Re: CF: more on identify

["Mark Wedel" <mark@icp.siemens.com>]

On Dec 4,  2:13pm, James Cameron wrote:

> I would imagine that some cursed items might have some clearly apparent
> benefit (Speed+40) but a set of costs (Stat-2), and I would imagine that
> removing the curse would probably "break" their benefits and costs.

 Depends.  Having mixed items certainly makes some sense - especially if the
mixed item is better than a normal item that is found (for example, right now,
 a ring Str +1, wc -1 gets tossed by players because you can easily find rings
str +1 around.  Even a ring str +2, wc -1 might get tossed for the same reasons
- str +2 rings, while rare, can be found.  But what about a ring str +3, wc -1?
 It is unlikely you will ever find just a ring str +3, so the above ring could
be worth keeping.

 Do we need to make the ring worth less once its curse is removed?

 IF anything, the biggest problem with the cursed items is the ease of finding
out an item is cursed and the ease of removing a curse if you do accidentally
equip a cursed item.  Both of these could be improved while expanding the gods
- maybe only certain cults get the show curse spell (and the altars and scrolls
should then be removed.)  And maybe only the high priests (or high level
players) can actually remove it - priests would ask for some form of payment -
could be related to the gods nature (10 ogre hearts), or just monetary.


> I'm wondering why a shop should identify the item when sold.  This
> doesn't seem "natural."

 This is both a convenience (more likely to buy an item on the shop floor if
you know what it is - and all starting equipment in the shop is identified).
 Also just sort of to show players what they just sold (what - I just sold a
sword +3 for 2 gp because I didn't identify it?  arrg).

 Shops should probably be made better offer.  Maybe bargaining.  Certainly only
selling items of the like nature in the right shop (why is that mage shop
buying plate mail?).  OR maybe you could sell everything in one spot, but that
mage isn't going to give as good a deal on the plate.

 On the other hand, this does start to get into an area of playability vs
realism.  Do players really want to have to spend lots of real time wandering
to the shops to seel their stuff?  Probably not.

>
> Should an NPC character come out, hover over it, take it into a back
> room, and then come out and update the stock on the "shelves?"  Or just
> let it sit, unidentified?
>
> Objects have a flag "identified", globally effective, which works as if
> someone has attached a user manual to the object.  You can drop an
> object and another player can pick it up and it is already identified.
> This is also counter-intuitive.  Identification knowledge should be
> local to the player.

 It should be - so should even lesser informaiton like cursed, magic, or even
the details you get from equipping it.

 But keeping per player tags on an item of who knows what about it would get to
be a pain.  Keeping that information in the player object could also be a pain
(how many objects are out there)?  so while the current method is not good, it
is easy to maintain.

 The easiest change would be that when an item is dropped, it looses that
detail.  But that could be a bit harse (player wants to rearrange some stuff
and drops something on the ground and no longer knows about it?)  Better might
be wheenver the map is saved to disk (temp file), we clear those - if you have
been away for the item for that long, you would forget its exact details.  This
is pretty easy to do in the code, would still allow parties to share equipment
without problem.

-- 

-- Mark Wedel
mark@pyramid.com
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