[MUD-Dev] Focus on Hocus Pocus

[Federico Di Gregorio]

On 12 Jun 2001 20:58:13 -0700, Wes Connell wrote:
> Matt Chatterley (mpchatty at hotmail.com) wrote:
 
>> A player wizard would take a bunch of reagents, some time, a bit
>> of thought and imagination, and create a sequence of events and
>> effects, which cumulate to the spell that he wants.

> I've had a similar idea in the past. A mage would mix sulphuric
> ash, brown dirt, and cotton creating a fireball. Replace the dirt
> with crushed bone and the mage creates a wall of fire.
 
> The one problem I ran into while thinking about it was that
> players would quickly discover the best combinations for the good
> spells and use only those. Those combinations will likely wind up
> on a web page.


but you can require that the characters actually _learn_ how to use
the reagents or how to speak or move (vocal and somatic
component). just dropping a pince of sulphur while yelling Ka-Tah! 
does not work. your mage need to know 1/ how to "activate" the
sulphur and how to pronounce Ka and Tah. that way you can balance
the game. still late players will found preconfetioned spell on web
pages, but, alas, that's like searching the web for spoilers. if you
don't like to explore, research and learn i can do *nothing* to help
you...

> You could have different types of mana that produce different
> effects from the components. A red mage would get fire effects
> from sulphuric ash while a black mage would get psychic effects.


that's a nice idea.

> You could have different results for each player depending on what
> day of the year they were born on. Some players might get shafted
> by having to use diamond dust for healing. =]


that's even nicier!

ciao,
federico

--

Federico Di Gregorio
MIXAD LIVE Chief of Research & Technology              fog at mixadlive.com
Debian GNU/Linux Developer & Italian Press Contact        fog at debian.org
  Qu'est ce que la folie? Juste un sentiment de liberté si
   fort qu'on en oublie ce qui nous rattache au monde... -- J. de Loctra

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev