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Post by nawglan on Oct 30, 2008 22:32:05 GMT -5
No, they attack with fire damage of -3. Just need to allow P, WWP, WPP, etc. to block that dmg. I'll add that to the blocks list for spells. So there will be a difference between attack fire damage and spell fire damage? What if I want to create a spell that deals 2 cold damage and 2 fire damage? You can. That's why I said each spell has an affect LIST... But monsters just have a single attack type. They are monsters after all.
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Post by xade on Oct 30, 2008 22:41:04 GMT -5
*blush*... missed that bit... um... can monsters attacks be linked through to effects? Say I want an ogre, who instead of causing damage, causes maladroit. But because the type is Physical (instead of magical), it can be blocked by a P...
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Post by Wider, adepte of evil forces on Oct 30, 2008 23:54:55 GMT -5
My big idea for Warlocks was the concept of classes...four, probably, who would each use different roads to victory. I had the idea for a Healer, Invoker, Shaman, and Summoner. I think Warlocks already has a class. Namely the elementarist (or are these two classes?). But that is not a class you decide on before the game, but within the game by making yourself resistant. Casting resistance gives you no direct advantage but leverage on other spells. I always head the idea of giving the warlocks more health, and adding some more indirect spells, so one could develop in one direction or another during a fight. E.g. there could be a (not to short) enchantment which makes all of your summoned monsters one level better (SFW will summon ogres and WFPSFW titans). As most players have one or another playing style this would make some warlocks to summoners and others to time traveller or elementarists or chaotic evil servants of great cthulhu.
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taliesin
Ronin Warlock
Grand Master
Posts: 156
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Post by taliesin on Oct 31, 2008 6:08:01 GMT -5
I think Warlocks already has a class. Namely the elementarist (or are these two classes?). But that is not a class you decide on before the game, but within the game by making yourself resistant. Casting resistance gives you no direct advantage but leverage on other spells. Not quite the same thing. You can have both resistances, after all, and this is something most aim for during melee. Of course, in duel, "resistance is useless!" as my old line ran... I always head the idea of giving the warlocks more health, and adding some more indirect spells, so one could develop in one direction or another during a fight. E.g. there could be a (not to short) enchantment which makes all of your summoned monsters one level better (SFW will summon ogres and WFPSFW titans). This would be a tricky balancing act. Some, like resistance, would likely be worthless in the duel context. Others would be perhaps too good. That monster enchantment would need to be pretty crippling to cast, because that's a really significantly unbalancing effect. As most players have one or another playing style this would make some warlocks to summoners and others to time traveller or elementarists or chaotic evil servants of great cthulhu. You'd have the same issue as resistances, though, in it not being a class system; why cast one long-term beneficial enchantment when you could cast several? In practice, you'd cast the most generally useful one, then the next most, etc. Despite the Shadow's prehistoric description of different play styles, in practice most top players are highly pragmatic about the spells they cast to get the job done and value spells in fairly similar ways. There are differences; I'm more likely to fork into an exotic FoD variation from certain situations, and less likely to apply a ParaFoD than many of my fellow warlocks, for instance, and there is generally something of an aesthetic distaste for paralysis-heavy games among the older school of Warlocks players, but mostly we tend to have similar views on the desirability of monsters vs direct damage vs disruption vs defence.
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taliesin
Ronin Warlock
Grand Master
Posts: 156
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Post by taliesin on Oct 31, 2008 6:12:25 GMT -5
Oh, and nawglan, I would strongly suggest that a "custom spellbooks" project use different gestures than Warlocks. You don't want to retrain the bit of your brain that looks at this: DP PS and goes: "hmm, Amnesia next turn, and Charm/Ogre in two" into seeing that spellflow in terms of a bunch of custom spells. You'll get many more contributors to such a side project if it's not messing up people's ability to play Warlocks as it exists...
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Post by ExDeath on Oct 31, 2008 6:52:29 GMT -5
I'm going to assume, ExDeath, that you're talking about what's primarily a testing framework for new spells and new spellbooks. On that basis it sounds reasonable. I think everyone else is assuming that you're talking about a framework for players to use once the game is up and running. Now, of course it would be crazy to let people write their own spellbooks for the game outside those produced by the designers, of course, much as it would get absurd if you handed an experienced Magic player a bunch of cards and told them they could write the effects they desired on them. That's a much, much bigger issue than them passing back nonsense to the server; creating a one-gesture FoD trumps lying about gestures big time. What you're implying (the ability to create abusable spells) is possible with xade's idea anyway. All I'm suggesting is that a scripting language be created to give the users even more freedom. Really, I don't want to rely on the inactive server admin some years down the line when I want to create my own spell and have it approved. Look at the situation now, we are bursting with ideas to replace Para and we have no truly good way to test them. This freedom is not abusable because both players are going to start with the exact same spells; they have to, or else it's ridiculous. Furthermore, rated matches would all use the core rules, what we're discussing is essentially for VF variants. If nawglan wanted to play his insta-gib variant he could just set the > in his spellbook to do 100 damage and send the challenge, what's wrong with that?
