[CF-Devel] Paralyze

[Tim Rightnour]

On 21-Nov-01 Michael Toennies wrote:
>
     
      That makes it impossible to remove paralyze - thats the reason why there is
     
     >
     
      no "remove paralyze"
     
     >
     
      in the game - the server never knows why the speed is decreased . It can be
     
     >
     
      paralyze but also a
     
     >
     
      different effect.
     
     
In my wholly honest opinion, it should be impossible for a player to be
paralized.  Using my mud as an example again, we had to remove the ability to
paralize players for a number of reasons:

1)  It's not *fun* to be paralized.  You are stuck, can't do squat, you just
get to witness your own death and feel helpless about it.  Death sucks, but
unavoidable death sucks alot worse, and leaves a lasting anger in the player.

2)  It really becomes a problem when lots of players are around, some people
aren't nice, and would paralize newbies to just be mean.

3)  Players who have never had it happen got confused, and thought the server
blew up, or the network died on them, and would disconnect.

4)  The worst case, is usually, player gets paralized, and the doorbell rings. 
this is almost allways a complete lose for the player.  You have no way to save
your game, or get out of wherever you are.. you are just stuck, and it sucks. 
Add to that the ability in crossfire to die, and then re-die over and over to
starvation, and things get pretty bleak.  (Thats a different issue, which I do
plan on solving soon)

In my experience, it is a very cool spell, and provided a very realistic and
cool experience, but the negative aspects of it were so bad, that it was
driving players away.  Nothing is more frustrating to a player than dieing in a
situation like that.  More often than not, players that were bitten by it, fell
into the "quit for good" category.

Basically on the mud this was solved by making the spell non-functional against
players, so you could still paralize monsters.  In addition, we implemented a
"hold person" spell.  The hold person spell had the same effect as being
braced, but being unable to shut it off.  A player affected by that could
recall away, and then wait it out.

---
Tim Rightnour <
     
     root at garbled.net
     
     >
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