A Harry Potter sorting hat... kind of.

[Daanonkerr]

Ok, I am kind of very new to this whole thing, and have a 1/2 of 1% clue as to what is going on in the programming end. I have a tall order to ask of someone who is looking for a challenge.

Background: I am building a cyber summer camp with RunUO for school kids grades 4 and 5. We are going to do a Cyber-Kid-Nation. With activities both in and out of game. We are going to need to split the kids up into 4 different houses, I am going with elemental based guild names of earth, wind, fire, and water. I would like to be able to randomly assign them a guild to join in game in a dramatic way. Rather then rolling dice or picking colored chips out of a hat out of game.

My Idea: I love the sorting hat in Harry Potter where each new student is sorted into one of the four houses according to the requirements of he house etc. Would it be possible to work a randomized system by which up to 20 students would be sorted into one of four houses? Now I don't want to put a hat on the in game toon and have it say one of the four house names. That has already been done. BUT... what if instead we had a platform/alter shaped like a plus with neutral being in the middle and each of he four elements on each of the four ends, when you step on the center you would be randomly teleported into one of the four house receiving areas.

Very simply designed like this...


Now we can dress it up a bit better put the whole thing on a white marble platform, ceremonial flames etc but I think this needs to be the core of it. The only thing I would love to add would be Earth, Wind, Fire, Water icons instead of the virtue symbols.

The two things I would think of off the top of my hat I would need to do is set the number of people to be sorted, and to make sure that it comes out evenly, based on a maximum classroom capacity of 20 students.

So am I crazy to think this can work in a UO environment? Is there any of you out there who might be able to write such a gump/script? Or am i totally off my nut? If this can be done I am not above paying for services but remember I am a very broke public school teacher. LOL!

[Lord_Greywolf]

well part of it is done all ready

the random teleporter - it is in the script release/recent archive section

now to keep the classes "even" - would be a little harder to add - but can be done

basicaly - 4 groups - 5 kids per group

on the "move over routine"

set up variables like so:
int group1 = 0
int group2 = 0
int group3 = 0
int group4 = 0
int total = 0;

then your random number:
int towhere = Utility.Random(4) + 1;

now the test to make sure they are evenly placed:

while ( (group1 >= 5 && towhere = 1) || (group2 >= 5 && towhere = 2) || (group3 >= 5 && towhere = 3) || (group4 >= 5 && towhere = 4))
{
towhere = Utility.Random(4) + 1;
}

and now send them away:
switch (towhere)
{
case 1; teleport them to right spot; break;
repeat for other 3
)
total += 1;

reset are after 20 have gone through

if (total >= 20)
{
total = 0;
group1 = 0;
etc for other 3
}

and that would basicaly do it

[Daanonkerr]

It's like you are trying to communicate something to me... I just know if I stare at this long enough it will make sense!

Wow ok so where do I put it? I seriously have no idea what to do with this Grey.

[Lord_Greywolf]

basicaly make a new "teleporter" - and that stuff goes in the onmoveover spot -- look at the origional tel script for most of the stuff - can even start with a copy of it then modify it to work with the stuff above - just do not need the "point settings, map setting, etc that a normal tele has, but if those are left in will not hurt - because they will no longer be used - instead you are using direct points for the spots

[Daanonkerr]

Ok I will give it a shot. Wish me luck... and thanks Grey!