Re: CF: Fwd: Race & Skills

[Mark Wedel <mwedel@scruznet.com>]

David Andrew Michael Noelle wrote:
> > From: John Cater <john_cater@yahoo.com>
> > Human, Elf, Dwarf, Orc, Undead, Demon, Elemental, Dragon.
> >
> > With perhaps mixes allowed:
> > Half-Elf, Half-Orc (others?)
> 
> Don't forget Ogre.  As I recall, that was one of the most popular
> requested additions in the previous discussion.

 Probably don't really need the half races much.  Otherwise, you get a case
where the races are not that much different - presuming the half races are
roughly an average of the real race and humans, you might get something like a
+1 or -1 here and there?  Not that big a deal.


> I would suggest that a voting booth be set up for such issues, where
> players and developers and other interested parties can register their
> preferences and suggestions on a web page, where the results can be
> clearly displayed.  That would be much easier to keep track of than
> the mailing list for issues like races, guilds, and classes.

 Votes are only useful to the extent that the options are something that are
doable and something that the developers are willing to do.

 That is not to say that any of the proposals do not fall into that category,
but just a note.


> Really?  I didn't think anyone but me even remembered that.  I still
> have all the code, but I stopped playing with it when it became
> unclear how exactly the "return address" should be set.  There are
> quite a few situations in which you might pray at an altar that you
> would not want Word of Recall to return you to.  And there are a
> number of altars in places that should not be magically accessible.
> 
> I could turn that code into a seperate spell, for testing purposes at
> least, and maybe altars in temples could be specifically assigned the
> ability to cast that spell.  Or maybe special "Altars of
> Teleportation" could be installed in appropriate places.  The main
> problem with this alteration of the Word of Recall spell is the same
> as with the Portal spell - controlling the destination without making
> the spell useless.

 Agree.  It gets a problem, because if you do the 'opt in' method where the
altars need to be specifically set to allow recall to, the number of places you
can go to is limited.

 OTOH, if altars have to be set not to allow that, you then get lots of altars
that are in bad places.

 One thing this may bring up as a more general concept is extending map
attributes.

 there are certainly some/many global attributes that should be setable on the
maps.  One of those things is whether that map can be recalled to.  That would
then reduce it from updating all that altars/whatever to just update the top
level map attributes.


> Theoretically, in a classless system, this might work, but seperating
> class from race will not necessarily make Crossfire classless.  Also,
> I suspect that under this system, we would never see thieves or
> low-level mages at all.  Have you ever had a character with more
> Agility experience than any other category?  Have you ever had a
> low-level mage who didn't end up with more Physical experience than
> Magical, just from trying to stay alive long enough to cast the next
> spell?

 Note also that some form of class (or statement of desired class) is just
needed to determine what starting equipment is needed.  That mage needs to start
with spellbooks, as there is no way he could otherwise afford to buy them.

> 
> If a character has approximately equal levels in Physical, Magical,
> and Wisdom experience, would their title keep switching between
> categories, or would some unreasonably complicated formula determine
> which categories are and are not relevant and come up with a title
> like "Warrior/Magician/Priest"?

 If such a classless system is adopted, I don't even see a reason why the title
needs to change.  Just call the character 'mark the human' or whatever, and
forget the class.
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