[Scrymud] Changes to Scry

[Ben Greear]

These sound like good ideas to me.  A word of caution though.  It is true
that classes are there for restrictions.  I did not want a person to have the
most powerful skills of all classes combined into a single character.  However,
if practices are effectively limited, then a classless game will be possible.

I also do not want a cleric to be able to wield the "Sword of Whup-ass", so
we need a way to have !CLERIC flags etc.  Perhaps by learning certain spells,
your character takes an 'oath' or whatever never to touch certain weapons.
The end effect will be similar to a classed mud, but the implementation
will be different.

If you are serious about implementing this, I would advise branching the
ScryMUD code in CVS.  That way, the experimental changes will not screw
up the stable branch.

I no longer have time to devote to Scry, though I will offer advice if
requested.  I will be happy to turn the reigns over to whoever wants the
task.  Shamu & Lanfear have first dibs of course.

I look forward to seeing what comes of this!

Ben

gingon at wanfear.com wrote:
> Hello all.
>    A few of us have be talking about major changes to Scry over aim the last 
> few weeks. I'm gonna try to explain them here and hopefully get some useful 
> feedback on the ideas from you guys.
> 
>    First thing, We've been considering removing classess. The reasons are 
> pretty simple, classess are an outdated concept. Classess are generally used to 
> enforce limitations. But here they are largely not needed. The players should 
> be able to choose what they want to be simply by which skills they choose to 
> use.
> 
>    Learning skills is primary limited by the number of practices a player 
> recieves. This itself is a good limiting factor. Take the thief class for 
> example, when they hit lvl 30, they will rarely have every possible skill a 
> thief can learn. This means that, without a class system, if someone wants to 
> be a thief, they'd have to spend a large amount on only thief skills, limiting 
> the use of non-thief skills heavily. 
> 
>    It also allows for peope to play a type of character that isn't explicitely 
> allowed by the code.
> 
>    Of course, an obvious side effect to having no classes is that you can't 
> class remort.
> ---
>    Second thing, We've also been talking about remove the lvl system as well. 
> Basically, a player would have free xp and total xp. The player can use the 
> free xp to directly improve skills, the total xp is mainly for book keeping and 
> tracking who can remort.
>    
> This would make hunting at a high lvl far less boring, instead of hunting for 
> days to raise a skill by a large amount, you can achieve a more natural, 
> gradual increase in skills by being able to use xp imediatly.
> 
> Death would be handled differantly also, the player would lose all of their 
> free xp in addition the the usual death results.
> 
>    The cost to raise skills would increase as the % learned in that skill 
> increases. This would tend to create people who specialize in a small number of 
> skill, causing an increase in the diversity of the player population.
> ---
>    Third change: 2 new magic systems: Runic and Pattern.
> 
>    Generally, runic is only used for enhancing equipment. To use it you figure 
> out the runes you want to use, and inscribe them on the item. The combination 
> of runes determines the exact result.
> 
>    Pattern magic on the other hand is somewhat differant. Using pattern magic 
> you can recreate any of the existing spells, but also create totally dynamic 
> new ones. Pattern magic works by combining a series of patterns into a complete 
> spell, which is then stored in a spell book. Each pattern controls a single 
> aspect of the spell, and each pattern has an associated cost in mana.
> 
>    Learning to use either system well will require the user to do some research 
> and figure out how each component comnbines with other ones. They would also be 
> able to buy some spells and find other in arcane libraries scattered about the 
> would.
> 
>    There are some interesting possible benefits to this system that aren't 
> directly related to the casting system. A spell formula trade economy could 
> develope. A wizard would more fit what I feel a wizard should be in scry, he'd 
> be a possesser of unknown power, a master of the arcane arts.
> ---
> 
> These are all large changes, requiring a large amount of change to the existing 
> code. But I feel that these changes would greatly improve Scry. 
> 
> that's all for now.
>    --Gingon
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-- 
Ben Greear <greearb at candelatech.com>       <Ben_Greear AT excite.com>
President of Candela Technologies Inc      http://www.candelatech.com
ScryMUD:  http://scry.wanfear.com     http://scry.wanfear.com/~greear