Magical dialect

[Skain]

Hey, I didn\'t even thought of this, but now that you mention...
Spells would be stored in SpellBooks, BUT it would be possible to \"cast\" them into a staff. Of course you loose the mana, as if the spell would really have been casted. The advantage is, that you can do it in a safe place: in the town for example. This would allow a spellcaster to \"store\" his spells ready-to-use in a staff, and when he uses the staff, the spell would be casted immediately, without any spellcasting-time. (Skain, exactly, what you said!)
Of course, more spells could be stored in a staff. It depends on the \"quality\" of the staff (i.e. it\'s price  ) how many spells can be stored in it. The more better (unique) the staff, the more \"slots\" it has for the spells.
This storing-system would allow a spellcaster to prepare for a battle at home.


I was just making a joke but this is a really good idea, would be a lot easier in combat too, say shortcut key \'1\' = spell 1 would be a lot easier than, \'open skills\' \'use\' \'spell 1\' \'on monster A\'

[Captainbreakdance]

Even though this is wwwwaaaaaayyyyyyy off topic,why don\'t they make magic long ranged?You could see little sparkles or something as the spell moves.Then you could hide behind,on top,ect.,ect., and kill something with magic!This would be very fun and a good way to get magic up.

[tyramoyr]

i think i know how to correctly post things, lets hope...

ok, here is an idea for spell dialects:

the wizard would need to learn pieces of the spell, (these can be text, or \'magic words\', but i think it would be better that they are little pictures, or \'runes\') to form a spell the wizard would orginize these runes into spell-strings which would determine the effects of the spell

ive seen alot of people suggest things like this, and id quote them, but i havent figured out how to do that yet

now, you would have a rune for each magic skill (red, brown, azure, blue, crystal, and dark) and as each rune is \'hit\' in the string it would require a skill check of the appropriate skill.  if at any point durring the string, a skill check fails, the string would end there, and the spell would cast as is, assuming that the successful part of the string did anything.  

simple spells would have short strings, like three runes, more complex (read powerful) spells would have long strings, say eight or more.

so wizards with low magic skills should stick to the simple spells, but as their skills get higher their srings can get longer, and spells get more powerful.  

the kicker is that the number of runes in a string could be infinite, a wizard could keep adding in runes,and thus power, but only the most skilled wizards could pull of the longer spell-strings because every rune in the string will require a sepreate skill check, and eventualy a skill check will fail thusly ending the spell.  

this way, you could have an infinite number of spells, just come up with a spell-string sequence and figure out a effect for it.

[Tepsu]

Originally posted by beza1e1
In every game you see the player pressing a key and the character starts whirling his hands and after a few seconds (while the player just watches!) the fireball flies. Why not replacing this watching time with typing time?

Hmm, yes, i like the idea, but, it would just be to easy to some lame wizards program some cheating program to do the writing of the difficult spell, so when good ol\' honest wizard tries to duel this cheater mage it would not be equal fight, becose cheater mage would just push one button to cast some ?ber spell while the honest mage could not even get his protections on.

[elminster]

You may be right, but don\'t get cheating into this (at least for now). Let\'s suppose, that there is NO cheating at all, that everything is safe, and everyone is playing honestly (as they CANNOT cheat).
Cheating can happen everywhere. We must not make the ideas cheat-proof. The game has to be made cheat-proof. That\'s the responsibility of the PS server to detect hackers, or some other way. The ideas must be designed for original, no cheating play. The only thing we can do, is trust in the players, as well as in the developers, that they will make the game as cheat-proof as possible.

So, don\'t think about cheating for now. Believe, as everything works as intended.

--
Greetings,
E.

[Tepsu]

Yesyes, i would like to think that every player is honest, but they will not be, and how can a anti-cheat program detect a writing hack?

[elminster]

Allright, but I said: cheating can happen everywhere in the game. It is not up to us to locate them. We MUST NOT think about them - for now. And I also said: believe as well in the devs of the game. That\'s the most we can do.
Seems we are diversing from the original topic, so if any of you want any more talk about cheating, go ahead, make a different thread.

So, any more comments on the \"original\" idea?

--
Greetings,
E.

[Jefka]

the 1234 type spell is great I think

somehow the staff thingy is good two ; I think a mixed up thing should be used :


Spell casters buy a \"spell kit\"; depending on the spell kit level, you can prepare good spells or small ones ; in this spell you have icons, corresponding to your schools : azure way for example and red way
In it you have a sub menu : let\'s say for red way, fireball and so on ; the more you advance in PS (the more xp you gain), the more options you will have in the sub menu ; there you combine your elements, and finally you give it a name

You can then use it in the battle ; and let\'s say that mages buildings would give a small bonus for spells creators, like 5% more powerfull for example

[Drilixer]

first of all: I don\'t like this idea

The concept of a spell dialect and spel combinations although interesting is not original - there are many games with combination magics and using spell words is little ore than a mud based game.  As Planeshift is going to be original and not a mud - this system is not practical - look for something more visual and gui oriented.

