I''ve been thinking about magic in rpg''s lately... to be more exact, masivly multiplayer rpgs. It seems like the mage''s and magicusers don''t have the freedom true "Warriors of the ethreal" should. Basically, my idea is as follows: 1. Mage''s need to learn each element on their own, in their own time. If a mage wants to cast a fire spell, he needs to know the "fire sphere" or if they want to enchant a weapon with, say, fire, they would need both the "fire sphere" and the "enchant sphere" to be succesfull. 2. A sphere of magic takes long enough to master that learning them all would litterally take months, if not years, in real life -- We shouldn''t have a Arch Mage without him/her working their but off for it. 3. A mage will be able to do anything -- he can create a tiny glowing ball of light, or summon a giant pillar of flame that rains destruction on all. All this is possible through a spell scripting system discribed later. 4. Each spell shall take a certian amount of time to cast and learn in game time -- for example, the light spell might take 1 minute to learn, and cast instantaniously while the pillare of fire and destruction might take months to learn, and days to cast. This balances out the warrior and the mage (who''s going to just sit there while a giant pillare of fire is slowly summond by an evil mage). Also - almost anything can disrupt the casting of magics, the ether of magic is a finniky substance. Higher masteries of the sphere(s) used will shorten cast time. 5. Spells should be able to be inscribed on scrolls, given the caster has the required skill to do so. it should take aproximatly 1/4 - 1/2 (skill depending) the time that learning the spell did, and when given to an apprentice, it will lessen their learning time by the same amount. 6. Enchanted weapons will be linked to the users manna pool. This means that the warrior still needs mana in order to use the mage''s ensorcelled weapons. Ok, there''s more but I think I''ll give you an example of the spell scripting system (or s3): // GLOWING HALO Id("Glowing Halo") //Name of spell Sphere(holy); //Using the holy sphere Aspect(light); //Each sphere has it''s aspects. //select light Form(circle); //Uses the circle form Movement(track_target);//It follows the target Target(self); //the target is the caster CommitedMP(15); //the MP that will be drained to cast //spell (some aspects have minumum req). LiveTime(120); //Time in seconds that spell is in effect. //can accept 0 (permanent), requierment //is heavy - varies with sphere/aspect Orientation(0,0,0); //Orientation of halo Origin(above_head); //Spell originates above head of caster Intent(neutral); //Does nothing And you''ve got a halo! the intensity of the aspect is calculated using livetime and commitedmp. Now if you wanted to be artistic, you couldof used the fire sphere, flame aspect, and had a burning, flickering halo! Now I shall show you how to create an ''earth lance'' using this system... //EARTH LANCE: throw a ball of earth which morphs into a lance Id ("Earth Lance"); Sphere(earth); Aspect(stone); Form(Sphere); EndForm(spear); Movement(rightthrow); UserMovement(usrrightthrow); Target(otherliving); CommittedMP(25); LiveTime(5); sOrientation(lance); Origin(throw_right_hand); Intent(harmful); You could even call other spells within your current spell by using a cast(spell_name); There - thats it. Stuff to be worked out: 1. Spell dificulty. how is it determined? (maybe by combination of commitedmp/livetime/intent/sphere/aspect/length of spell script) 2. How long should it take to learn? directly related to dificulty. 3. Need a better spell scripting system (ideas?) 4. A whole lot of other stuff that i''ve forgotten. P.S. you would be able to create undead by using a Target(otherdead);Sphere(Death);Aspect(Raise); Comments? Questions? Anybody willing to attempt the implementation of it? ---------------------- Solthar Rygelsun ICQ: 77657183

So... is anyone going to reply to my post...


Oh yea... and *BUMP*

So is the player of the game going to script his own spells in this system? It is a great idea, but you have to worry about the spells becoming unbalanced- for instance, is it possible to create a weak spell with this script that targets your opponent''s head like a homing missle, never fades and therefore continues to inflict damage until the target is dead? Obviously that would be a bad thing. The point is, there are a LOT of geniuses on the net that would find clever ways to bend the system unfairly, and maybe crack into it and cheat altogether.
Also you have to consider the fact that some people have no concept of coding as we know it and would be boggled by the whole system. In fact, I would say that although on this forum we are the vast majority, in the world at large we are actually outnumbered by thes poor fools. Basically, this idea allows great flexibility and RP- but it unbalances the game in favor of people who know computers. You need to find a way around this- for example, a graphical spell-creation system rather than text script, well-defined rules of spell creation, and good enough security to ensure that for the most part things are fair.



