[MUD-Dev] Scripting Languages and Magic

[J C Lawrence]

On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 14:54:27 -0700 
Alex Chacha <achacha at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Having a script system admittedly will allow spell makers to create
> complex and often unique spells, but if the script system is too
> complex it may never get used.

There's a long history of attempting to create a programmer's game.
After all, we're programmers and we know what sorts of toys appeal to
us...  However LambdaMOO and a few other services suggest that creating
a programmer's sub-game may not be such a bad idea -- if you can retain
their interest and not alienate them with corporate/marketing
restrictions.

> I am in the process of writing a spell building system with high level
> of customization, but the scripting of spells is something I have been
> pondering for a while and worrying about how to make it useful enough
> and constrained enough to work with the general concept of magic in
> MUDs.  My earlier effort was too open ended and when I had to start
> thinking about debugging this spell script and writing debugging tools
> for it is when I decided to rethink the problem at hand.

An approach is to build the system on a fundamental concept of elemental
resource mechanics ala atoms.  You need the right bits to build the
spell.  Players don't have access to the raw elements, but rather items
and activities which change the environmental availability of the
various resource types in the local environment.  At that point casting
a particular spell succeeds or fails to the extent that it can find and
consume (ie destroy or transmutate) the required resources in the
environment.  

  ie particle economics.

again. see the archives for extensive discussions on this area.

--
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.

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