Voodoo/gate.

woahboy · **Joined:** Wed Dec 11, 2013 8:53 pm **Posts:** 503

Supposedly you can voodoo from in the ocean, and thereby nullify the gate vulnerability, since it's not possible to gate to water rooms, despite them not being "no transport".

Is bug, or feature?

I -was- planning to roll a shaman next...

Dulrik · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:19 am

If it's actually possible, I would classify that as a bug.

ninja_ardith · **Joined:** Wed Sep 24, 2008 12:21 pm **Posts:** 4452

Ocean rooms are not flagged as no-transport. I've gated to plenty of targets. The code change was for I believe underwater rooms to prevent people from summoning people underwater, though one has to wonder how that happens in the first place.

grep · **Joined:** Fri Apr 17, 2009 9:50 pm **Posts:** 5522

Quote:

Lake Everclear
llll\pppp You find yourself surrounded by the calm waters of Lake
lllll\yyy Everclear. The depth that lurks beneath the surface seems
flll*l\yy unfathomable due to the murky distortion provided by the
lllllll%- green-tinted water. The peaceful silence is broken only by the
llllll/yy occasional symphony of frogs and the feeding frenzy of hungry
fish that break the still surface in quick attempts at catching a meal.
It's raining lightly, cool, and windy.
Obvious exits: n e s w nw ne sw se

You start to pray.

You utter the words, 'oahz'.
It's not possible to create a gate here.

The Redstune Branch of the Tarim River
yylllllll The river flows smoothly here giving large trees a chance to
ffffrllll grow at the edge of the river. Some large pieces of wood have
fffr*ffll been piled up along the edge of the river giving fish a place to
rrrflllll rest on their trek up the river. It's cloudy, cool, and very
yyyfyylll windy.
Obvious exits: n e s w nw ne sw se

You start to pray.

You utter the words, 'oahz'.
It's not possible to create a gate here.

The Deep Ocean
~~~~~~~by It's cloudy, cool, and very windy.
~~~~~~~bb
~~~~*~~~~
~~~~~~~~b
~~~~~~~by
Obvious exits: n e s w nw ne sw se

You start to pray.

You utter the words, 'oahz'.
It's not possible to create a gate here.

You start to pray.

You utter the words, 'gjwwai'.
It's not possible to summon from here.

A magical gate begins to materialize... but then vanishes.

The Guard House
You are standing in the guard house of castle Morea. Large iron bars
protect the windows from intruders and thin slits line the wall from which,
you have no doubt, a deadly volley of arrows could be loosed at any
intruder. Along the western wall, an iron ladder is embedded into the wall,
allowing the guards to gain the upper levels of the wall quickly in the
event of a siege.
Obvious exits: n e s w

A magical gate begins to materialize... but then vanishes.

My hypothesis for the behavior described in this thread would be that !floor will stop gate and summon but has not been coded to stop voodoo.

The operational question -- that only Dulrik can answer -- is whether gate and summon have hooks in them to check for a room's !floor flag (or whatever the flag actually is -- could be swim or !walk or room type or whatever, I don't know) and whether voodoo has the same check.

If this is the case, it is also relevant to question whether this other flag impacts anti-hoarding hours in the same way !transport does.

Yed · **Posted:** Tue Jan 06, 2015 11:12 am

Dulrik wrote:

If it's actually possible, I would classify that as a bug.

This is a bug.

TheX · **Joined:** Fri Oct 10, 2014 2:22 pm **Posts:** 455

Will people be punished for exploiting it since it has been declared a bug?

woahboy · **Joined:** Wed Dec 11, 2013 8:53 pm **Posts:** 503

To clarify, as I was given in-game evidence after posting this, it IS possible to voodoo from ocean rooms. Prior to that, I'd just been told by others.

I'll make sure shamans on my side of the fence are made aware this is bug abuse.

ninja_ardith · **Joined:** Wed Sep 24, 2008 12:21 pm **Posts:** 4452

You cannot gate from ocean rooms, but you can gate to people in ocean rooms. I don't think Dulrik went for both cases.

Come on, people, one of the most frequently used portal stones is located in a water room.

There's no bug here because even if you fly over an ocean room, and voodoo from there, you can be gated to.

Had a lot of people try this against me already.

FinneyOwnzU · **Joined:** Wed Apr 24, 2002 11:51 am **Posts:** 1500

The stones south of the Chancel are flagged differently than most water rooms. You cannot gate to/from any other room that is flagged as ocean, lake, river, etc.

grep · **Joined:** Fri Apr 17, 2009 9:50 pm **Posts:** 5522

It's also completely possible that the check for a portal stone target is processed before the details of the destination room are checked but after the transport flags of the source room are checked. That would display everything we've been able to observe, and it would be a natural symptom of the current functionality being a result of patch jobs to individual spells.

Produce an actual log of a gate opening in an ocean room, ardith.

Quote:

You utter the words, 'oahz'.
A magical gate materializes in a blinding flash of energy.

A circle of stones
The depth of the ocean here is less than the height of a
~~~~~~~ halfling. Whenever the waves calm, it is actually possible to
~~~*~~~ wade along the solid rocky ridge that once linked the island to
~~~~~~~ the mainland. It's raining lightly, very hot, and windy.

Obvious exits: n e s w nw ne sw se gate
A magical gate glowing with red energy leads elsewhere.
A set of rune-inscribed stones is half-submerged in the water here.
A flying monkey exits out of a magical gate.

You start to pray.

You utter the words, 'oahz'.
It's not possible to create a gate here.

Obviously, "Is the target a stone? If yes, open gate." is evaluated before "Is destination room a viable target? If no, fail" but after "Is source room a viable target? If no, fail." It's an understandable situation if you wanted to code the gate spell as nested conditionals. This would explain why you can gate to the above stones, but not to anyone standing right next to them.

This would all go to suggest that ocean rooms do, in fact, allow transport. The transportation is what does not allow them. This would perfectly confirm that voodoo is possible if it hasn't also been given the code to look for what gate and summon fail out at finding. This would also mean that you can get anti-hoarding hours by standing around free from gate and summon in the deep ocean where even scrying wouldn't clearly reveal you. A sad situation.

If we were refactoring the code, I would probably frame this as the need for a well-scoped pathing test. SK predates the proliferation of TDD: I wouldn't say this is anyone's particular fault.

Shattered Kingdoms

Voodoo/gate.

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