non linear character creation

[kalus]

One of my beefs with MajorMud is the lack of the users role in character development.  For example take two level 60 warriors one played by a complete n00b and one by an expert and they will essentially be exactly the same.

Take any modern day MMORG and they have a very complex spell/skill tree that can make two level 60 warriors totally different chars.  You have to plan out which skills you want, save up skill points if necessary to beef up a high level skill to make your char more powerful later on... that sort of thing.  I'd love to see this incorporated into mud somehow. 

[Ice_Hole]

Yer mom is also very complex.  Sometimes she likes it in the butt, and others, well others I will let you find out.

As fot complex trees's on warriors, this is pointless.  Why bring up warriors?  Warriors are pointless, they have no real function.  But if you were to say mage, priest, druid, etc.  Then maybe it would hold some water.  A priest may have to choose between a bad arse heal spell (lets say good aligned), or a bad arse bless spell.  This is currently integrated into mud.  You have sacred bastion as good, or hellfire shield as evil.  Both are not created equal.  On the flip side, evil gets prfl and unfa.  Both great belesses.  Good gets nity and dcor, good blesses but both lacking.  This would be the way to integrate this.  And mud has actually done that.  Not at the lower lvls (Only sith priest with unho/prgd, and aura/prev.  Evil's protection spells are pointless other than to 10 spell, and their are very few places to use them.  Good on the other hand, is pretty well set, and the extra 20 ac comes in useful all over the place.  The trick would be to integrate this into other classes.  Which also had been done.  Although it was done at lvl 50 with the 5th quest spells, as opposed to early on in the game.  Evil druid gets damage, neitral gets mana regen, good gets healing.  (But I drunk right now, I might have thoes mixed up).  I guess if your suggestion is to integrate that earlier than 5th quest, then I guess it works, but is not really a new idea.  If your idea is to integrate a choice between spells every few lvls, then that may work.  Say integrate a quest with multiple rewards, each based on different actions taken during these quests.  The problem with that is that eventually, everyone will decide one is worth more than the other, and the other oiptions never get done.

As far as this mud is conserned, how many idiots do you think will be playing it?  I would not think too many.  Their are a lot of stats junkies, who do nothing but go for the best stats, forget anything else.  With most mmorpg's, it is a shot in the dark.  You know basically what you are chooseing from, but have no way to be certain what the outcome would be.

BTW, Lineage 2 sucks.

Here's to beer.

- Ice_Hole

[kalus]

Warriors were just an example.? To use this example a warrior may choose to pump most of his skill points into swords.? Along the sword tree somewhere there is a skill for double strike.? A warrior who picks a spear tree wont have access to this double strike ability, unless they invest some skill points in the sword tree in order to gain it.? But is it worth it? These are the sorts of things I want to see in mud.

Take druids as a better example.? Give them elemental trees.? Make the spells in each tree complement each other so that a druid who goes all out on the fire tree may be able to deal more damage but has less defense, healing etc than a druid who speads his skills equaly over many trees.?

Alignment doesn't do enough to change a character maybe with the exception of priests, but even then a level 50 evil priest is still the same as another level 50 evil priest.

With most mmorpg's, it is a shot in the dark.? You know basically what you are chooseing from, but have no way to be certain what the outcome would be.

This is EXACTLY what I want.? You do not know how your character is going to pan out.? It could be a complete bust or it could be an absolute monster, either way its up to you.

[DeathCow]

Ok for your future posting plans everyone on this forum is an adult that is posting for the same purpose.  To make a better game.  Since there is almost no person to person arguement, there isn't any reason for personal conflicts to occur.  I know you were drunk while posting your post, but try to not attack other people.  Everyone has equal right to have an comment.  Reguardless of your thoughts on that comment your responce should be based on constructive criticism rather than general insult.  In the future please try to make drunk responces to the point. Comments like

Yer mom is also very complex.  Sometimes she likes it in the butt, and others, well others I will let you find out.

Do not tend toward progress.  Since I assume you are here for progress, I'd guess you'll understand when your sobber.

I don't want to have to make rules, but I'd assume that in general, so long as you are responding to an idea thread everyone will keep in mind that people are building on general concepts, and want either constructive criticism as a responce or an arguement in opposition.

