Phantasmal Site > Design > Class Heirarchy

Class Heirarchy for Phantasmal

Phantasmal will eventually (I hope) have a multiple-inheritance class heirarchy of objects, which may inherit properties from each other. An object will by default allow its parent class to define most of its properties, but may override specific properties that are important to the class (such as default volume, weight, etc). The object will have a Primary parent class, the first on the inheritance list, from which such properties are inherited. To inherit a numerical property from a non-Primary parent, it must be overridden. Some properties, like lists of nouns and adjectives, are inherited by merging from all parents.

The class heirarchy is an important way to categorize player perception. Any given object may require particular skills or properties on the player's part to recognize. For instance, a Chinese vase might not be recognizable without some knowledge of China, and would thus default entirely to appearing as a vase to a player without such lore.

Object Grouping would also work into the Class Heirarchy -- every object type could be marked as a Grouping, perhaps with a scale factor to tell how preferentially it should be chosen. Thus, a very specific group like "scimitar" would have a high scale factor and be chosen readily, while a vaguer description like "farm equipment" would be chosen less often.