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Just throwing this concept out here
This is a random thought that spawned, originally, from considering that Death and Nature can be used to beat old age, though using opposite methods. What if the magic schools were 'paired off' with each-other's opposite? Fire and Water, Earth and Air, and Nature and Death. Astral and Blood could be opposites, and an argument can be made for it, or they could just be left be. At any rate, what if, when making a pretender, each level you take of one path makes it harder to take the opposite? It wouldn't need to be a large sum, maybe 5 more points per level in an opposing path, which wouldn't hurt Rainbow pretenders too much. I suppose one could also use opposed gems instead of, or together with, Astral Pearls for dispelling purposes. As a bonus, it would be a huge hit to F9/W9. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
I'm not saying it's a good idea, more a random thought. Feel free to discuss. |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
I like the concept, very fitting the game "theme" IMHO http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
Sounds reasonable to me.
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
I, on the other hand, don't see the need for this change. There's no good and no evil, per se. Nature can cancel Death, and Death Nature. I'd rather see these aspects that can cancel other paths made into new spells, than make some path combinations rarer or more expensive. Rain makes Water good against Fire in the early game. I'd rather like to see THAT kind of opposition. Fire Ward and Fire Fend, from Fire and Water, Frost Ward and Frost Fend, from Water and Fire, etc.
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
And I don't like the idea. Not just because it's s cliche. I prefer when school strenghts come from gameplay mechanics, and not from artificial bonuses. Besides, there are some spells with odd path combinations, like acid spells (fire + water, nature + death ). They are possible because no two schools - so far - are directly opposite to each other. Nothing is set in stone.
Anyway, spells designed to fight certain paths already exist, even if they're not very numerous. Kindly Ones, Maggots, Cleansing Water, Inner Fire, Purgatory, Astral Corruption, Rain; spells that affect climate upset either fire or water mages. Wind Ride is ineffective against Earth mages. Lots of suble and less subtle effects. |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
I think that it may be more interesting to counter-position national/non-national magic paths rather than some predetermined pairs. Basically, national magic paths would be cheaper for pretender and other paths more expensive. Thus, for example, for Vanheim air magic on pretender would cost significantly less than fire magic. This would help to keep national magic more different in the late game by making it more expensive to get into other paths through pretender...
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
Alexti: Magic available for nations already become much more specific, because independent mages are much worse now. On top of it national mages of the same quality cost much less.
Discouraging using strange paths on pretenders would narrow available spells even further. Pretender magic is - for many nations - the only way to try something new. And you're pretty much required to have national Blood mages if you're to try blood magic at all. And it would harm bless strategies, too. Kailasa sacreds, for example, literally scream for Air bless, because they have little to no protection. But none of their mages has Air,even as random. Should they be denied a chance to try air bless ? I think it's enough that pretender choice strongly depends on the nation. It makes some paths pretty hard to get, unless you try human pretender like archmage. |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
B0rsuk, I see what you mean. That was partly why I wanted the cost-boost to be so low. Keep ind mind that most fire/water or death/nature things you see only require one or two levels in a 'secondary' path, which is still mighty doable with the suggested penalties. (I also like the 'opposite synergy' spells, and at this point can hardly play Pangaea anymore without Carrion Woods/summons) Though a very large chunk of the anti-path spells you named are against undead and demons, which, using a lot of Blood magic and a good chunk of Death, is a pet peeve of mine. And Astral corruption isn't so much against a different path as it is for blood. Like saying the various spells that boost the level of astral mages are designed for anti-non-astral purposes.
And I strongly disagree with aligning the magic preferences of a pretender with their nation any more than they are already. Especially with Independent mages weak as they are. |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
@BOrsuk: in the current state, late game plays pretty similarly, no matter whan nation you've started with. It would be nice to have more nation-specific late game. Increasing costs of non-nation paths would make such setups more expensive and made an option of trying to do with limited set of paths more attractive (I don't think this approach is practical in longer MP now). Making dual-9 cost more would be a good thing too (though proposed system would still made it easy to take insane blesses with Mictlan).
