> The one problem that I can see with this (aside from an evaluation
> process.. you wouldn't want someone to change their weapon so everyone
> sees "Duke wields an atomic weapon with the slogan 'f#^k you' inscribed on
> it's side'") is that many of the weapons in any game exist in an
> abundance. 'The royal ruby sword of the draconian king' _is_ the level 40
> weapon. Everyone has it. It's mass produced. Which is odd, because it
> seems like one of those one-of-a-kind sort of items. Same with the
> gold-edged eagle armor, and the silver helmet of law. These things have
> effectively already been modified. They shouldn't be allowed to change -
> they're already supposed to be near-unique, even if they show up 60 times
> in the world.
Well, yes, this is a problem. It is, in fact, a problem with MUDs in
general. They reset, so items can be gotten again, and mobs can be
killed again.
As I see it for resets, the zone should not reset as long as a player is
in it. (Exception: cities?). In fact, resets should probably be pretty
rare.
Then comes in with the items. The generic items are common, and you'd
expect that. "A steel longsword" or "A bronze shield" are mass-produced
items, (hence, sold in stores) and such like that. Normal adventurers
(whatever those are) would use those. But if someone (a king?) had
enough money, they could theoretically hire someone to make a custom
sword (interesting quest idea for people with forge). Now, there would
only be one of those swords in the world, would there not be? So a
player kills the king, and get said unique sword. "A gold-embossed
epee". Player leaves zone. Zone resets. Another player walks in. Oh,
here's the same king, alive. With his supposed "unique" sword.
Why does this sound wrong?
What I intend on doing is creatiing an ITEM_LEGEND flag, or something
along those lines. What this means is that there can only be one copy of
the item in the game. I'm not sure exactly how to implement it though.
If a player has a Legendary item, and then someone else joins the game
with that legendary item, what happens? But suppose the zone resets. The
legendary item won't reset too...but you could set up a default
replacement (not a legend item per se, but maybe a standard weapon). So
if a player leaves the game, can they save that they have the legend
item? If not, then players won't always be going after it. But you could
make it more powerful than it already would be as a unique item. Suppose
it is saved, however. And the player returns. If the legendary item is
in it's default location (in the hands of the king), then the legendary
item already in the game disappears, perchance? But if another player
has it, the loading player can't, but could have a "default" weapon.
Of course, you could avoid that by having the game keep track of each
legend item. If it's created, the game knows where it is and who has it,
etc. If someone leaves the game, the MUD still knows that it hasn't been
destroyed yet, so it doesn't make another copy. So the player comes back
later, and he's still the only one with that item. If the item is
destroyed somehow, then the game knows this and lets a new one be made.
There'd only be one copy of any legendary item. The problem with this is
players who take a legendary item out and never log in again (and some
would actually do that, as well) You could have something that scans for
when it was last in game, and if too long, delete item from his/her
inventory.
It's a tricky question. Resets themselves are unrealistic (though my MUD
has a storyline thingy that "explains" them), but should weaponry be, as
well? Maybe you could just set the legendary items to not save on exit.
That would increase their value a lot.
Just tossing out a few ideas..sorry for the length :P
Any comments/ideas/etc from anyone else?
Oh, and watch out for immortals abusing this..
-Axiem
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