On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 14:38:55 -0800<br>
Mark Wedel <<a href="mailto:mwedel@sonic.net">mwedel@sonic.net</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
> the current method of 'press keys to swap stats', 'press spacebar to cycle <br>
> through classes', 'move your now created character to choose a class', and then <br>
> heading to the nexus are all a little hokey.<br>
<br>
(Here is my char creation draft, another of my series, if someone thinks I should<br>
gather all the drafts I wrote on the wiki, say me, so they are all near, instead that<br>
sparse on the list)<br>
<br>
Me and lalo did lot of discussion about that, and we ended up with a design<br>
to still use in-game creation system (that I personally do not like, but many seem<br>
to like it in cf comunity) withotu sacrifing flexibility.<br>
Lalo created different rooms for class selection each with a different wall and<br>
decoration layout based in yoru race. Those rooms can miss the<br>
conflicting/owerpowered race/class combos too.<br>
(many rooms are allready created, work just need to be finished)<br>
<br>
Race selection is done in another room before this one, with each path that has<br>
a decoration that matches the one used in the class selection.<br>
Each "way to a race" has a magic mouth that tells you the stat mods, so the<br>
player has just to step on it to read the description of that race.<br>
<br>
The player starts in the race selection room as a new arch named something<br>
like "life force" (or energy).<br>
<br>
Note:<br>
A nice romantic notice on ghostish races should be something like "life force<br>
sacrifice and converts to a death force"<br>
<br>
After that, each race receive a cerain ammount of tokens (non dropable inventory<br>
item) to spend on skills. Each class is teleported in a different room with many paths,<br>
each path rapresent a skill, at the path start you get a magic mouth that explain you the<br>
use of the skill and what you will be able to do with it.<br>
Each skill cost a different amount of tokens, based on class (room is per class as said<br>
above), then the player chooses one skill stepping on the teleporter at the end of the<br>
path, if he still has tokens he get the skill and then is teleported back in the room to<br>
choose another skill.<br>
There is a special teleporter that bring you to startgin point directly, converting all your<br>
tokens in money (like 500gp per token), this is for players that prefer having no skills,<br>
but more startign money.<br>
Notice that only common skills are here, skills for casting are not supposed to be bougth<br>
in this room, this is for "professional" skills like smithing, woodsman, mountanering and<br>
so on<br>
<br>
It woudl be fair for the avarae skill to cost 2 tokens, with less improtant skills costing<br>
1 token and complex skills costing 3 tokens (like smithing).<br>
<br>
This is the basic common for all classes.<br>
<br>
Casters classes will do one more step and go in a room with many paths where they can<br>
use their "magic study tokens" (or "devotion tokens" if churches become like magic<br>
schools) to acquire different caster skills like piromacy, sorcery...<br>
<br>
The number of "magic study tokens" you get is based on the class, class that "studied<br>
magic obsessiverly" get 3 tokens, so he can get 3 magic schools, intermediate magic<br>
user get 2 tokens, and basic magic user gets 1 token.<br>
<br>
Special races get in a room with "race tokens" (each special rage get 1) where they<br>
can buy race skills, like dwarfs can buy for just one token smithering or jewlercrafting<br>
as starting skill. Fireborns can buy piromacy, elves can buy woodsman.<br>
Or again they can convert those tokens to money takeing the exit.<br>
<br>
I think that's all, code changes requided should be minimal, but since I am on the<br>
side of plugininzation I add that there is a way to make map changes minimal too.<br>
<br>
If random map generation becomes plugin, you can just add a layout that is "char<br>
creation room layout" that automatically generates the path rooms, given a list<br>
of skills that need a path wtih the skill token cost, the name of the token items.<br>
Then the teleporters will have all the same token checking algo. So those maps are<br>
dynamic and generated only when a player step in, this is cause this model has many<br>
maps and keeping them all loaded allways sound terible. Morover keeping them in sync<br>
with game engine is sad too, cause we want to be able to add new skills.<br>
Generating the map on the fly solve both issures cause if you want to add a skill to a<br>
class you just have to edit the class generation file (where the plugin read the<br>
configuration) and you are done.<br>
<br>
This extra plugin idea adds more code now, but reduce the ammount of mapper work<br>
needed (considering that we have few mappers and bad mapping tools, it sound good<br>
to me). Morover it nearly zeros the ammount of mapper work requided in the future in<br>
case of skill change, and personally, thinking about mantainability, this is the only way<br>
to have a char generation that can be keep in sync with the engine.<br>
<br>
Notive that since the plugins is dynamic, each server can configure char generation, so<br>
a server that do not want to allow smithing as a starting skill for example, can jsut remove<br>
it from the list in teh configuration file of the plugin.<br>
<br>
Char generation merely becomes a plugin, that is lovely, someone could just create a new<br>
in-game class generation system this way.<br>
<br>
Ok, it's allready enougth long.<br>
<br>
Hope you like this, I really love this idea :)<br>
<br>
Salutes,<br>
Gabriele Dini Ciacci<br>
<br>
----------- <br>
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