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
I kindof had a similar idea to yours, Uninspired Name. I was thinking, not magic that is balanced against itself-fire to water, air to earth, etc., but that the schools we currently have could "split" from central concepts, kindof like a family tree. If you had a certain level in Earth magic for instance, at some point you'd have the option to gain levels in Metal and Crystal magic as well. There'd still be spells in the Earth school, but some spells would now be in Metal, such as Armies of Gold and Armies of Lead.
Life magic (healing, resurrection) would split into Nature (pretty much as is) and Ego (mind control and soul magic, as well as spells which affect emotions, memory, experience, etc.) Death magic (pretty much as is, except dealing with corporeal death, corporeal undead like zombies, and the state of death) would split into AEther (summoning spirits, spells that affect the soul, spiritual and more subtley supernatural spells than found in the path of Death) and Entropy (destruction spells like Disintegrate and spells which degrade things, like making provinces worse, worsening scales, etc) Air (gases) would split into Weather and Static (electricity) Water and Fire would both lead to Energy (temperature control), Water would also lead to Ice, (breath of winter, unfrozen, etc), and Fire would lead to Light magic (and it's absence: Eyes of God, Utterdark) Earth to Crystal (not only physical crystals, but geometrics, harmonics, and vibrations) and Metal (lots of item improvements here, some poisons and acids also, plenty of wartime spells, naturally, as well as spells which affect gold/income) Astral would split into Time (obviously there are plenty of useful battlefield spells that could go here, also spells which effect aging.), Space (teleportation spells, making bigger things smaller, smaller things bigger, bringing things closer together or pushing them further apart), and Void (spells that summon void creatures, do void effects, or deal with pure chaos or nothingness). This doesn't mean that Metal magic would be more powerful than Earth magic, or Time magic more powerful than Astral, it would just give a mage more options, and more places for us to mod in new spells. It also makes Empowerment more useful in the game, because you could use your gems to "build" a Crystal mage for instance, instead of just shoring up the weak spots in your magical stable. Some mages, and probably Pretenders as well, could start out as a "basic Time mage" etc., having just levels in one of the divergeant mage paths, but this should be more rare. Mages in basic paths should gain a single level in their split-off paths once they reach a certain level in the basic, such as a level 7 Air mage having 1 level in both Weather and Static, just to simulate a broader understanding the mage would gain. Mages who start out in one of the split-paths would not gain paths in the basic paths, however, just because their knowledge is more specialized and less common. Plenty of spells that currently use more than one path could go in the new paths, while plenty more could remain "hybrids". Four new basic paths I would then suggest would be "Perspective" (one's point of view: changing one thing into another thing, such as Polymorph for example.) "Abberation" (deals exclusively with spells like cross-breeding which subvert or break natural laws and effects which don't fit in any of the other paths). "Divine" (not in the holy sense, but rather delving-divining. Knowledge, numbers, and word magic.). Divination would split into Ley (as in Ley-lines, ley-energy: spells which have to be "triggered" in order to take effect, landmine spells, in other words, and certain protection spells, also spells which draw things or creatures to the caster, or push them away.) and Clog (sort of anti-magic: spells which, although not holy, are specifically aimed at destroying or subverting demons, undead, and other supernatural forces). "Weird" (this path concerns spells which have to do with Fate and Destiny, leading for instance to charming and enchanting, as well as spells which have a beneficial or detrimental effect over time, such as cursing someone to turn into a werewolf, for example.) Blood would stay the same, with no splits, except for the absence of Crossbreeding, replacing this with Bloodbreeding (breeding "normal" creatures with demons, and summoning demonic versions of normal creatures, like demon wolves, demonbreds, humanbreds, etc). Holy would also stay the same, but I'd like to see it renamed to "Presence" as in: "in the Presence of God". Presence would split into Holy and Unholy magics. This would give us 13 basic magical paths (a good, round number, when you're talking about magic), and 27 split-paths, ultimately, and, if all 15 levels were incorporated, a much broader and more complete magic system in the game. Edited a bit for the sake of clarity and aesthetics, because I was half asleep when I wrote it. |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
The whole metal/crystal/soul thingey is already in the game, in a way. Its those spells that have more than one path as a requierment.
I understand this isn't exactly what you want/mean, but I just don't see a point in just adding extra artifical paths when we can use what we already have. I will say this though, there aren't enough dual-path spells. (imo) |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
I agree, we don't have enough dual-path magic. Earth seems to be the worst offender, at the moment.
