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An idea I had that I want to throw out there before I forget about it. This idea would be an npc/immortal only spell requiring IMP approval to deploy. Basically it would be an adaptation of the immortal switch command reworked in such a way that it could be used as an offensive spell by mobs. For the sake of argument, we'll call it transmogrify.
The spell has a lot of potential uses. As a combat spell it strips the player of all their normal abilities and gear and places them in a foreign body. In this instance, the duration for the spell should be very short, just a few minutes. The real power of the spell is in its applications for bigger quests or goals. The player has to find a way into a room but the doors are sealed except for a small crack, the solution is to find a potion that transmogrifies them into a mouse for a short time. It could also be used to grant temporary and limited access to other more powerful mob only abilities (some of which I'm developing, the sky is the limit). For example, in one potential story arc for an area the player could be transmogrified into a massive dragon and be able to slaughter everything in sight (through the use of tokens this could have serious long term effects for the player).
There are some problems that have to be solved before this can work. Skill and spell tables for mobs will have to become a reality, we can't have people transmogrified into mice that can cast kill and use smite. Objects acquired while transmogrified will have to transfer to the player's natural self. Extreme examples, such as the dragon, will require some sort of control to prevent the player from abusing transmogrify in PK. I'm sure there are other potential abuses, we can hash those out if we develop it. We need some innovation, maybe this could be a step in the right direction.
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I really like this idea. Not least because it opens up interesting variations for exits. The best examples I can give for this are just to list some ideas i've been thinking about for quite some time:
1) Breakable windows for exits, not just doors.
2) Breakable walls for exits, or triggers to pop objects.
3) Non-standard exit sizes (e.g, a mouse hole leads east - so only someone the size of a mouse could get through and open a door for the rest of the form), insect sized exits - perhaps leading into a minor maze area within the wall, between the two rooms.
Scott. (Vizz)
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I really like the idea. Reminds me of a part of Ultima 7 where you had to morph into a snake to get through a tiny hole. It would be slightly challenging to code, but certainly nothing we couldn't handle.
Skills/spells tables for NPCs are coming - they will be fairly simple to implement. The only thing we'd need to decide are how to set the default skills. Obviously, we can't be bothered to go through thousands of NPCs setting skills manually.
Vizz, your suggestions are also excellent. I have long wanted to expand the exit data struct, which is really a fairly simple thing to for things like size of an exit, but I'm sure you can guess what kept me from doing that 8). With virtual wilderness it shouldn't be a problem.
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The possibilities for the spell are far beyond specialized exits of course. But along that vein, I'm not sure adding a bit for exit size is an idea that can work well. In a traditional rpg, side scroller, whatever, exit size makes sense because you just have to open your eyes to be able to see that you're an ogre and the hole in the wall is very small. In a game like ours, that kind of intuitive realization is impossible without adding a lot of clutter to an already cluttered screen. You'd have to have some way to describe every exit's size, maybe you could do it with colors or something to keep the spam down, but even still it'd be cumbersome. Anyway, the spell is far more versatile than a simple size change.
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As with all my posts, I didn't post my ideas to in any way restrict the scope of discussion around yours, Pol. I agree that transmogrify would be an interesting path to explore. But you have to agree that there is very little in the way of variation of play in rom. We're all the same size(ish), shape(ish), and have more or less the same set of abilities and features, give or take the occasional tangential racial features. With the seemingly inevitable bleed of skills/spells into multiple classes, I'm just getting a little tired of the same old bipeds around 6 ft tall(ish), going at it toe-to-toe with the same old middle-earth inspired weaps, with the same old rpg-inspired spells.
Forgive me for looking to introduce the occasional interesting diversion, like maybe discovering a small hole in a room you've been in a thousand times, "this hole looks about big enough for an ant.", transmogrifying into an ant and finding a whole new area to explore. It might not appeal to the die-hard PKers, but some people are looking for something else to do other than hack/slash/level/get beat down constantly by people who have been here long enough to establish an unassailable advantage (see PC's with 50+ str, or 5000+ hp for example). Boring boring boring.
Scott.
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I'm not sure how my words could be taken to mean **I LOVE MINDLESS HACK AND SLASH, BLAARRRGG!!!**. Hooray hyperbole.
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Excuse my continued and well-lamented frustration at the limitations of rom. I didn't mean to suggest that that was what you were advocating. It's just you pretty much laid the smack down on an idea before we had time to discuss it further. Of course you're entitled to your opinion. I'll take the resize aspect of the transmogrify idea to another thread.
Scott.
