[CF-Devel] Equipment musings

[Mark Wedel]

Tim Rightnour wrote:
>
     
      On 14-Jul-02 Mark Wedel wrote:
     
     >
     
     
     >>
     
       When I wrote the code, I envisioned just not giving body parts to creates
     
     >>
     
     that 
     
     >>
     
     don't have them, and not using force (or other objects) to use them up.
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
      Well.. thats kind of my point.. dragons *do* have arms, if you want to be
     
     >
     
      technical, they just don't have good articulate hands to hold things, thats why
     
     >
     
      I suggested the claws.
     
     
  True.

>
     
     
     >
     
      It's probably a bit late to be coming up with alternate ways of doing this..
     
     >
     
      but I'm just trying to keep our options open in the future.  The reality is
     
     >
     
      that if something relatively close is available, someone is going to use it for
     
     >
     
      an unintended feature.  
     
     
  Note the number of arms, legs, whatever is inherited from the archetype.  So 
it is a trivial enough matter to add something like this to the dragon player 
archetype:

dragon_arms 2
dragon_foot 2
dragon_torso 1
dragon_head 1

  And add a few lines of code to the server to support that.  It would all work 
as expected.  But if there are no items that use those locations, there really 
isn't much point.

  I really only put in body locations that currently have equipment that will 
use them.  I didn't see much point to adding all possible locations when they 
are not going to be used - especially since it is quite simple to add new ones 
as they are used.  There are currently a very large number of monsters without 
any body information

  Even as things are now, I can think of several refinements:

1) Modify karate arch so that it uses both arms, and maybe also the torso - 
basically meaning you can only use karate if your not using armor or weapons.
2) some weapons can be made two handed.  Items like bonecrusher come to mind as 
good two handed weapons.  For really good artifacts, this can be used as an 
additional way to balance it (really good weapon, but can't use a shield with it).
3) Other skill archs can perhaps be made to use more body parts.  meditation for 
example could be changed similar to karate - no weapons, armor, helmets.


>
     
     
     >
     
      The critical hits thing was mostly an example of why I don't like the idea of
     
     >
     
      a hack like "dragons have no arms and no legs because we don't want them
     
     >
     
      wearing boots".  Quite honestly.. I have no intention of ever inflicting
     
     >
     
      critical hits on the server.. I think they are hideously unbalancing, and take
     
     >
     
      millions of manhours to balance (without making them lame).
     
     
  Well, in the initial design, there were two ideas - have the body locations be 
descriptive of actual body locations (eg, head, arm, fingers, etc), or have it 
descriptive of what it allows you to wear (body_armor, body_ring, body_bracer). 
  Either way, the functionality I envisioned was going to be the same.

  So what I'm perhaps saying is that the current body information should not be 
seen as a way to represent the form of the character in terms of arms, legs, 
heads, whatever.  It should only really be taken for what it was designed to be 
- controlling what can and can not be equipped.  If I had taken the second 
naming scheme, I have a feeling we wouldn't be having this discussion much, as 
from that naming scheme it would have been clearer that the descriptions were 
functional, and not something to use to judge the actual body a creature has.