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
Here Here! More cross path spells! In fact I would like to see more spells period. Even cooler, spells that require 3,4 and 5 paths. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Lightning.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Campfire.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon49.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon01.gif[/img] !
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
Agrajag, the point would be to open up new areas for new spells. Yes, the magic system we currently have works fine, but that doesn't mean that it can't be improved, and one way to improve it is to expand it in relatively logical ways. One of the purposes of the designers of Dom3 was to create a game that had many, many options. 8 magical paths is fine, for now, but it's a pretty low number for a game which features 1600+ different types of units and prides itself on being "the end-all be-all epic turn based strategy of all time". I agree that I wouldn't want magical paths that had no purpose or point, I just feel that more can and should be done in this area. As far as multi-path spells, it's a good idea, and I have no problems with it, but I think it's kind of silly to start adding death/astral/earth/nature/fire/blood spells for again no real reason. Why not just call that "type" of magic by a different name? It doesn't have to be one of the ones I've come up with, but it's a more elegant solution, and probably easier to code in, from a programmer's perspective.
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
You can have 'epic' and 'simple' and the same time. Though I will admit, whether it means more paths or not, more spells would be nice. Many, many more spells...
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
I agree, epic and simple are not mutually exclusive, but "epic" does atleast imply complexity. And I would also like more, many more, spells. One of the advantages of more paths would be more ways in which you could bless your troops. This would give you more options when building your pretender and strategy, which is one of my reasons for more paths.
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
Time bless... Now there's an interesting thought...
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
mmmmhmmmm...I thought you might come around.
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
Just for starters, maybe sacred time-blessed units don't suffer from old age, or maybe they just grow old a lot slower and live a lot longer, like Aragorn, from the Lord of the Rings. This could be a percentage bonus, like air shield, and the big bless could be that your unit gets a second chance to resist any instakill spell.
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
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This would be based off Nature, of course, to give that nifty bonus to maxage. Items using Nature/Time would be items with one of the above effects (Elf Bane, Moon Blade, Boots of Quickness etc). The only thing preventing you from modding this is, currently, the fact that paths' names and icons can't be changed. And the fact that we don't have a good, precise, filterable list of all magic sites, so changing all the unsuitable Nature spells into other paths would take time. In some cases, modding items' descriptions would be nice, but for a proof-of-concept version that isn't required. Magic path modding, so that the secondary abilities are moddable, would probably beinsanely hard to do, and I can't imagine more than few modders actually completing any major mods using it. Changing all the spells and sites and mages takes insane amount of time. There are only 8 Schools of research, but most spells could be changed into other schools easily enough to empty one school completely. I've considered changing Thaumaturgy into Holy school, where new Holy spells and Astral/Holy summons would be researhed, but I had to give it up due to few problems. Mainly, I wanted Astral and Holy levels of all priests to be equal. I couldn't use Astral instead of Holy magic because that'd make my "priests" unable to preach, and I couldn't use Holy instead of Astral because I needed gems, and because Magic Duel targets Astral mages. |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
HoneyBadger,
It is in fact harder to add from a designer point of view, because the code already supports dual-path spells, so "my idea" is already implemented and therefore requiers 0 work. Beyond that, I don't see a point in adding new schools that are just subsets of existing schools. It will add flavour, but also much confusion (especially for newbies), and doesn't sound even remotely worthwhile to code... |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
Agrajag, "your idea", atleast the one you seem to be referencing, is the one the developers had, namely dual-path spells. Which is great, because that's already in the game, and you're right, it wouldn't be very much trouble to code in, because again it's already there in the game. Fully coded. If it is the point you're trying to make, then I thank you for the information, but I already figured that much out. I think it took me almost an hour of actually playing version 3.0, but I might have picked it up when I was paging through the manual. I've misplaced my manual though, so I can't confirm that for you at this time.
