Additional Info when looking at items

[Oaco]

I apologize if this has been posted already - I'm a little short on time and wanted to get this out there.

One of the biggest draw backs when I was a new MMUD player was that actual statistical information on items was unavailable in game.  If I wanted to know how much damage a longsword does I had to either buy and try or go to a website to find the information.  Same thing goes for armor etc etc -

Is it possible and easy enough to implement a feature that when you "look longsword" it would give a description of what it looks like as well as some basic statistics on the weapon.  Damage, speed, and special modifiers/abilities, weight.

Another thing that was frustrating were all the items that say "You may not use this" -- I want to know why I can't use it.  Is it my class, level, alignment -- tell me what those restrictions are.

[The Crazy Animal]

I wouldn't mind seeing something like this get put in if it was in the form of a lore skill set.

Armour lore
Weapon lore
Magic lore
Alignment lore
Monster lore
and so on...

Depending on your knowledge rating you then get more info and more accuracy in the info.

Lore could then be learned from reading books and scrolls and via level brackets. Default lore values could even be given to each class in varing amounts.

[Jigga]

Instead of bard's silly detect magic, perhaps they could do that.

Or even have an NPC in the game that you bring an item to and for a price will tell you the stats on it.


Though the only thing about this, it will soon go obsolete because someone will just make a database/website with all the stats anyways.


I think a hard thing to do (and i know this gets brought up often) is create things so players can't 'play the code'

[DeathCow]

For the most part, at least I feel this way, item, monster, spell, databases should be open to the public.  Map databases however need to be kept out of public view until well after any map update.

[The Crazy Animal]

It could become obsolete if the info gets published but if there are ways to get the info in game the need for those types of spoiler sites is also decreased. I bring up the issue of playing the code alot but I understand there is a need to know some of the game info too.

Some of it like say monster lore could also have other effects... for example you get giant spider lore and gain a small amount of extra protection from that monster. As well as learn about their attacks, hp, charmability and stuff like that...

So I can see other methods of using this in addition to providing the info.

[DeathCow]

The best I can see Monster Lore doing it providing you with the monsters current Ac/dr and current hp.

[The Crazy Animal]

The best I can see Monster Lore doing it providing you with the monsters current Ac/dr and current hp.

That really depends on how we treat their stats and attacks later in the development of the game... Currently mobs are not built like players but there's no reason they shouldn't be. i.e could have full stats, full eq... Even with out that though it wouldn't be hard to think of a behavior profile and additional info for them in terms of stats like aggressiveness (chase chance), charm resistance, AC/DR, Special attacks, HP, Magic res, drop lists, special resists... Alot of it though does depend on how detail rich the content is made to be.

The same type of bonuses could be attributed to weapon types like a small bonuses in defence or offence for or against leather armour or 2h-handed weapons or even magic type or cirlce of magic...I.e knowledge lore as a means of specialization. If we go the direction of more texualy verbose attacks knowledge of an armour type could even play out as far as where you land your strikes. I.e landing more strikes on joint locations on plate armour might do more damage then landing them anywhere else...