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Post by bigoldgrizzly on Dec 11, 2007 16:47:07 GMT -5
I'm sorry to say it, but this is probably my biggest complaint about this game. I miss some of the artifacts from the other games, and I really miss the activation artifacts. The only non-quest artifact I've ever gotten is "bee-sting." I've looked at your item description, and that helped me understand some of this, but here are a couple of questions:
What differences are there in the item creation and artifact creation that we need to watch for? If we were trying to port in a few of the old artifacts, what things do we need to watch out for (how much different are the flags and formatting)? Is activation completely gone?? It seems that the code to run the activations are in the old artifact files. If we tried to bring say the "Phial of Galadriel" for example, what would happen?
Thanks ;D
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Post by Variaz on Dec 11, 2007 17:02:45 GMT -5
I eventually plan to add the possibility of having custom spells available on items, and enabling the "A" command again. So artifacts could have spells castable through the A command. In fact, maybe universalize this for wands and staves as well, I don't really see the need of having two separate commands for wands and staves. As for old artifacts, well hey, this is Portralis, so it gets it's own artifacts! There's a couple of non-quest artifacts, and there will be more. Bee Sting's rarity is really low, so that's why you find it often. The other artifacts are rarer, and there aren't many yet. But they're pretty useful, I think. (having the 100% fire immunity shield can be especially helpful in the last dungeon's quest level of the current beta! The 100% cold one will be useful in the Rhyzendal quest line, when it's ready(will take a while). ) If you bring the phial "As-is", you'll get an error. You'll need to modify a couple of parameters. And don't bother doing it right now, because 0.3 brings an entirely new items system, with every single parameters customizable, and not pval-based. But if you ever want to convert the old artifacts when 0.3 comes out, feel free to do so. The Forge exists for a reason.
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Post by bigoldgrizzly on Dec 11, 2007 17:34:30 GMT -5
kk guess that makes some sense, but it does make me think of two quick questions:
How do you differentiate between quest artifacts and non-quest ones? And how do you set the rarity for artifacts (are they only found on one level, or is that a minimum level)?
While begging for more... how about mutations and traps... are they going to make 3.0?
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Post by Variaz on Dec 11, 2007 17:38:22 GMT -5
3.0, definitly! Now, 0.3, probably not. The only difference between normal and quest artifacts are the SPECIAL_GENE flag that prevents an artifacts from being generated randomly. Other than that, there's no other technical differences. You could actually put a normally random artifact to always appear in a given quest! Mutations and traps, I haven't forgotten. But probably not in 0.3.
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Post by bigoldgrizzly on Dec 11, 2007 17:42:30 GMT -5
Thanks for the always quick responses ;D I must be decimal dyslexic 0.3 vs 3.0
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Post by Variaz on Dec 31, 2007 22:09:59 GMT -5
Well, looks like you'll be getting your activation artifacts sooner than you expected! That's right, artifact activation is back in 0.3! What can they do? Anything monsters can do, they use the same spell code. So they can be used for casting offensive spells, healing, summoning, haste, teleport, etc... In the future versions, more effects may be added, but that's already plenty. Oh, and like monsters, artifacts can have up to 20 spells! Activation always works, but the item will need to recharge for a couple of turns before being usable again. The stat used to calculate damages is either intelligence or wisdom, whichever is the highest between both. And of course, Spellcraft will improve the offensive spells, though in the next release, I might add a "Magic Item" skill to make activation even better. But right now, there aren't enough artifacts to justify a skill, but they should be useful anyway. I implemented activation today because while working on a quest, an artifact was just begging to get an activation. Also, some of the existing artifacts now have an activation, so they should be more useful!
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Post by Variaz on Jan 1, 2008 1:55:16 GMT -5
Thanks goodness I re-implemented Activation! I added a "script" effect that can call a script when activated. With this, the possibilities are endless! With both melee and ranged being entirely scriptable, it's now possible to use Activate to do much more than just spellcasting, but also to give weapons special abilities, such as alternate attacks of a different element, or even special, unique abilities. And there is already a ranged weapon that I made that uses ACTIVATE to get an alternate firing attack! Oh, btw, activation is not limited only to artifacts. Regular items can also have it. So much potential sealed within a single item flag... Thanks, bigoldgrizzly, for asking for this feature!
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Post by bigoldgrizzly on Jan 2, 2008 9:03:05 GMT -5
You are most welcome.... now I just need to find time to test this baby out. I'm swamped at work for a week or two, so I may be the last of the forum folks to get a chance to try it ...
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