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

[Travis Casey]

On 25 September 1998, Adam Wiggins wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Sep 1998, Travis Casey wrote:

>> [researching spells offline]

> Note that this also means that any descent "powerplayer" will have 5 or 10
> mage characters constantly researching spells.  There should probably
> be some tradeoff between online and offline time to make this happen.

There is a tradeoff -- online time would be needed to gain experience and
increase your character's magical skills, while offline time can be
used for magical research.  Thus, you'd have to build a character up
to a decent power level before having him/her start doing magical
research.  Also, spell research should, IMHO, cost money and sometimes
require strange items.  Thus, a magical researcher needs to have some
source of income and some way of getting those items.  (Note that this
doesn't have to be adventuring... an experienced mage could set
him/herself up doing research, then sell the new spells to other
characters, and hire other characters to get the items for him/her.)

To some extent, this is a general problem... I don't like players
having multiple characters, period.  When/if I ever have time to
implement my ideas in a mud, I plan on using a MUSH-style registration
system, which should help cut down on problems with multiple
characters.

One last thought... the fact that someone, somewhere, has invented a
spell doesn't mean that you can use it.  For a player to do this with
multiple characters, he/she would have to have the characters trade
spells often.  This sort of activity could be monitored via a log, and
suspicious things looked out for.

> Actually, it would be extremely cool if at least the basic form of
> every spell existed somewhere.  For example, the 'raise dead' effect
> which you mention could occur in spooky dungeons or ancient crypts
> automatically.  (So if someone gets killed inside it, that's one more
> undead warrior to fight future adventurers...)  Players would eventually
> learn that any effect they see in the 'regular' mud world can be duplicated,
> and then enhanced, through their own spells.

Every spell might exist somewhere, but some of them might still not be
"natural"... for example, a tomb might have that property because the
god of death gave it to it.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)