Now, if their are spells in the game that do at this time utilize/require more than two paths, then maybe I have missed them or just have not been paying attention, but I believe that currently-insofar as my limited knowledge extends-there are no spells which require 3+ areas of knowledge to make use of them. Am I right? Again, I don't know where my manual's gone to, I think it fell behind the little fridge next to my work computer, and their are too many wires back there for me to casually do a hunt with the barbeque tongs. I'll get to it one day when I have time and am not feeling particularly lazy. If you are, however, referencing multi-path spells, "multi" in this case meaning 3 or 4 or 5, providing they're not in some secret level of the game, ala Mario Underworld, and depending on the type of language the developers write in (like most languages, it's one I'm not directly "hands-on" familiar with), and the way an individual programmer works, chances are that yes, it would be more difficult to add in spells which require more than two types of magic than it would be to just rename and/or add more than two types of magic. The reason for this is programs are like a house. They have four walls and a roof. The 1 or 2 types of magic per spell is like one of the walls. It's a major, "load-bearing" concept that the program recognizes, and the program probably (again, conjecture, but an educated guess) has not been written to accommodate adding multiple, unlimited "walls". Having a spell which made use of 3+ magical paths could mean major rewriting of primary functions within the program itself. Now, the number of paths, as we already know, is already a multiple. A large and arbitrary number. Expanding them would be more along the lines of adding a new unit to the game. You might have to "build a few shelves" here and there to hold and accommodate the expansion, but it's not going to cause the roof to cave in. As for adding confusion for "newbies" or anyone else, I wasn't confused by the game, as is. I'm not confused now, and the only version of Dom I've played has been Dom 3.0. I never even played the demo, and I'm the one suggesting the "confusing" ideas here. Why is everyone so desperately protective of the "poor, fragile, stupid newbies"? I'm still a newbie. It's a big, big game and it takes a while to learn. I'm just happy to have the chance to learn it. Expanding the magic system, even drastically, isn't going to effect the learning curve that much. I hardly see how one of your so-called "newbies" is going to be more lost in a game with 27 magic paths than they already would be in a game which has 1500+ units, dozens upon dozens of concepts, spells by the score, etc etc etc. I understand that you like the game as it is. I do too, very enthusiastically, which is why I'd like to see it grow and expand and live. If it doesn't grow, and expand, and add new ideas and concepts and continue to evolve creatively, then it's going to...well maybe not die, but it will stagnate. Someone, somewhere, is going to be writing the very best, ultimate, end-all-be-all turn based fantasy strategy game, and if it's not Illwinter, then it's going to be someone else. Now I already put my money down and spent the time and effort to involve myself in this game. I'd really rather not have to go through all that again. Just don't expect that I'm going to be satisfied with a game that stops. I guess my problem-and I admit I have a problem-is that you're telling me that my ideas aren't any good, but nowhere in this thread can I find a place where you've expressed an original, creative idea of your own. Infact you've only posted twice and yes, you did ask for more dual-path spells, and I agree with you, but other than that, once we've accepted that this can be a confusing, unwieldy game because of it's size, you're criticizing in a not particularly productive way. I honestly don't have a problem with the critique, though. If you don't see a point to doing it, that's fine. You're happy with the game as it stands. "Not even remotely worthwhile to code" is a little harsh, and I take it a little personally, since I put a lot of effort and passion into my ideas, but that's fine and I can't expect everyone to agree with me. This is UninspiredName's thread, so I don't know what his intentions for it are, but I'm thinking that this is a thread where we're talking about ideas and how things can be better, not how things should stay the same, so maybe it's not an area to which you have a meaningful contribution? If you do, that's fine and I'd like to hear what you have to say. If I'm wrong and Uninspired would rather I get off the longwinded posts and out of his thread, then I'll gladly go and create my own thread and that's fine too, but my POINT as we eluded to over your last post and my reply to it is that the game is good, but it could be better, and the magic system is an area which should be examined for improvement, including-but not limited to-the addition of "flavor". |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
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I'm not sure if you are intentionally being hostile (in which case you should beware the ban-bat), a bit too excited (which is usually not very bad), just unintentionally being hostile (in which case, just say so), or maybe I'm just reading it wrong. Quote:
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The truth is that without looking at the code, you can't tell how hard it will be to make any change. Changing maximum of dual-path to multi-path could be just a matter of changing a few constants, and perhaps find-and-replace a few lines to include a "for" loop. Changing maximum of paths could also be a huge project, just like you describe. So unless you have access to the code, I seriously doubt your estimations of how hard anything would be to code. Quote:
Just like if I suggested to kill all the Jews, it still would be a bad idea. (me being jewish, ofcourse) Quote:
If you are suggesting that the number of magic paths can be changed just like that, like the number of units, then I'd have to disagree. When you play the game, you don't have to be aware of all 1500+ units to do well, it is enough to check the stats of a unit when you see it in combat, or remembering some general details (like abysia has heavy units). Magic however is quite different, you often have access to many paths, and many possibilities to consider, which would make it more difficult to handle. Quote:
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Having many magic paths, especially stuff like time magic is indeed a cool idea, I agree, I just don't think Dominions is the right place to have it as things are right now. Quote:
As for what my idea regarding this is... Well, what I'm saying is that we already have 36 possible combinations of spell paths (8 basic + 28 pairs of dual-path), and we can already utilize them in a way similar to what you suggest (though not exactly the same. And you might even consider it very different). Is there really a reason why you have to have "life magic" and nature+astral won't do? Is there really a need for a specific name for something that can already be represented by dual-paths? I think not. |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
I can't understand why tempers typically get so hot when discussing this game. Why can't people stay civil?