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taliesin
Ronin Warlock
Grand Master
Posts: 156
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Post by taliesin on Oct 31, 2008 11:20:44 GMT -5
This freedom is not abusable because both players are going to start with the exact same spells; they have to, or else it's ridiculous. Ah, I thought you were still on the different classes/different custom spellbooks facing off against one another idea. In the case you're speaking of, no, client-side scripting is not the way to go; or rather, I think we have a confusion of terms. What you really want is the ability for clients to upload new rulesets and new spell implementations to the server - this is an uploaded server-side script, not a client-side script. You definitely do not want the actual validation of the spellflow to be done client-side, or you will open yourself to exploits. This is what xade's protesting about.
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Post by ExDeath on Oct 31, 2008 11:33:24 GMT -5
Ah, I see, I misspoke then. Yes, what I'm talking about is using SQL to create a spell database on the server and allowing users to point to that database in their spells, which are also added to said database. None of the functions actually run client-side, although it still might be possible for people who don't know how to script to accidentally crash the server, so I thought that's what the concern was about.
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Post by nawglan on Oct 31, 2008 13:04:51 GMT -5
I might allow spell effect generation but not sure how to enable it. Such that someone may submit a (lua or some other scripting language that has been sufficiently locked down) script and the server would parse it and store it for use.
I feel safer having a development team that would be able to code up the effects on a test server and then bring them over to the live server. I don't plan on being the sole developer for this project.
I plan on releasing my code under GPL or possibly BSD license. I'm also trying to develop it in such a way that the server would be easy to port to a different OS (mac, windows). Current development is on Linux.
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Post by vilhazarog on Nov 3, 2008 13:16:02 GMT -5
Hey ExDeath,
What you're proposing is actually very tricky. If you let anyone just upload any script and ran them, even if you had no security holes in your scripting environment, they could still kill the server with a simple infinite loop. So you'd have to execute the scripts in special threads that your server monitors and kills if execution takes too long.
Also, a 'rules engine' that was infinitely customizable is no small feat either. First lets just consider gathering input. You'd have to have some way of allowing new spells to collect input from the user. Spells like para, charm, perm, etc, all have bonus UI features, and new spells would want the ability to throw up their own combo boxes/radio buttons/check boxes/text inputs, what have you. And then you'd have to store that info in permanent storage, so simple table column database isn't going to cut it, you'd have to store in some sort of dynamic blob that each spell would pull all the info and parse out the stuff it cared about. Again, this is not impossible, but much more complicated than your basic web app.
To reach the point of allowing any new spell to override any particular rule you reach the point where a spell writer can replace the rules engine with their own rules. So now you've reached the point where you've written something that allows people to upload their own *games* that may not even resemble Warlocks/Waving Hands. A very cool achievement! Unless some enterprising young script writer converts your freely programmable with dynamic storage games server into a child porn server. Yikes!
We're much better off with an open source game that anyone can contribute to in a controlled way. I tried to kick that off with what I've written, but had no interest, perhaps nawlan will fair better. As long as there is a community of developers, some can come and go without the project dying. The main problem is hosting. If nawlan is hosting, and he loses interest and pulls the plug, we're dead in the water until someone else agrees to host. There are plenty of places to share open source code, but to actually run it requires a singular person/entity to take responsibity. Presumably so that the Feds have a door to knock on when your sight gets hacked and converted to a child porn site? I don't know. Perhaps with the recent advent of 'cloud computing' places will start opening up to host a shared open source project without requiring someone to pony up their address and/or credit card when something goes wrong...
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Post by BioLogIn on Nov 3, 2008 15:17:22 GMT -5
The main problem is hosting. The hosting is not a problem nowadays IMHO. If nawlan is hosting, and he loses interest and pulls the plug, we're dead in the water until someone else agrees to host. It is not a hosting (hardware) problem, it is human factor. We need a person who is willing to dedicate a few years at least to the site, that is true.
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Post by nawglan on Nov 3, 2008 15:20:52 GMT -5
vihl, I hear ya. I had actually planned on using some of your code for the engine part. Or at least modeling some of it based on what you've done already. Especially on the AI side of things.
Currently, gotta finish this huge project at work (Nov. 15th delivery). After that my time will become more available to work on this project.
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Post by Slartucker on Nov 3, 2008 16:43:38 GMT -5
*whistles quietly to self*
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Post by ExDeath on Nov 3, 2008 16:50:48 GMT -5
*whistles quietly to self* That wasn't constructive...?
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Post by vilhazarog on Nov 3, 2008 19:12:07 GMT -5
I can only assume Slartucker is going to release MegaWarlocks 3000 next weekend, the smug bastard.
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