Re: Olympia: opinions on magical research

From: Bill.Viggers@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Bill Viggers)

Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1992 23:54:00 +0000

In article <1992Apr29.220950.11814@cbfsb.cb.att.com>, skrenta@cbnewsg.att.com (Rich Skrenta) writes:
|> I like the magical research system in Olympia, but it's not quite
|> there yet.  I'd like to hear what the players think of magical
|> research.
|>
|> 	Given:
|>
|> 	o  USE "magical research" searches the database for
|> 	   spells which you don't know, and randomly picks one
|> 	   which you learn after enough research.
|>
	I don't really like the randomness of this (see further down)

|> 	o  The options to magical research which allow you
|> 	   to narrow the spell search are currently broken,
|> 	   and will not be fixed.  I'll take them out at some
|> 	   point.

It would be nice to be able to research magic in a particular area
	such as weather, or summoning or battle...  The exact spell within
	the area would be random, but you could pick the general catagory.

I like the magic research as it is, but I think you should be able to
	direct your research into an area, thus learning a spell in that
	area (if there is one available), and otherwise getting the
	'research finds no spells' type message.

|>
|>     2.	Magical research could be basically left intact, except that
|> 	spells would be ranked according to their "level", and you could
|> 	only learn a spell if its level was at or below your level of
|> 	skill in magic.

Yes, I like that some spells should be more difficult to learn than
	others (and I don't just mean taking longer to learn).  Of course
	those of us already at magic research 10 arn't going to suffer :->

|>
|> Some have suggested that there be a limited number of "spell slots"
|> which would increase as your magic level increased.  You could
|> only know so many spells, so you might need to FORGET a spell to
|> learn a new one.  The mechanics of this idea are somewhat troublesome,
|> so I'd like to hear if anyone supports it.

In some ways this would be nice, as it would force people to specialise,
	but so long as the spells you learn from your research are random, and
	cant be 'selected' then I don't think there should be a limit.

As for specialising, as it takes so long to get good with spells,
	this may not be a problem anyway...

Another thing I'd like is for the higher levels of magic research to
	make a real differance, currently the random factor is pretty high.
	For instance one spell (which will remain nameless) saw Merlinium
	(at MR 10) takeing 4 days to learn, and another character (at MR 5)
	3 days.

Or a character at MR 5 learning a spell in 12 days, compared to an
	MR 4 charcter learning it in 4 days.

And thirdly (but by no means either last or least) a spell which an MR 8
	wizard learnt in 6 days, and an MR 2 wizard learnt in 1 day.  Ughhh

I can send you a large file full of such things if you want...

>< M >< [537]

References

Olympia: opinions on magical research
skrenta@cbnewsg.att.com (Rich Skrenta)
Wed, 29 Apr 1992 22:09:50 +0000

Referenced By

Olympia: opinions on magical research
skrenta@cbnewsg.att.com (Rich Skrenta)
Wed, 29 Apr 1992 22:09:50 +0000