of the sun being really close to the horizon, so we changed it.) But many times, I feel like saying "that's just the way it is". The Eighth is not likely to ever have a fleshed out physics to it, unless someone besides me comes up with it as their own project. And I'm sure I'd be unfairly causing that unlucky person all sorts of problems with my haphazard approach.

I don't want to have a lot of magic in the Eighth. In fact I've revisited some of the magic-style things that I threw into Webfoot DROD without much thought, and tried to come up with non-magical explanations of how they work. For instance, if you look at a few scattered clues you can figure out how the doors in dungeons open and close. I also have a pretty good upcoming explanation of how orbs work. So magic is meant to be pretty sparse, but I think people should make room for things that work in a way other than in our own reality, and not always insist on an explanation. Of course, it is always in good taste to play around with it for fun.

-Erik

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ErikH2000
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agaricus5 wrote:
I'm considering scrapping my plan to draw anything now, mostly because I don't want to spend time on something that people are just going to be negative towards for the reason that "it's too realistic".

Okay, saw the edit, so I won't say much except that I really don't think anybody would be negative. Some people may like it and others not, just like some people like Arthur C. Clark and other people like Anne McCaffrey.

-Erik

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agaricus5
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ErikH2000 wrote:

agaricus5 wrote:
I'm considering scrapping my plan to draw anything now, mostly because I don't want to spend time on something that people are just going to be negative towards for the reason that "it's too realistic".

Okay, saw the edit, so I won't say much except that I really don't think anybody would be negative. Some people may like it and others not, just like some people like Arthur C. Clark and other people like Anne McCaffrey.

-Erik

Don't know either of those people, but I don't think people will be negative either. I suppose I was being a little irrational.

[Edited by agaricus5 on 01-02-2004 at 08:34 PM GMT: Clarity]

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Mattcrampy
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Just a tad, I thought. We don't mind, Wesley - we'll all be too awed by your awesome attention to detail to notice your realism.

I figured Erik had an explanation for orbs coming up, but let's see you explain brains!

Unless you've already got an idea for them, in which case alrighty then.

Matt



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Oneiromancer
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Arthur C. Clarke writes Science Fiction, most notably the 2001-2010-2063-3001 series, and the Rama series. Anne McCaffrey writes Fantasy, most notably the Dragonriders of Pern series. (Although actually the Pern series do have science fiction in them because they are colonists from Earth who have forgotton their technology until some of the later books (which I think are the better ones) but in general they are fantasy.)

It's okay, Wesley, people are just different. You can tell just by looking at us. Compare the two of us--our screen names, avatars, and signatures. You focus on mushrooms, giving lots of technical information in your signature, something very scientific and real. Whereas I focus on a fictional character, the personification of Dreams, and my signature has musical lyrics about dreaming. Stuff that's much more ethereal and not so rooted in reality. However, we all know that you love to listen to and compose music, something very creative, and my chosen profession is about as grounded in reality as you can get. We're complex people, just like everyone else here.

As for my "boring sameness of reality" comments...well, I was being short and irrational too, just to make a point. Basically, I think that if you're going to have a fantastical world...well certain things should be pretty fantastic! Everything doesn't have to be, because the more different it is from what we know, the harder it is for us to relate. But I think there is more than enough room for the sun to be a chariot driven across the sky like in Egyptian mythology or something like that, which gets swallowed up by the dark god or whatever happens in the stories (I don't really remember too well.) Now, if gravity modulated like a sine wave over the surface of the Eighth, then I would get a little bothered. Or if people had to eat through their belly-buttons. Some things are just too weird, even for me.

Game on,

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The_Red_Hawk
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Mattcrampy wrote:
I figured Erik had an explanation for orbs coming up, but let's see you explain brains!

Someone recently gave a reason on the Story Collaboration thread. They attach spores to all the monsters, (and I've forgotten the rest).

(And, just like DiMono had , now I have the latest post on all twelve boards!)

[Edited by The_Red_Hawk on 01-05-2004 at 11:44 PM GMT: Oops, Erik just posted something. Now I do!]

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ClaytonW
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D'oh! I made the same mistake as Mikko up there. I've got land at the South border, not water. (But I did read everything! I musta not noticed that detail.)

A question: If the South border and the North border connect the same way the East and West do, wouldn't that mean that the South border would look like, if not contain, part of the volcano? Meaning it wouldn't be water at the South edge at all, but kind of a "J" shape, where the bottom of the "J" is filled with "lava," and the "J" itself is the wall of the volcano. So there's a giant ridge and then a dip just before the South edge, all the way around the rim of the pie? It would have to, wouldn't it? Unless the volcano abruptly stops just before the North point? Or am I just picturing this wrong?

Mattcrampy
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It's not really a volcano - there's no lava. I least I don't think there's any lava.

Basically, it's a mountain with a hole in it where the sun lives. More like a dormant volcano than anything.

