Re: treasures

[cadreri!jh@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (Joe Hartley)]

> > the problem about having artifacts and such in the editor is;
> >   
> >  1) every levelcreator want to have at least one artifact
> >     in their domain. this leads to inflation of artifacts.

Not if we're careful about our map making.  The map review proposed elsewhere
would be a good way to keep things realistic.

> > 
> >  2) artifacts are lying the same places every time.
> >     players will soon get to know were they lie,
> >     and go for them all the time.
> >     The point about random treasures is that players have to walk
> >     around everywhere to find artifacts, they don't know were they are,
> >     so they have to search.

That's part of the fun, and part of the strategy.  One of the reasons I
want to add the speed boots is because I've got an "Indiana Jones" type
trap where the boots are on a button that has a pretty nasty trap associated
with it.  You *might* be able to get out without them if you're speedy
enough, but you have a much better chance if you wear them.

I hate the "hack-n-slash" levels where nothing but brute force, spells
a-plenty and a quick finger on the keyboard are all that are needed to
get by.  

Also, I think it's a *good* thing to have artifacts in known places.  It
adds a little focus to the game other than mere survival.

> >  
> > If you make something though and you want to reward the players, 
> > make a tresurechamber with lots of random tresures.
> >  

Well, this I don't like.  I've got a pretty powerful character now, with
*lots* of gold stashed away, and I'm using a relatively wimpy weapon 
because the random generators haven't seen fit do drop even a +4 sword
my way, never mind an artifact.  I can't even find anything sdecent in the
shops!  So I've got about 12K in gold, and nothing to spend it on.

> > 
> 	How about a random artifact treasure type, that can be linked in the
> same way as switches.  So that you can guarentee having one artifact of some
> type, weighted so that the minor items like Stinger appear more often than the
> major items like Excalibur.  This would give the players something to go after,
> but still make them search the whole dungeon/castle for it.  The same sort of
> thing could be implemented for fixed treasures as well so that the designer of
> the dungeon could fix the power level of the magical equipment found in a 
> dungeon.

This is better, and might make for very interesting games, but as the maker
of the map, I should be able to do as I please.  And as has been pointed out,
if I can do it by editing the map file, I should be able to do it in the
map editor itself.

Rest assured any inferior maps that don't meet our high standards in this
list won't make it into 1.0 :-)

===============================================================================
Joe Hartley          | jh@cadre.com  -  Whenever you find that you are on the
Cadre Technologies   | side of the majority, it is time to reform. - M. Twain
222 Richmond St.     | --------------------------------------------------------
Providence, RI 02903 | Overman 1st Class - the Kilgore Trout Memorial Clench
(401) 351-5950 x266  |            of the Church of the SubGenius  
===============================================================================