[MUD-Dev] Too much magic?

[Brian Hook]

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 14:54:26 +0000, cruise wrote:

> I've been thinking much the same lately, and indeed limit the
> number of magic items in the world and that players can wear. The
> former is a simple case of making "unique" items truly unique -
> there will be only one of that item in the entire gameworld.

THAT is a tough sell (for reasons discussed often in the past,
specifically hoarding), but I agree, it's definitely a direction.

> For the latter, each magical item slows the healing/recovery
> process depending on its power.

The effect I'm leaning towards is "magical allergies" -- it's almost
a direct analogy of human allergies.  Some people are naturally
prone to allergic reactions, others are not, and sometimes it
depends on how much you're exposed to something.

As you wear more and more magical items, your allergic reaction
starts having a debilitating effect -- lowered defense, movement,
sight, healing, etc.

"Hypoallergenic" magic items would be extremely valuable, obviously,
but another interesting side effect is that a character could
implicitly cast detect magic just based on his reaction.

  > get ring
  You pick up the ring.
  You feel nauseous and begin to itch.

> To compensate for this, the amount of non-magical equipment is
> greatly increased

This is something I feel most on-line worlds completely lack.  I
have always felt that it's best to make item drops act as source
material for a lot of high quality crafted materials -- encouraging
a player economy -- and true magical items are extremely rare.  And
item drops that aren't raw materials would be generally of lower
quality than crafted items at a similar level.

  dropped < store_bought < crafted < unique_magical

Brian
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