[CF-Devel] new quetzal (dragon) race

[Peter Mardahl]

Hello,

  I don't see a compelling reason to modify the Quetzalcoatl instead
of creating another dragon player-race.  This is reverse-compatible
and extends the game rather than mutating it, and possibly
breaking someone's treasured characters.

  In terms of how to do it, I'd rather not see a lot of hard-wired
special purpose code having to do with dragons only implemented,
eg, when a DRAGON eats part of a FIRE ELEMENTAL'S RESIDUE, he
gains 5 points of fire immunity.  How about:  when a DRAGON sacrifices
a FIRE ELEMENTAL'S RESIDUE on a special altar of Ruggilli, the god
(via a player-changer) adds 5% to his intrinsic fire resistance.

The downside of this is that maps are required for a player's development.
The upside is that DRAGONs won't be a slew of special purpose code
written into the server.

You can keep the "eating" flavor by saying this:  the body parts have
to be prepared specially in order to confer any properties, and so
have to be brought in and dropped on an altar.  You can actually
take the sacrifice and produce an unliftable 'prepared' body part
which is actually a potion which grants the desired intrinsic, and
which must be eaten or destroyed on the spot in order for the player
to leave.

All the code you create to do it these ways could be reused in similar
ways for wraiths, or even advancement in priest levels, e.g., a priest
of Gaea being required to bring back an apple from the Tree of Life,
only to be told to eat it after it'd been "blessed", and gaining
some poison immunity that way, or some such.

PM


>
     
      I would like to realize an idea now that I had in mind for a
     
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      long time: Modifying the quetzal to be a special "dragon race",
     
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      which works different from all other races.
     
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      The major clou is that these dragon-players won't wear any
     
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      equipment, but "evolve" instead by eating flesh-items from
     
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      slain monsters. This adds a completely new way to play the game
     
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      without changing or complexifying existing stuff.
     
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      I'm already halfway done with the coding and would like
     
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      to ask if my idea is generally accepted.
     
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      Here's what I want to do:
     
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      The new quetzal cannot wear armour, nor weapons,
     
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      nor will it start with fire immunity.
     
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      But it makes up for it by "evolving":
     
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      Being dragons, they have a dragon skin which can evolve
     
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      to provide resistances. The quetzals must eat flesh-items
     
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      to gain resistance. The higher the resistance goes,
     
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      the higher must be both the player's level and the level
     
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      of the flesh-items to improve it further. The upper limit
     
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      is 95% resistance, which is of course hard to achieve.
     
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      At any time, the quetzal is specialized in one certain
     
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      attacktype (fire, cold, etc). Gaining levels, the player advances
     
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      in this speciality. He can achieve higher stages of evolution
     
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      where he gains new abilities or spells.
     
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      However, new ability levels can only be achieved by surpassing
     
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      the maximum level. If the player falls back due to dying,
     
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      he must catch up before gaining additional stuff.
     
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      In this way, the quetzal must plan it's character development,
     
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      as there are "only" 110 levels to go.
     
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      The attacktype-focus can be changed by eating special
     
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      flesh items ("ancient elemental residues"). These will be
     
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      available in shops.
     
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      Special attacktypes (paralyze, confuse, drain, etc) are not
     
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      included in the dragon-skin feature, as they are close to useless
     
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      at less than 100% resistance.
     
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      I plan to eventually hand out such special immunities for Q's in
     
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      form of flesh-artifacts.
     
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      Old quetzal players will not be affected by the changes.
     
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      -------------------------
     
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      Andreas
     
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