[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Niklas Elmqvist [mailto:d97elm at dtek.chalmers.se]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 1998 10:33 AM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft
> 
> Come to think of it, associating magic "code" or "methods" to 
> materials
> would make it easy for the builders to add support for all kinds of
> materials. Otherwise, in a magic-physics engine, you would have to
> hardcode stuff like "iron does this and that..." and "copper attracts
> this..." and so on. 

An original key design premise of UO was that EVERYTHING in the game was
defined in terms of intrinsic qualities. An axe was 1 unit of wood and 2
of metal, a breastplate was 25 units of metal, a person was a given
amount of meat and possibly a given amount of prestige, a gravestone
embodied a few units of "spookiness", and yes, magical objects included
some amount of "magic" as part of their nature. In particular, different
magical components embodied one of the eight hidden "qualities" of
magic--such as classical elements, etc. So hidden inside sulphurous ash
was a unit of Fire, and mandrake root carried one unit of Death with it.
This allowed for MANY possible interactions with fairly little code.

-Raph