[druke]

Wow, hmm some of you might want to look at the arcane order, we could aways need those ready to help ideas in magic, we have been discusing magic rules in ps in our boards so check us out

- know, recruitment spam-

[elminster]

Originally posted by Drilixer
first of all: I don\'t like this idea

The concept of a spell dialect and spel combinations although interesting is not original - there are many games with combination magics and using spell words is little ore than a mud based game.  As Planeshift is going to be original and not a mud - this system is not practical - look for something more visual and gui oriented.

I\'m sorry, but you\'re wong here. I haven\'t seen any game so far, that used this concept, as most RPGs on computers are more or less based on AD&D, and there are only fixed spells, which you have to memorize, etc.
And speaking about original things, if I take things strictly, the whole magic stuff in PS is not original at all, as PS spells are cast from: mana. Well, as I said, I haven\'t seen any game using the concept discussed here, but I have played at least 20 games that has mana. Don\'t misunderstand me: the mana stuff is good. I just showed, that in PS, this magical dialect would be just fine.

About visual and GUI stuff: have you EVER talked to an NPC??? Well, I think that is don\'t visual or gui oriented at all.

I think this idea is important, because in a real RPG, the wizard is the toughest character to play. I have an RPG book here, and it sais, only start a wizard character, if you are a very experienced player.
Here, this magical dialect stuff would make a wizard\'s role harder. A wizard\'s life is not easy. If someone wants to go hack\'n\'slash, quickly kill monsters, then be a fighter (no classes, but adjust your skill points to resemble a fighter). If you want to use magic, then you have to work for it, not just your character.

--
Greetings,
E.

[Drilixer]

Originally posted by elminster
About visual and GUI stuff: have you EVER talked to an NPC??? Well, I think that is don\'t visual or gui oriented at all.

hehe, read some of my threads... I hate the current NPC system... I know the answers to the quests but refuse to do them since the NPCs are so god damn tedious to talk to... they NEED a gui desperately.  And I still dislike the idea of a magical dialect.  So what, there is mana... if you want a different wording that can be changed easily - just go tell Talad you want mana named radiance or some such... it doesn\'t matter...

[Tionusena]

i like this thread a lot, but what i really want to know is how do the dev\'s think about this?

anyhow, for me this \'magic system\' is quite new and refreshing, i used to play a lot of D&D and well i think their use of the arcane arts starts to get boring after a while, keep memorizing, press a button, watch what happens,..its just no fun after a while

so im rlly fond of this thread, keep posting

and if dev read this thread plz reply i think a lot of ppl would like to know your opinion

[Isgrimnur]

The idea of a spell dialect is interesting but I think as was pointed out earlier in the thread it would become tedious to keep typing out spells. To counter this a combination between GUI and custom spells could be used.

For Example the character or guild has a basic kit of spell components such as the Magical way and the type of damage etc that they can assemble and store in a spell book these spells can then be used by the character carrying the spell book using a GUI interface. In addition to this standard spells could be included that can be learned and used without research (for the lazy wizard).

As this system would soon mean that every combination would be found after a period of time then extra options could be added to the kits afterwards every now and then.

As for those who want to type spells instead of use a GUI spell book then a simple solution would be to set up trigger words such as \"/spell firebolt\" etc

[SnowWolf]

I love this idea!

I\'ve read quite a few issues on this and I don\'t see how they would be a problem...

For one, this is definitely an original idea, or at least has the potential to be...

The problems with typing - I can see how this would be bad if you had to type a spell out each time - even if people don\'t cheat - they could still be speed typers, that could be considered a must but what if you are crippled or something in rl? Isn\'t this game about being something your not? My suggestion is to use casting time [the time would be proportional to the length of the spell] in conjunction with the staff/scroll idea. Have some items that are instant where the mana is already used and some where the item acts as a magical conductor and add in cast time - some items could be faster too. Or you could make it so at the end of the cast time the spell copied and pasted itself onto the say channel (or shout depending on the strength of the spell - another area to play around with and make this just plain COOL)

There a tons of ways to make it so it isn\'t as simple as typing it once and then being able to push a hot key - TONS

The items also open up anther tradeskill/craft opportunity for making and enchanting items for spell casters - you might have to quest to get the wood for the staff or visit far away cities for the gems - all kinds of stuff!

My contribution to the topic however, would be to insist the the words not just be like square blocks but rather a puzzle (someone mentioned this before at the beginning) - making an entire language with grammar - this would help prevent cheating since it would be a language - you can\'t just make a website and have your customers magically (no pun intended) KNOW how to use french - they\'d have to learn it over time.

This may sound crazy but from a programming stand point, this isn\'t REALLY that hard to implement - infact, if you look around there are tons of sites on programming things like this - even casual programmers can handle it if they reseach the algorithms - I\'ve seen a Visual Basic program on translating Latin with sting parsing and all that good stuff programmed by a virtual no body - so I know it can be done.

Also, when wizards are limited by level (or mana or whatever limits what spells are limited by) they could group together an combine their powers - just a thought