I'd guess there'd be a lake at sea level with boiling water sloshing around down there - although Sun Island isn't a volcano, it spends an awful lot of time near a very hot object.

Matt

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The_Red_Hawk
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Wouldn't the water be just steam?

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DiMono
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Who's to say water evaporates at the same temperature on the Eighth as it does here?

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Mattcrampy
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Whoops.

Yeah, it's steam most of the time, but a lake at sunset due to Sun Island having cooled down by then, thus fulfilling the romantic notion of a sunset on the lake.

Incidentally, this means the Eighthers can tell when the sunset's about to happen, because if you're not looking you'll get caught outside at night and you'll fall down a hole or something.

Matt

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agaricus5
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I'm sorry to say this, but I don't think I can enter the competition after all. I have far too much work in the form of revision and tests to do, and so won't be able to finish the map in time for the final date.

Would you still like me to wrok on it even though I may not be able to enter it for the competition?

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ErikH2000
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agaricus5 wrote:
I'm sorry to say this, but I don't think I can enter the competition after all. I have far too much work in the form of revision and tests to do, and so won't be able to finish the map in time for the final date.

Bad news!

Would you still like me to wrok on it even though I may not be able to enter it for the competition?

If you don't want to enter into the competition, you might wish to wait until I make the official map and base your work from that. I dunno. I would be interested to see what you come up with in any case. Sure you can't enter a simpler version of what you intended?

-Erik

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ErikH2000
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Well, I'm a little worried.

It looks like Wesley's dropping out. I respect his decision, and don't blame him, but it is disappointing. One other person contacted me and said he was feeling intimidated by the contest and didn't know if he wanted to submit his entry. I'm worried that we'll get one or zero entries--and that's not a contest at all. The competitive aspect of it is not so important; I would just like more creative examples to put on display and draw inspiration from. Seriously, if you can scratch a simple map together and get it to me, then it is worth it, even if you think your map doesn't meet some standard of quality or whatever. If you don't win, we'll all still enjoy looking at what you came up with. Anybody that had big plans for a map, and there's no way you can put it together in the next two days in time for the deadline, (Thursday, by Midnight GMT) perhaps you could be flexible and do something smaller? And if you don't have access to a scanner, you could try using a paint program.

Also, the Master Map of the Eighth that I'll create will appear in the next release of DROD. If you come up with a name or idea that gets used, you'll see something of your own in the game. I mention this in case it helps get people inspired.

Alright, so you guys got two days. Give me something! Give me anything! Don't let the contest die!

-Erik

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The_Red_Hawk
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I haven't checked this thread for a while, and I can't find the answer to this, so.....

I don't think there was any straight answer to my question whether I could submit Deep Hold level 17 without the monsters in it. If not, I probably won't have time to make a map.

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ErikH2000
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The_Red_Hawk wrote:
I don't think there was any straight answer to my question whether I could submit Deep Hold level 17 without the monsters in it. If not, I probably won't have time to make a map.

You can do that, but you need to get your hold into an image format (see contest rules at top). So you could take screenshots of your different rooms and assemble them into one big image in some paint program. If you are using scrolls in your hold to show names of things or give other info, you should use a paint program to write text directly on the map image, because of course we can't know what scrolls say just by looking at the image. The image can be quite large and require scrolling to view it all. The only restriction on size is that the file itself should be less than 1 megabyte, and you should be able to view the image in a browser (scrolling in the browser to see all parts is fine).

But don't just send the hold because it won't be in a format that can be judged the same way as the other entries. If you have trouble with the paint program stuff, I'd recommend asking for help on the forum. If you absolutely don't have time for this, then just post your hold and I won't enter it into the contest, (not fair to compare apples to oranges) but we can still have fun looking at it.

But I'm hoping you'll patch together your work so it can be entered.

-Erik

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agaricus5
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Time constraints are the problem. If you extend the competition deadline by a week, I can try to finish it. I'm going to have a go now anyway, so I can submit it late if the voting has started, as a separate thing, not part of the contest.

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ErikH2000
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agaricus5 wrote:
Time constraints are the problem. If you extend the competition deadline by a week, I can try to finish it. I'm going to have a go now anyway, so I can submit it late if the voting has started, as a separate thing, not part of the contest.

I'm going to keep the deadline where it is, Wesley. However please post your map whenever you end up completing it. I'd really like to see what you had in mind.

-Erik

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DiMono
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Would it be bad form for me to take a picture of a piece of apple pie and submit it as my map?

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ErikH2000
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DiMono wrote:
Would it be bad form for me to take a picture of a piece of apple pie and submit it as my map?

It would have to be a picture of an exceedingly delicious piece of pie to be acceptable.

-Erik

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trick
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WHOOSH!

ErikH2000
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Come on peoples--we only have one entry! This is just embarrassing. I'm extending the deadline to Midnight, Pacific Standard Time (about 12 hours from now), in hopes there are some last minute entries. Go find a napkin and scribble something on the back of it.

-Erik

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