Re: CF: Usless Items (was Map integration)

[Anthony Thyssen <anthony@cit.gu.edu.au>]

"Mark Wedel" on  wrote...
|  But for example, a quest to get the spellbook of immunity to fire
|  could be a very good quest to proceed one to take out the dragon cave
|  (not sure of relative levels, but the point is that immunity to fire
|  would come in really handy for that next quest).
| 
That sounds like a much better idea than my wanding all over the place
looking for some good quests only to get clobbered every time I walk
into a dungeon.   

That dragon cave example is a good one. I wandered into their and died.
later I did it again and managed to create an earth wall fast enough so
I could jump into a diagonal `keyhole' fire a snow storm, and run away
again. (Difficult geting the generators but I made it to the next map
with causion.

| > My main problem is that you find Keys and Locaked Doors All over the
| > place. But you can't always know what and where a key is, or what
| > for, so you end up just carrying it.  Then you bump into a dor and
| > you use a special key without realising you just used one of those
| > keys. (You fluke it)
| 
|  I totally agree.  There are several different color keys and doors,
|  but that is still not enough.  The keys and doors should be dressed
|  up a bit better (for example, a rusty black key could go with that
|  rusty black door, a square key goes into the door with a square
|  opening, etc.)  They keys should be called something more than just
|  'key'.
| 
I don't mind the key descriptions but unless you know what the key
description refers to (generally by finding the door by accident latter)
you really can't use it.

Just getting a ``Key to FooBar'' is no good unless you happened to know
where ``FooBar'' is and wandering arround is a very dangerious and
dishearting exercise.

|  It may seem obvious to a map maker that the key he puts on level one
|  is to be used on that door on level 3.  But for the player who
|  wonders into level 1, gets the key, goes to level 2 and realizes it
|  is too tough and leaves, that mysterious key he has in his inventory
|  is confusing with no name.  If it at least has a name (slimy key),
|  and he runs into a slimey door, he can realize 'oops - I remember I
|  tossed that key I thought went to this door'.  But as it is now, he
|  may have 5 generic black keys, with no idea what goes to want, and
|  thus can't be very sure what to trash.
| 
My point exactly.

| > This is the other thing, throught the game are books (Like ``THE
| > Book'' in the southern church) and keys and letters, and notes, all
| > with no messages or are empty, and useless.
| 
|  Yes, this is also a problem, but not as big as one.  At least if you
|  have one of those, you know you can trash it safely.
| 
But it should be more than just ``The Book''. It should say something
meaningfull instead of ``This is beyond you comprehension''
When I played five years ago I carryed that book around (well stored it
in a store charcater) for a very long time hoping that one day I would
be high enough to actually mean something!

Of course I now know it always says that.

`Empty' letters I find the most annoying. So much so that when I found
one while doing updates in scorn, I wrote a bit os sob story in it about
the original owner of the house.  (See The Scorn Maps list of changes).


  Anthony Thyssen ( System Programmer )    http://www.sct.gu.edu.au/~anthony/
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