<I've been drinking too...so don't mind the verbose response there>

I intend for characters to have lots of possibilites during their growth.  I haven't thought out ideads for every class.  But lets say your a mage.  Mages will no longer get their spells simply for being a mage.  Every mage will have an alignment of some kind.  And each mage alignment will have several schools of magic to choose from.  So there will be dozens of unique characteristics for high level mages.  Personally I think its bad to create a game to cater to elite players.  I think that elite players should have to find the 'power user' type abilities on their own.  Without the creators to have to think about it.   The only time I want to have to address elite users if is I have a gross over sight which leads to insanely over powered characters.  Elite users will become elite on their own.  I don't think I need to do anything to help them.

Saying that, I want to make it clear that every class will have dozens of things they can do.  And Also its not going to be as clear as it is in majormud as to which race makes the most powerful-x.  Customization is important.  Uniqueness is a virtue.  Everybody should have a character that has abilities they are proud of and enjoy useing.  Thats what I aim for.

[Valentine]

Aw that speech kinda brought a tear to my eye? :'(...or maybe that's just the fact that I'm bartending today...after 2.5 hrs of sleep.

...this conversation lead me into thoughts of multi-classing....any strong feelings about that before I jump into a 5 paragraph post? It seems a fairly easy way of adding another layer of customisability (is that a word?) to characters.

[Bong]

The infamous remort topic. I'm interested in this response as well, before I post anything about it.

[DeathCow]

If i could think of a way to make multiclassing fair I'd put it in.  But for the most part there are already classes that are hybrids, missionaries are priest/theif combos, gypies are mage/theif combos, warlocks are mage/warrior...its pretty much covered by hybrid classes.


Class change quests start around level 60.  I don't know that I'm interested in making character restart at level 1 though.

[Ice_Hole]

I don't think that the yer mom comment was really directed at anyone.  I am sorry for it, expecially if somone took offence for it.

As for my criticzm of the actual idea.  I was drunk and rambling.  My point was, their is allready similar specilization built into the game.  Most notible with priests.  Then with spell casters that have 5th quested.

Maybe a way to integrate this into the game is have a few different spell quests.  All right around the same level.  Then make the character choose between one of these quests.  The mage can either get a massive room spell, some sort of mage healing, or a super sweet party bless (Similar to dcor/unfa).  The character would only get one of these.  Then maybe 10 lvls later, they could get another flag that allows them to redo these quest (Minus the one allready completed), and gain another abaility.  You could also use this to take care of the max stats problem.  Allow characters to spend their CP on quests, and removeing quest flags.  Or even a qest to add to your max obtainable strength, int, will, etc.

And again, didn't mean to be negative. 

- Ice_Hole

[DeathCow]

Don't worry about it.  I'm sure I've psoted <hehe> worse.

[Ice_Hole]

Don't worry about it.? I'm sure I've psoted <hehe> worse.

We ALL have.  I thaught I was pretty nice in the post.  Although it wasn't all that nice for conveying an opinion.

- Ice_Hole

[kalus]

Its not like this is my idea, every MMORG thats worth a damn uses it.? MUD should specialise in character development because its a text game.. what else is there to do other than build your character.

Giving a class different spells based on alignment is not what i call customisable character creation.

[DeathCow]

Skill trees are common in MMORPGS, but to me it always seemed like they were there as a means of laziness.  In daoc for example you wouldn't get alota new powers, instead one of your old ones just became more powerful.  To me that seemed like they just didn't want to deal with making new powers.  Of course daoc was just plan an aweful game. 

Ok lets say your an evil mage.  Through out the same there will be various mage-3 spells.  Some mage-3 spells will be limited to evil players.  Others of these mage-3 spells will be limited by what school of magic your mage belongs to.  Within your school of magic you'll have a limited amount of spells you can learn.  Some spells might require that you know certain spells, or even that you've gained 'x' knowledge on what ever quest.

This is a text based game, and since I want to to feel like majormud, there is a limit to what I can do.  Simply because of the interface.  But the anything that can be choosen through quests, and npc interaction I have no problem working with.

[Bong]

Class change quests start around level 60.  I don't know that I'm interested in making character restart at level 1 though.

Does this mean I can make a h-orc thief, and then at 60 (if I can), do the quest and switch to a paladin? Or is this more of a "choose your path" type of quest, where I can either go stealth thief or combat thief?

[DeathCow]

Its simply an upgraded version of your class.  Prestige classing if you will.

[Bong]

Oooooh, go oldschool Final Fantasy and make it require a rat tail!

Dibs on Black Belt!!