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21694: RE: [MUD-Dev] DGN: Chemistry based magic systems
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From: "Sellers, Mike" <msellers@origin.ea.com>
Newsgroups: nu.kanga.list.mud-dev
Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2001 17:58:25 -0600
Organization: Kanga.Nu
Bryan "Cyngon" Helmkamp wrote:
> If in the game would you have the equivalent of H2O, the easy
> thing to do with properties is just take 66% of what H's
> properties, and 33% of O's properties. Upon further examination
> though, one element could be much larger than another and maybe
> that should make it have more influence on the properties. Maybe
> elements also need a weight property. Is this a good idea? bad
> idea?
Two properties of such a system that leap right out at me are:
- Not all 'atoms' combine in the same way, and not all
combinations are stable or useful. (Even better, some
combinations are *too* stable to be useful as a spell.)
- Properties of 'molecules' do not correlate directly with
properties of 'atoms.' Consider that none of water's macroscopic
properties remotely resembles hydrogen or oxygen's macroscopic
properties, or even a blend of these two.
Turning the first one into a viable game system is probably in the
interesting, doable, and fun region. Turning the second one into
gameplay would, I suspect, require a lot more work. What are the
rules for spell-molecules? In other words, what is the grammar (not
the syntax) that allows you form meaningful molecule-spells out of
magic-atoms? Resolve that question and you may have a nifty,
agglutinative, and player-researchable system on your hands.
Mike Sellers
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