(BTW, if Truper reads this, it might be a good idea to update the "posting etiquette" thread that I read each time I get to the end of unread posts, to ask posters to keep their tempers) |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
Look, PhilD, just because you can't understand why OTHERS' tempers FLARE so HOT, doesn't mean you should TAKE IT OUT ON THE REST OF US!!!111
Calm DOWN!!! I look at your face and just KNOW you are an angry angry angry man, who is balding, has a hairy face, and is very very small. I am guestimating you are about 9 inches tall. Hey, I am an IMMENSE 5'4", and I will SQUISH YOU!!! DON'T TELL ME not to be ANGRY. I will SQUISH you , you little 9 inch tall orangish person whose expression never changes. Yeah, I noticed that. I've been staring at you for like 10 minutes now, because I am NOT letting you win this stare-down contest. I WILL SQUISH YOU!!!!!!! Just you remember that I am a Jotun in comparison to your hobbit. Yeah, that's right. I am a 5'4" Jotun who will SQUISH YOU!!!!! The rest of you--Don't be intimidated by PhilD's bullying tactics. Be as ANGRY AS YOU WANT!!! Yeah! In fact, I will make the ANGRY thread, and you can take your ANGER over there and SQUISH PhilD!!! Yeah, come on!! Look for the ANGRY Squish PhilD thread, except without the PhilD part as I don't want to offend him.... |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
No, I'm not hostile, and I wasn't attempting to be hostile, Agrajag. I was just trying to explain, in an easy to understand and obvious manner, that you haven't expressed any ideas in this thread, since you seemed to think you had. I also am excited, I admit it. No need to make threats, I'm well aware of forum rules, and I'm not your enemy. I appologise if you took it as an attack. If I were your enemy, I wouldn't be exercising my patience trying to debate you.
I have 4 cousins who are Jewish. I personally think of myself as vaguely Buddhist, formerly Christian. I don't really see your point here at all, but I'm willing to play along. I'm not saying that you as a Jew know everything their is to know about Jewish culture, faith, history, identity, etc. Maybe you recently converted to Judaism, and are a Jewish Newbie. I don't know. I will say that, as a vague Buddhist to a newbie Jew, that I respect your right to interpret the Jewish faith in any way you see fitting your own personal belief about a higher power, the greater Cosmos, and the reality in which you/we find your/ourselves. I respect your recent choice to become a Jew and consider you to be a full-blown Jew with all the privelages and responsibilities that come with the designation. The question about the code is and remains hypothetical, unless Illwinter decides to gift us with the source-code, which would be a very nice present, but I'm not holding my breath. Still, I'm making educated guesses here. You could be right, I could be wrong, about the code that is. As for magic paths, you don't need to be more or less aware of them than you do the units in the game, because the units and the spells are both integral parts of strategic planning. Sure, you don't have to be aware of every single unit in the game, but the same can be said of every single spell. Their are 50 (and growing) nations in the game, plus independents, and when you decide what kind of strategy you want to play (or what flavor you want), you decide what nation you want to play, and you do your homework on that nation. You don't have to use every single spell or path in the game, plenty of people play nations which don't use blood at all, for instance. I personally don't like to use air magic, that's just my preference. It's no easier or more difficult with a similar number of magic paths, it just requires thinking about them in a similar manner. If you don't like my ideas, and you seem to be acknowledging that the game does need to grow, then why not suggest some of your own? What we're talking about is Dominions, not any other games. I reiterate: please feel free to express your own ideas, or even changes to mine. I didn't really take it personally http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I think their are reasons, and my reasons are 1: flavor, and 2: because astral and nature are not life. Astral and nature imply star nature or alien nature, combining the natural environment with the essence of the stars, or something along the lines of Illithid life, maybe: illithid dogs, illithid cats, little illithid bunnyrabbits, illithid bees making illithid honey, etc. Ofcourse, there's lots of things you could take from the concept of a combined astral and nature magic, but I don't think you'd get the very essence of Life Itself, all life in the universe, out of astral and nature. What about plants? nature and earth? fish? nature and water? instead of simplifying things, dual paths instead actually add complications and render things much more ambiguous and confusing in many cases because they more intensely involve personal opinion. This thread is becoming an example of that point. 