[MUD-Dev] Focus on Hocus Pocus

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

> From: Troy Fisher [mailto:ashon at wsunix.wsu.edu]

> So I figured that I would create a way to translate the name to
> true magic, and then from that to the indiviualistic magic
> language.  BUT, by doing this it becomes possible for a player to
> simply figure out the converting mechanism, and do it on his own!
> This will give immense powers to those who figure it out because
> they will be able to affect things that only high powered mages
> should know the magic name of!

Well before I make any suggestions, I'd like to point out that if
you are relying on people not to spread these secret magic words to
people who shouldn't know them, you are probably expecting too
much. You might be better limiting it somehow with a game mechanic -
i.e. if you have a level based system, don't let the level 1 mage
with a power word charm a level 200 dragon to his bidding.

If you wanted a dynamic whereby the mage had to discover each true
name for himself, then perhaps the best way would be to make the
true name unique to the mage. For example, a dragon whose common
name is Cawear, might have a true name of Taswerniclion to one mage
and Heberniclius to another mage. If you wanted to go down that
road, you need some form of random name generator which can take a
seed and some mob based paramaters, and always arrive at the same
name. You could then use the players name as the seed along with the
specifics of the mob.

You would probably make the random name generator string sylables
together to make names, and in fact for once that system might even
work quite well if you feel true names should be hard to pronounce -
random name generators do seem to churn out some awful stuff :)

Dan
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