I like all of you guys idea, I only have some comment on the user interface and the graphics of the spells. First, I guess we assume that the objective of the spellcrafting process is to allow individual to have fun in the creation of spells and to have unique spells that the players envisioned, or accidentally created yet enjoyable. In terms of balance, we also want higher level chars have advantage over new chars in the creation process, to avoid some Lv1 create uber spells just because they know the language.

With these assumptions in mind, I would picture the process to involve the following items:

Crucible : In terms of the game functions, the crucible is a state machine that takes opcodes and arguments alternately. Its state should be shown graphically so that new people know that the process is not random. Items can serve as opcodes, and potions can serve as arguments. For example, the color inside the crucible is initially yellow, after putting one eyeball into it, it turns green, signifying that you have just entered an opcode (in this case, suppose eyeball means SetTarget()), then, you can put your blood to signify that the target is yourself, or a wing to target all flying enemies. Now the color changes back to yellow, expecting another opcode. A higher level mage have the money to afford a larger crucible for longer string of code. And, since the quality of item you put matters, a new level guy can't create a dragon summon spell because he doesn't happen to have the tooth of a slain dragon.

Fire : underneath the crucible is the fire that cooks the content. When a player starts the fire, he enters his PlayerID and SchoolID, and the interpretation of the opcodes and arguments changes accordingly. (Actually I doubt whether this is necessary)

Vials : At any point of the creation, you can use a vial to store the content of the crucible, and reuse it later. In terms of coding it holds a block of code that you can reuse. So, you can separately create a bunch of graphics and store them in vials, and throw in the vial for the effect you like. Experienced spell makers can create templates using vials. To create a fire gnome they put vial 1, gnome finger, and then vial 2, and for a fire dragon they put vial 1, dragon fang, vial 2. If you want variability, the content required for vial 1 and vial 2 are different for every player.

Incineration : To final the spell, the mage puts her hand on top of the crucible, and uses her mana to instantly incinerate the content (different schools have different graphic effects), if she does not have the mana required, nothing happens or she gets burnt. If she believes that her formula is correct, she can save it in a vial, and final it later.

Final words, the creation process should be enjoyable to both new people and hackers. In a spell store, when a mage buy a spell she gets the ingredients and procedures for the spell. This can be pretty good incentive for a player, and I think they would appreciate your system that you give them what they need to start learning. But you see, this doesn't really fit the variability. Maybe different schools have advantge during the incineration process for spells that pertain to their schools. My thought is, in programming, everybody program C++ in the same syntax, but the codes vary due to the style of the programmer, not because some random PlayerID. If you give them a balanced set of opcode (possibly including jumps and branches, or if and foreach in higherlv lang) unique spells should follow naturally.


[edited by - Estok on April 3, 2003 3:52:06 AM]

Looks like an alchemy system to me. I like the idea of buying ingredients and mixing them, but that takes out the rune element that we''re all so fond of. Maybe the recipes could be in rune form, but with ingredients, different amounts of the substances or slight errors in mixing could bungle the result. Neat idea. Also, it allow certain ingredients to be super rare and hard to get. You can buy a dragon''s eye in a store for 10,000 dollars, or you can go out and kill a dragon, and harvest ingredients from its corpse. It also adds a less abstract money-for-killing system. You kill, you dissect, and you sell at the shop. you could even arrange for fresher ingredients to have different properties. A goblin heart that is almost still beating might be more potent, or a sunflower that has been dried for three days could be more appropriate than a green one. Neat.

But don't limit them all to cooking. Maybe some could be whipped up in the field with just a mortar and pestle, or activated by throwing it into water or releasing it into the air, or exposing it to sunlight.

Or just replace the "incinerate" step with "activate", which infuses the compound with mana, thus bringing about the effect.

This still doesn't really allow for on-the-fly spell casting, and the targetting system would have to be built into the compound. Perhaps some combination of the rune-magic idea and the ingredient idea.

[edited by - Iron Chef Carnage on April 3, 2003 11:23:16 AM]

You could check out the game ''spellcraft'' for inspiration. It uses a variety of ingredients, differing spell effects and, when you mix incorrectly, death or madness (same thing really).

For more info: http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=1030

As far as having the runes, instead of using ingredients just use runes and have a similar interface. To prevent the low-level players from being able to make the same spells as the high-level players, you could simply have the player start out with only a limited set of runes and aquire more as the game progresses.

Whoa, first post, and it''s got a lot of attention :-)

Well, i''ve been thinking about the runemaking portion of the system, and so far the best i can come up with is this:

First off, anyone here know the morrowind alchemy system? If not, it is as follows; You have a large amount of reagents in the world, each has the possiblility of bad and/or good effects. when making a potion (or in this case a rune) you have to match up two or more ''effects'' in order to get an effect. the more of the same effect you match up, the more powerful it is. (and no, cant mix two of the same ingredients together - it has to be different ones)Also, each reagent has multiple effects, but you have to have higher skill in order to see/use the effects.

Well, i propose to take the morrowind alchemy system, tweak it alot, and use it for making runes. how? easy.

First off, the reagents would be somewhat different. For example "an eye" would have the following effects: (Lv1) Target[Reticle], (Lv2) Status[Blind], (Lvl3) Status[CureSight]. So, if a person wanted to make a rune that makes a spell that blinds whatever is under the current targetting retticle, they''d have to combine an eye, something that also has Target[Reticle], and something that has Status[Blind]. But they have to be carefull not to include something that has Status[CureSight] - it would be counterproductive.

It may not be as artistic as a psuedo-random system, but at least it provides ease of use to the runesmith.