3: because throwing new ideas and new concepts and new paths of magic leads people to think ALONG those paths, to think in new ways and come up with new spell ideas/strategy ideas/things we can mod into the game or the designers can add down the road. Multi-path spells don't do this job nearly as well, because they require people to think in unobvious ways, new ways, to come up with creative ideas, and it's harder to get people to do that. New paths mean new directions, the word "path" nicely implies this. Now I'm not saying that you're not a creative person with good, exciting ideas, but you are a fine example of my point here. I'd like to know what your take is on interpreting the magic paths I've suggested as dual-paths. And lastly, thank you very much for your time and effort! This is a fine exercise in determining whether or not my ideas are actually worthwile, and your input is strengthening my convictions enormously. I edited this a bit to take all the ANGRY HOSTILE typos out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif I probably missed the kind, gentle, understanding, tolerant ones. Can't we all just get along? |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
HoneyBadger:
1. It would be cool to add another dimension to Dominions. 2. I have no idea how hard it would be to do so. 3. I think adding even one new school, or adding just one more path to make 3 path spells would add significantly to the complexity of the game--let's call each of these an entirely new dimension. 4. Continuation of 3, but I was making 3 way too long, so I split it into 3 and 4. 5. What 4 should have been: I think we should tread warily down this path. Yay, verily, Warily, yet not Wearily. We need to sidestep both --Change for the sake of change is complete hooey. --Change that is too drastic, too intrinsically transformative, is change that has a chance of ruining instead of adding to. To adding, I guess, if you must slavishly use prepositions correctly. 6. I would love to see another path or two added on. I agree that this is the most complicated game out there, and the addition of complication in THIS game is intrinsically quality-enhancing. However, we must be careful of point 5 above.... Lastly, I am about to go to the ANGRY!!! SQUISH! thread for your interchanging use of there and their. Grrrrr! |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
Uh-Nu-Buh, you are the heart and soul of decorum. I appreciate your input and your moderating attitude and I agree about #5. I'd like to explain my thoughts on those two very good points you've made: The reason I suggested so many new paths wasn't for the sake of suggestion or greed for more, though I realize it may have appeared arbitrary. I did it for completeness, coming up with a whole "vision" if you will, rather than suggesting that a couple new paths be shoehorned in. UninspiredName's central idea was one of balance in the magic system, and I tried to roll with that. To come up with concepts which could be fit together, and work together (hopefully smoothly), without being there just to fill space. I attempted to make each new path unique in concept, without infringing on the uniqueness of the paths already in the game, and without interfering with the balance of a game. I also didn't want to suggest paths which I felt would be limited-or atleast severely limited-in scope, since ideally I'd like to see all 15 levels allowed in the game made use of (obviously, this also would require much thought and balancing). One reason I want the largeish number of paths I suggested, rather than say 2 or 3, is because yes, it complicates things admittedly, but it also frees up a lot of room for modding, which I think is very important. A "vanilla" game, if you will, plays just fine with the paths present, and will continue to play fine. Nobody who doesn't want extra paths, or even the paths already present in the game, has to use them. I could easily see someone dropping blood magic in a mod, for instance. But as things stand, the paths we have are it. I've requested the ability to mod in an expanded magic system, and hopefully that will be granted, but only time will tell what's decided on that front. I don't want to see more in the game unless the quality of what's added, and the quality of the game as a whole, is maintained. Sometimes you can maintain that quality and add a little bit here and a little bit there, and sometimes-and this seems to occur more in very complicated systems-when you add more, in order for everything to work well together and
