Finding distances

[trialusert]

Hello, I have a little question.
I'm playing a MMORPG game, which once had a hack with an option to "pull" or "vacuum" the other players so that you could hit them while you weren't standing in front of them. My question is- how can I find that distance value? Is it even possible? Is it 1 value or many? What kind of searches do I need to perform in order to find it? Please explain.

Thanks! trialusert.

[mezzo]

[moved]

It might get more response if you give a bit more details...
like what game and so on.

[Sychotix]

scanning for how far the mob is from you, probably but depends on game, depends on game, probably float, no need to exaplain.

if you had to ask these questions, you probably wont find it.

[trialusert]

The game is called Risk Your Life (one). What else can I say? I want to vacuum the akkans (enemies), but I don't understand how to find the needed value- because there are so many players and I can't believe there's only 1 value. ^^
I just need some direction, thanks for those who try to help! =)

oh, and Sychotix you're so helping bro! wow dude thanks dude! amazing how mature people can be ah?

[mezzo]

everything in a virtual world has coordinates.
lets just call them X/Y and Z.

It would be insane for an MMORPG to constantly calculate the distance between all these objects and send them to every client for every object.
As it hardly makes sence for your game client to know what the distance is between your player character and an object on the other side of the 'virtual world'.

Which means that 9 chances out of 10, your game client will only calculate the distance between you and relevant objects.
Now how does it calculate distance ? It uses your player coordinates and the enemies coordinate to do the math.

So to make a long story short(er), you will first need to search for your
own coordinates (x,y,z) and then work from there. Your coordinates will most likely be 3 floats.

[trialusert]

Alright, thanks mezzo- you helped.