[CF-Devel] A brief introduction, and some thoughts

[Tim Rightnour]

Hi!

Before I started just spewing wish lists onto your list, I thought I'd
introduce myself briefly.  I'm a long-time player of crossfire, on and off,
since about 93.  I am an avid AD&D and nethack/moria player, and used to be one
of the primary programmers for GENERIC diku mud.  I am also an offical
developer for the NetBSD OS.

Now, for some of my thoughts about crossfire.  I have a separate proposal that
I'm going to send after this message with some concrete stuff I'd like to write
up a patch for.

1) Lythander sucks.  You get stealth, luck (useless, more on that later), and
attuned to missiles (nearly useless), and some other minor things.  In return,
you get a -40 to Acid and Poison.  -40 to poison is really bad, as alot of low
level maps have scorpions and spiders, which are basically instant death.

2) Anyone can worship any god.  A troll can worship lythander, an elf Gnarg,
etc etc.  I don't think we should restrict it completely, but there should be
some racial restrictions on what you can worship.  A human worshipping an elven
god is just plain bizzare.  (an elf wannabe?)

3) Weapon types.  Earlier someone on the archives had brought up the idea of
classifying weapons, such as bludgeoning, slashing, etc.  I think that is a
really good idea, and one I programmed into my mud.  Some benefits that we used:

a) When I attack with a dagger, and do lots of damage, it says "you smash the
troll"  How exactly did I "smash" him with a dagger?  We can have specific
messages for different weapon types, a knife might stab, dagger pierce, sword
slash, rapier slice, hammer crush, etc etc.

b) The above could be extended to attack types.  When I attack with fire, I
should singe, burn, ravage.  Acid might burn or sizzle.  This adds flavor to
the game.  You don't simply hit the monster, now you are clawing him, or
stinging him, or he is doing that to you!  It's not all hit/miss, it adds
character to the fight.

c) Certain monsters can be immune to certain weapon types.  A pudding might
divide when you slash it, but not crush.  A dragon might not care if you stab
it.  A monster might also take more damage from a certain weapon type, like a
slash might be really dangerous to a soft bodied kobold.  (stabs might suck for
beholders)

d) Classes can have weapon type restrictions.  Priests can't wield rapiers,
they get crushing/bludgeoning weapons.  Thieves can't carry warhammers, knights
don't use knives.

e) You can use weapon type as a skill.  (this is something I implemented on my
mud)  Every class/race starts out with an innate skill in N weapon types.  For
example, a quez might be *really* good at clawing, but not as good at
swordsmanship.  (looking at how skills are done, this might be difficult to
implement)  This means a thief could learn to use a hammer, but would have to
slowly work himself up to it.

4) More skills, more uses for them.  Some of the skills are nice, but generally
not useful.  Take karate.  If I've learned karate, maybe every now and then I
might kick the monster while fighting.  Maybe thieves making an initial attack
against a peaceful monster might have a random chance of a backstab ocurring,
doing extra damage in the first hit (if you were hiding, perhaps you could
backstab an aggro monster).

Maybe divide missile weapons into bows and crossbows.  Just because I'm good at
one doesn't mean I'm good at the other.  Add more missile weapons, like slings.

Perhaps new fighting styles, like judo, where I might throw an opponent a few
squares away, or stun him temporarily.  Perhaps punching could randomly KO a
monster, and put him to sleep.

Maybe a warrior skill that lets me fight with two swords, or a thief skill that
lets me fight blind with no penalties, or an evasion skill that lets me evade
attacks better when I'm not fighting back.

5) Emotions.  On the mud we had emotions, that players could use to convey
thoughts to eachother.  I might nod my head, or sneer at another player, or
slap him for a challenge.  These are little things, but they make the
multiplayer interactivity more interesting.  It can add an emotional attachment
to the game, where other players actually interact with eachother, instead of
just teaming up and killing madly.


Just some thoughts.  I'd be interested to hear feedback on some of this stuff. 
Alot (not all) of it I can produce some amount of code for, if it's something
desireable.

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