"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, but
the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to him-
therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
-Samuel Butler

I should say that the ''permanent'' status should only work with the ''Enchantment'' Sphere, and should be learned seperately. As for programming, I haven''t designed the language yet - i just gave an example of a possible outcome. With that format there are still problems - say how do you write a scripting language that will allow you to combine 2 or more sphere''s and aspects of magic? (eg. Enchantment/blade + Air/Lightning). And with the programmign problem - first of, lets aim for a system thats easy and powerfull (difficult to code for the game programmer, but more enjoyable on the user''s side). There should also be a decent amount of pre-built spells included with the game. Also, maybe have the option for a gui (graphical user interface) that will allow you to mix and match stuff...

like this:

Joe blow wants to learn a spell that creates a lightning storm, and he has already been taught the air sphere, and the lightning aspect

*He clicks on Sphere selection box, and clicks Air (shows only available sphereS)
*He Clicks on Aspect selection box, and clicks Lightning (shows availabel aspects)
*He clicks on Look selection box, and selects default (lightn. defaults to a lightn. bolt)
*He clicks on Behavior selection box, and selects Fall_from_sky
*He Clicks on Placement selection box, and selects .....

As you can see, the programming aspect can also be bypased visualy

It could work. You should program it. It sounds pretty original to me.

-FallingFrog

Ok...

Basically, any game that would have this system would include a good set of spells allready included, and since the target gametype for this system is a mmrpg, the spell trading system would run rampant :-)

And I agree with you - you should be able to ''memorize'' spells - as i mentioned above in the first post, generally, once it''s memorized you could assign a hotkey to it, or put it in an easily accessable place.

Anybody else have comments?

The entire point of a system like this is to create new and unusual spells -- Anyone can create a new spell, and each spell is stored as a script (1-5k at most) each spell, difficulty depending, takes a specified amount of time to learn, cast, and scribe onto scrolls for distribution (learning from a scroll halve''s learning time). Another example of the flexability of the system I''m proposing...

Sholan is a mage specializing in the evil and illusion spheres, and wants an undead army, but can only find (or kill) rabbits. So Sholan combines a Evil/Necromancy with Illusion/Monster, so that everytime he raises a rabbit from the dead, an illusion of a greater lich lord appears arround it. So, instead of running around with rabbits, he runs around with what apears to be an army of lich lords.

or another example....

Jexxa is a apprentice mage specializing in the Air sphere, and is having trouble with monsters approching to close to her (and damaging her cloack with those nasty claws and teeth - she just got a new one this morning!) so she chooses Air/Wind and chooses a shape of a hollow cylender, next she sets the orientation and size of the cylander so that it surrounds her, but does not touch her. Now she sets the length of the spell to 15 seconds (just got an idea - the manna should be calculated by the game itself...) and the desired strength to 5 (low strength, values can range from 0 (just for looks) to 1000 (apocalypes baby!)) so now, when she goes out to fight, she casts her ''wind shell'' and small monsters have trouble approaching here (what do you expect from str5 spell).

And I do agree on you - play balance would be paramount with any program using this system; nevertheless, it is my belief that the benifits of this system far exceed both the difficulty in constructing and balancing the aforementioned system.

I have decided to plan, and hopefully build this spell system, and need assistance in designing the scripting language, spheres, aspects, mp cost and play balanceing it. If anyone wants to help, contact me on ICQ at 77656183, or with email at CodeAtlas@yahoo.com


Solthar Rygelsun
ICQ: 77656183

I know at the very least two games that are going to use similar systems.

The idea is not new, neither the design sorry.

Anyway, if you can code it, it''ll be nice to see what can be done

On my side I''m working on a similar system using ''runes'' instead of ''sphere'', still the general idea looks much like the AD&D magic system.
(There were plenty magic systems designed for various versions and worlds of that wargame [sorry, this is not an RPG])

Good luck.

PS:
Instead of magic points or whatever you want to use to limit the wizard power, replace it with fatigue, it would be much more innovative than spells points

-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-