the 4 schools of magic

[Deddarus]

ok.. cant remember where this idea came from.. and i know magic has pretty much been decided ... but i though i\'d throw this out there anyways...

the concept is 4 \'schools\' (ways of casting) of magic:

magic of wand
magic of mouth
magic of hand
magic of mind

and they could work as such:

magic of wand.. simple really.. wand item that u can load a spell into, attack with it + spell is cast

magic of mouth.. player has to say (in normal chat box.. thus audible to everyone) some magic words and spell is cast

magic of hand.. best way to do this is with a /command (similar to magic of mouth except not audible.. thus giving you the element of suprise)... would also recquire 1 hand free (and thus could be swapped with magic of mouth in the progression order)

magic of mind... u get a nice pretty lil button... no-one knows what yer casting + u can have an object in both hands

anyways.... comments?

[druke]

well the magic system hs been decided,however, i am kinda interestedin hearing more details, i like listening to these ideas..not that i like magic or anything.

[Axsyrus]

read this.

[Saphire]

i think he means the 4 ways of casting the 6 ways of magic.

You could cast the [Name of magic way] spells from a wand or from mouth, for example.

This means that you could have various pro\'s and con\'s to each type of casting method:

Casting with a wand means that if the wand breaks or runs out of magical energy the spell is lost, but it can be used by nearly anyone. The simplest and fastest, but it requires a vessle for the magical energies to be placed in - and it shouldn\'t require a wand, either. It\'d be just that wands would be the *ideal* storage device - magic stored in a copper sword doesn\'t last as long as it would in a runed wand, you know.

Casting from word of mouth can be either very quick, or very slow. If a magic spell in the Blue way requires the words \"Zu al um talash eay ov\" you could whisper it for a silent, and possible surprise but weak attack; or shout it for a thunderous shower of magical energies but be highly obvious. Magical ability would obviously determine the power, and the more spelling mistakes the spell has a lowered effect.

Casting from your hands can take quite awhile, but the energy released is constant. Moving your hands in various ways can also allow to cast multiple spells at once; preparing, storing, and then launching them in a small or large volley. It\'s just alittle physically draining (takes stamina) but is quickly recovered. The more skilled you are the more spells you can cast successfully from one motion.

Casting from the mind - the hardest but the most powerful if you can pull it off. Enemies that can read minds can sense the growing power, but you can hide the spell and keep it \"in memory\" and launch it at a moment\'s notice. However, doing so continually and SUBSTANTIALLY drains your stamina, so not many people could ever pull off highly complex spells with just their mind.


Then you could possibly combine and interact these 4 casting methods, so while you aim your wand, you could speak some magic words or wave the wand around abit to increase it\'s magical power or cast a addon effect (electricity surrounding a spout of flame, for example) or to interact with other players casting spells.


...
*Big idea hits head*

Hmm... BRB with a magic idea i just thought up...

[SnowWolf]

Now as many of us know, it has been decided that magic will be cast through the use of glyphs - however there is no need to flame this idea because it\'s still fully possible to implement these schools while adhering to the glyph system.

From what I hear glyphs will be stones with magic symbols on them. Knowledge of these glyphs and how to combine them will allow the caster to create powerful spells.

This seems to rule out the possibility of say, the school of casting with hands - however, would it not be possible for an exceptionally skilled and powerful mage to outline the shape of a glyph on an object (the air, a rock, etc) to cast a spell?

I think this idea has many possibilities indeed....

[Ikarsik]

firstly... lets just try and keep this simple. if a game get too complex it borders on the line of unusability. if it goes over this line noone can play it. we do not want to have the user interface for planeshift looking like the user interface for a 3D modelling program.

2. how is this going to be implemented? can you assign the keys for these commands to the keyboard and still leave room for other commands.

3. spells could only have one animation. If you had 1000 spells all nicely made with there own animations and someone asked you to do it all again but this time it had to be while standing on one leg you would tell them to get stuffed. Making animations takes time. Secondary animations are not on the todo list right now.

3. on combining spells this would give your renderer a bad day in hell. think of all the particles that would be floating around everytime you casted two spells from one point. It slows the game down for everyone who is looking in your general direction and may even lag the entire server.

4. also if you were thinking of having combined particles this wouldnt work either. If you look at point 2 you will see my point. having to do like 1000! (1000 factorial)
different particle textures would take weeks.

But then...
1. this feature provides variation in the game.

2. you wouldnt have to animate mouth and mind spells so this reduces lag

3. you could just have the particles of the first spell + the particles of the second / 2 spewed out

4. if you were combining you could only have like 100 or 50 or 25 or less textures and just be lazy but this would still provide a massive amount of variation to the spells system.

[Syzerian]

combining spells is something you must never do in a game!
this leads to the era of uber tank mages who just run around with a large arsenal of spells and a full inventory of mana potions. then they just use up all their mana in one big spell killing almost anyone in their path in one hit. i dont want this game to end up like one of those games where if you werent an uber tank mage you were dead as soon as you left town. i would rather see a big long list of utility spells

[Rilar]

I know this reply is a _bit_ late... but now we have some features implemented and I think its time to discuss this topic again.

Now we have glyphs. Every glyph is linked with one effect and you are able to combine them. You have to purify them (I dont get the use of that in game yet), the power of a spell is determined by the percentage of mana you want to use and the maximum percentage is  determined by your stats and skill level. A higher skill level will also result in faster spell casting.

Normally spells are cast just out of nowhere. There is a slot for \"mind\", but nothing to put into yet.
All in all it seems they are about to implement some of these suggestions...

I like the idea of casting by saying a magical sentence.
Maybe there could be three levels of power:
/whisper (a radius of 1-2 meters)
/say (normal radius ~10 m)
/shout (~100 m)
Well... /shouting is a bit problematic.
But there could be special commands like /shout_spell, /whisper_spell and /say_spell.
That would prevent that every spell, also those whithout effect would be heard.
This way of casting spells should have an auralike effect. I imagine that using the fire-glyph this way would have a \"firebubble\" or something similar as effect...

Implementing the graphical effects are the worse problem, i think.
Maybe the effects could be executed client-sided?
What if the server just tells the client the distance, the used spell and who is using it and only the client will  figure out the effect? That wouldnt produce lag and the user could determine if he wants to see the effects or not.

cu,
amogorkon

[leuxast]

I think I know where you got the idea from...The old merlin books...they have magic of the hand, mind and mouth.

[Rilar]

I never read something about the old Merlin books... As Albert Einstein said: \"Imagination is more important than knowledge, because knowledge is limited.\"

[Kiva]

Originally posted by Deddarus
ok.. cant remember where this idea came from.. and i know magic has pretty much been decided ... but i though i\'d throw this out there anyways...


blablablabla....


anyways.... comments?

Why?

[hramrach]

Yet another thread where some reasons have been already stated, though not in the first post..