ExplorerBot Info

Introduction

One of the wonderful enjoyments of Leaves world is walking around and discovering all of the different nature builds that people have created. How well do you really know Leaves? Have you found all the caves? How many mountain tops have you visited?

ExplorerBot will monitor your travels. As you visit preset locations, ExplorerBot will keep count. It should be fun to see who has the highest scores.

How to play?

It's easy.... Just walk around Leaves world as you normally would. When you discover a new area for the first time, you will receive a whisper message informing you that a new location has been scored. Between visits, citizen will retain their scores. Sorry, tourist scores will be discarded when they leave.

Where can I see the high score?

If you click here, you will see the current scores. The pages is updated on a 5 minute interval. Citizen scores will be updated on the web page during their visit in Leaves world. Tourist scores will be updated on the web page after they exit the world.

Are there any commands?

Yes, the ExplorerBot is a feature of cotarr's LeafBot. One is running in leaves logged in as "TourBot". In addition to giving tours when the GZ signs are clicked, handling weather commands, and global chat, TourBot also contains the ExplorerBot scoring engine. You may issue commands by going to the GZ area, in range of TourBot, and whisper the commands to Tourbot.

Mouse commands

You may also use your mouse to operate the ExplorerBot. The bot will whisper to acknowledge your commands. It is a nice way to privately check your score. Command signs are located in a cave near GZ located at

Scoring Tips

• Watch your speed - The world server transmits position updates to the bot once per second. When running very fast or with slow modem lag, it's possible to skip over the score triggers.



• Avoid flying - Most positions have been entered as rectangular volumes, plus or minus 1 meter elevation of the surface. Some of the irregular features have larger elevation triggers. Over-flying objects will not trigger the score.



• Use Verbose - Verbose mode may be used to generate messages for repeat visits. Some users find this mode useful to ensure that the movements are being reliably accepted by the bot.



• Caves - Caves are detected at the entrances. A cave with multiple entrances will score multiple points.



• Buildings - The best way to score a building is to walk on the floor of the main level. Cabins and builds include almost anything with a roof, including picnic shelters.



• Islands - Where do you draw the line between an island and a rock? It depends on the area. In a small lake, a small island will score. In the large ocean, all the shoreline rocks are not considered islands.



• Waterfalls - The best way to score a waterfall is to kayak (or walk) down the waterfall. The water is solid to allow kayaking on the surfaces.

What makes it work?

This explorer game is included of cotarr's LeafBot. This is a not a script, rather, LeafBot is written in C++, and the LeafBot which is used in Leaves runs on Linux (logged in using the name "TourBot"). One single bot handles both the explorer game and the TourBot world tours.

The game has two databases. One database contains a list of coordinate locations associated with the scenic features in Leaves world. The second database contains the AW Citizen position history, which is remembered between visits. As a hiker walks through Leaves world, the world server sends continuous position updates to the bot, and the bot then compares each position to identify matches to the position database. When a match is found, the score is incremented, a whisper message is sent to the hiker, and the score web page is updated. Since the database is indexed by citizen numbers, tourists may play, but their scores will not be saved between visits, and the web page will not be updated until after tourists depart the world.

The game is entirely based on communiation of position information between the bot and the world server. It is fully independant of the model objects in the world, and no activate triggers (object mouse clicks) are required, and there are no bump triggers. For the benefit of Leaves builders, no changes have been made to your objects, and no invisible objects were added.

The programming is done by simultaneously using the AW browser and the bot. The programmer walks to each position and uses a bot dialog to create or edit the position database entries and messages. To help us to manage the positions, the bot can teleport the programmer to each position for review. It can also extract the database and insert color markers into the game map picture, using a bot generated script for PaintShopPro.

Any feedback?

The ExplorerBot is new game, and the project was started on May 6, 2005. What do you think? Any suggestions? Are there any program errors or location/message errors? Gram cotarr with your comments.