Just a few ideas

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Nethack
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Just a few ideas

Post by Nethack »

After reading the wiki part on the historical background, i have come with some suggestions :
In prehistory, we could create a branch of undead which would have been the survivors of the god making dead matter revive.
with the moon mode, the particles can go somewhere else, possibly taken by the undead.

modern era :
we need more detail from Keshlam's rule : buildings, culture, tehnological improvement ect.

we could make weapons that use crystals to hold energy. In my opinion, the crystal still hold part of the spirit, thus, weapons using big amount of crystal, would acquire a conscience. About the magic effect however, i think that some crystal will give some spells, by managing to absorb the energy inside (depending on the guy's int and skill in this kind of magic). Thus, no big books are to be used, only the creator mind. Which also poses a limit to the number of spells you can learn, because they use up memory space. therefore, it could be possicle to forget spells.
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Crush
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Re: Just a few ideas

Post by Crush »

I would recommend you to read the article about the planned Magic System before making suggestions in that direction.
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Re: Just a few ideas

Post by Nethack »

Okay, read. What about the crystals being some catalysers for the mana, which are what makes runes? B
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Hello=)
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Re: Just a few ideas

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As for me, proposed magic system looks strange enough. I'm about "Recharge bar instead of magic points" proposal on http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Magic_system.

In "classic" magic system designs all looks logical enough: if wizard has tired (no mana points left or very few points) it is obvious wizard can't cast anything except maybe simplest spells (for which still enough points left) and have to take some rest (to regenerate MPs). Then it is up to wizard how to use regained power. Obvious, simple and somehow evident and logically correct (if human or human-like creature tired, it can't do things right so spell fails and usual logic works fine, that's why magic systems designed in such ways). And classic system is very flexible (it is completely up to caster how to use his/her skills and that's good).

With proposed system playing as wizard will be a bit PITA due to lack of flexibility in selection of what to cast right now and over-complication of whole system. Right now I'm having fun with wizardry on eathena version. Though it lacks shortcuts, unfortunately, which makes real-time casting tricky, but at least it is up to me how to use my spellpower at any given point of time with only mana, pre-requisites and learned stuff as constraints. And I'm really enjoy my freedom of choice (from learned range) when playing as wizard (I'm mostly prefer strategies, but magic in RPGs seems to be pretty similar anyway).

All this recharge stuff will make things complex enough, non-obvious and somewhat inflexible (i.e. hard to cast arbitrary spells set at given point of time and may require annoying reconfiguration, etc), hence much less fun to deal with such magic system (why I should stick to ability to cast few pre-charged spells only?How this relates to nature of wizards?). Furthermore, it not looks logically correct. How can it be that wizard has tired to cast let's say, fireballs but still can invoke, say, lightnings? Weird enough, don't you think so? If wizard has tired, he has tired and can't cast any complicated spells at all, isn't it?

Btw, about "personalized" magic stuff - how about the following idea: you can have specific spellpower parameters associated with each spell? (or school of magic, or syllable, etc if there is too many parameters to track). So if you're training in striking lightning bolts rather than fireballs, it is obvious that you should be able to cast lightnings much beter than fireballs at the end of day (due to lack of competence in fireballs and good practice in lightning, huh so "fireballs" spellpower have be worse than "lightnings" one to reflect this fact). This could make wizards a bit more funny since each of them could be unique enough with their exact mix of these parameters (by focusing on some spells rather than on anothers, hence gaining spellpowers associated to these spells). So you can't have gross approximation of wizard's abilities by just learning one boring parameter (spellpower aka Magic Attack). So wizards could be much more interesting and require some level of personal attention and introduce some surprises, what corresponds to their nature well enough (they're always mysterious a bit and sometimes feared, not without reasons).

Why all this stuff? Simple: one could choose to become a "fire mage" or another could become a competent healer, etc - solely on wizard's own discretion. Of course actually it have to be some mix of all these, but one wizard will have much stronger fireballs and other will have much better healing, etc (so while there is no hardcoded classes, it is up to wizard to choose his path and abilities in which specific wizard will be best). Actually, people always willing to practice arts they're prefer and then they're getting true masters of these arts. I bet wizards are pretty same in this and may have certain preferences in spells and prefer to become great in some specific areas of magic arts while being quite average on other areas :)

Note: that's just ideas and I'm surely could be wrong here. Do not consider this as something offensive, etc.
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Crush
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Re: Just a few ideas

Post by Crush »

Why don't you give the new magic system a chance and wait until you can see how it works in practice before you judge it?
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Re: Just a few ideas

Post by Hello=) »

Crush wrote:Why don't you give the new magic system a chance and wait until you can see how it works in practice before you judge it?
You're somewhat right here - it should be at least quite interesting to try. So I did not told anywhere it should not exist. Nor I'm "judging" it. I only explained my worries. I'm unsure if I will like it. Here is why:

Idea with recharge-bars... well, it remembered me very old experience. It somehow resembles magic system from HMM to me (very first version of Heroes of Might and Magic from MS-DOS ages), adjusted to run in real-time rather than on step-by-step basis. Overall idea looks a bit similar to me. In very first HMM version user had limited count of each spell to cast rather than global mana points and spells have to be recharged separately. This was not flexible enough and had certain annoyances associated with it. But it was very first version so it's excusable. In HMM version 2 and later HMM turned to "classic" system with mana points. From my point of view, it actually has added more fun to gameplay (when you're playing as some kind of wizard) due to more flexibility in what to cast at given point of time (anything that fits mana points rather than something pre-defined) and removed artificial restrictions. And it looks logical enough, as I admitted in previous message.