not become cluttered (and old stuff has the ability to clutter just as much as new stuff) you need to redesign the structure and the relationships of each part from the ground up, and this will often require more "space", space being, in my interpretation, more paths. Now I freely admit that not every single path I came up with, if put into the game, would automatically become core to the magic system, but part of what I was going for was to keep with the theme of the game and offer precedented ways in which people actually have interpreted magic, be it the path of Clog taken from William Hope Hodgson's NightLands or Crystal and AEther, where I tried to give a nod to 1950's-60's mystics and psychics like Edgar Cayce and turn of the century mysticism, or Divine, Ley, and Weird, where I borrowed mythological concepts. Nothing was added just to add, that would be a waste of my time and wouldn't further my enjoyment of the game, which is why I'm going to the effort of coming up with ideas in the first place, rather than watching television. There's nothing on anyway. In any case, this may end up resulting in 0 changes to the game, but atleast I hope it will open peoples' eyes to possibilities. AND IN CLOSING I haven't gone to college, I dropped out of highschool, I failed the 6th grade, and I spent the better part of three years in Special Ed, so...GET OFF MY BACK ABOUT THERE AND THEIR OR I WILL SQUISH YOU!!! [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Hammer.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Bug.gif[/img] |
Re: Just throwing this concept out here
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However, in this forum the moderators tend to enforce justice swiftly and strongly, so I was just saying you should be careful not to piss them off http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Quote:
What you said was that: 1) You're suggestion could be confusing to newbies (which was my arguement) 2) You are a newbie, and you are still suggesting your idea Conclusion: The idea will not be confusing. What I said was that by same token I could have said: 1) Killing jews will be a bad thing for jewish people 2) I am jewish, and I am suggesting all jews be killed Conclusion: My idea is a good idea, all jews should be killed. Which is obviously not true. I was just using an analogy to show why I think your specific point wasn't very valid. Quote:
An extra unit somewhere however, will be much less influential, especially since when considering a certain path of magic you have to look at all of the spells available and see what you think is worthy, while a troop is usually obviously good or bad. Quote:
The Dominions 3 Wishlist thread, and the Modding commands wishlist (both from the dom2 forum) are two such examples. Quote:
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While we can't be sure of how long it will take to add support of those new paths you suggest, we can be sure that tripling the amount of paths available will mean atleast doubling the amount of spells available, which will take a whole lot of developer time to just come up with all that stuff. In my opinion, a much better solution would be to add more modding commands, like: #NewPath <number> #PathName <name> #PathIcon <path to icon> And #NewSchool <number> #SchoolName <name> If in addition we would also get a few more spell modding commands, and maybe even some new interesting effects, then we could still have everything you suggest in a mod (probably one that you will make) and we'd get some more really cool modding commands for everybody to use! Quote:
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Re: Just throwing this concept out here
I hope we do too, get along that is http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
And as to your solution (to get right to the point), I suggested basically exactly that to the modder's wishlist. I didn't do it in such a technically specific way, however, and (in a blatant request for support) wouldn't mind if you put your idea about modding commands into the wishlist as well. I'd be just as happy modding my ideas into the game, but the option currently isn't available. I can live without the path-splitting and I'm all for modding tools that everyone can use. Astral and Nature don't equal life, it's just what the designers thought was a good idea at the time. Maybe they were right, but opinions can differ. Flavor doesn't make or break gameplay, but it certainly can make or break a game. This game has lots, but it can certainly use lots more, and not just as a cumulative effect "just to add", there are plenty of specific areas where more can be done-for instance, one area where Civilization shines is it's "civilopedia". It'd be great to have that for Dom. I know it would take tons of time to add it, but it could be a forum project. Infact, I think I'll start it...hmmm, anyway, my point here is that the burden of new spell ideas and other labor-intensive projects could and should be put on the shoulders of this forum. And I like that kind of homework. Obviously, I didn't like the other kind, but doing homework for Dom is just a little different http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif |
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