However I have to admit your magic system haves interesting ideas as well, it will be interesting to try so do not consider this as some kind of offence. Just some worries of guy who prefers to have fun as wizard rather than as warlord.
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Re: Just a few ideas

Post by Enchilado! »

HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've only ever played II, but I remember playing it with my brother and a friend of his when I was about six, I totally LOVED it and I've played it a few times since then but not four three years now, my brother gave me his copy WHERE IS IT!? Great game! Also I recently tried Battle for Wesnoth for the first time, that's a great game too.
There's also this free, open-source MMORPG called The Mana World which I really like, it's 2-D but nice, simple and not over-done graphics (like Runescape, which tries to make itself realist and 3-D and just fails miserably) and there's cool monsters, magic and loads of slimes (?) it's just great and you can download it here (http://themanaworld.org/downloads.php) or view the forum here (http://forums.themanaworld.org/index.php) just try it, it's a great game.

~heroes!
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Re: Just a few ideas

Post by Crush »

HoMM is a turn-based strategy game. You can't apply your experience with it directly to a real-time role-playing game. But when you want to make a comparison with a game from a different genre which uses a similar magic system I would recommend you to take a look at Populous 3 (real-time strategy) where such a system works very well.
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Re: Just a few ideas

Post by Hello=) »

Crush wrote:HoMM is a turn-based strategy game. You can't apply your experience with it directly to a real-time role-playing game.
I know this. However, basic ideas behind magic systems are usually pretty same. Idea with mana points suitable for both real-time and step-by-step. And looks like you're going to prove same goes for separate recharge as well ;). Actually, major differences are only when spells are spent and recharged (time basis vs steps basis). Otherwise it's pretty similar. As for me, in this sense, real-time could be considered quite similar to step-by-step with an extra (and funny) constraint that all decisions have to be made in real time and bad timing may have bad consequences. Actually, such constraint adds fun and challenge and makes things more "realistic". As for me, it is a bit strange and a bit too synthetic if awful monster patiently awaits half of hour before you will discharge lightning to him before making his turn, this makes step by step games quite rough and synthetic models of battles while real-time games are more "realistic" :mrgreen: in this sense.

But about direct experience... I have ancient but funny example: real world battles are not a chess and were in real time. But I bet chess were invented as simplified strategic model of some ancient battles. So chess still have something to do with (real-time) battles and have something in common, even while being a very synthetic (and quite boring :mrgreen:) model totally centered on strategic aspects only. Step-by-step games are just same synthetic models with strategic inclination (step by step nature basically allows to concentrate on strategic aspect in absolute manner by removing real-time constraints). But it makes whole game a bit synthetic and unnatural as the result (in real world you HAVE to consider real time events, making decision in real time).

Step-by-step games hence just some quite synthetic models of some (fantasy, etc) worlds ... and this basically implies there should exist quite similar world where events are running in real-time :lol:.

P.S. this is still very rough comparison so do not blame it too much :wink:
But when you want to make a comparison with a game from a different genre which uses a similar magic system I would recommend you to take a look at Populous 3 (real-time strategy) where such a system works very well.
From first view (I'm was not aware of this game and never played it so I only managed to look on formal description and screen shots and reviews yet) this is quite strange game and I can't tell I like it (but that's quite inaccurate point of view due to mentioned facts).

From first look, I'm do not like neither it's UI, nor graphic and I can guess I probably will not have enough fun with gameplay in this game (but this could be inaccurate and I can miss some interesting stuff due to lack of proper gameplay experience). As for me, I'm would rather prefer to play TMW as it exists today on eAthena rather than play something like mentioned game (mentioned game looks too strange for me).

Well, but anyway, any real "judgement" can be only made when it's ready. Btw, are there any "draft" implementations of this magic system available today in TMW? It's completely ok for me to self-compile some git version of game, etc (and I can probably even manage to install own server for test run, though if there is running TMW test server exists it will save me a good amount of time). It is also completely ok it this half-working and even almost non-working "proof of concept" - I do know what WIP is and only want to get overall idea sense, not to judge anything, etc (maybe I'm really missing something funny). After all, you have created some screen shots with UI anyhow :mrgreen:.
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Re: Just a few ideas

Post by Hello=) »

Enchilado! wrote:HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[...]
There's also this free, open-source MMORPG called The Mana World which I really like, it's 2-D but nice, simple and not over-done graphics.
Enchilado
Well, to be honest, I hate HMM-V which has turned from 2D isometric-like projections (which were perfectly fine for such games) to true 3D. This 3D stuff had TURNED GAMEPLAY in HMM-V INTO A REAL NIGHTMARE. So there is great graphic. But after looking on it a day or so I abandoned this game forever and never played it again. It's no longer game I played for ages before. It's smth totally different. It probably should be just pre-rendered DVD movie, not a interactive game :mrgreen:. My favorite is HMM-IV where heroes are a bit more RPG-like (you can even have one or few heroes and nothing else as "army" and have some fun in "RPG-like" manner).

So, some things are really better in 2D. I'm generally DISLIKE 3D RPGs (just as I dislike HMM-V). Looks like I'm really preferring this cool 2D pixel art and 2D UIs and worlds with such kinds of games. it is easier to manage in 2D mode (hence more fun from gameplay - I'm going to fight with monsters rather than with UI and world navigation, etc :mrgreen:). And TMW is quite funny for me. I doubt I will be happy to play something similar implemented in 3D. If I will ever want 3D stuff, I would prefer something more simple like Nexuiz in CTF mode, sorry, that's where 3D truly rocks and perfectly suitable due to more simplistic nature of game rules, etc :mrgreen:).
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