Member Discussions

I'm slowly developing a Circlemud and have reached the
following point at which I'd really like opinions on the
best way to proceed.

1) Every skill and spell can be assigned a race or class
min/max. A human warrior might achieve levels of kicking
that a hobbit could only dream of. I'm sure you get the
idea.
2) Every skill can autoimprove. When you gain the 'kick'
skill it starts at your race or class minimum and using
the skill allows it to improve to the max.

My question is, is there any reason I should hold onto the
guild code? Are there any good implementations out there that utilize both auto improving and guilds? I like the idea of guilds somewhere in the world for each class, but
what function can they serve?

Thank You for any ideas.

I would look at how smaug does it. They have class maxes and allow skills to gain with use. The way to implement racial maximums could be done similarly. You might consider allowing bonuses to be set for each class or race with an overall cap rather than having the max set. That would eliminate the problem of...hobbit warriors must have a value and hobbit mages must have a value and hobbit thieves would have a value which ends up leading to ( num_races * num_class ) additions to EACH skill.

Basically, every race and class can have an array of integers that is the length of the skill table that all initialize to 0. A file is read in which contains bonuses and penalties for that specific race or class and sets the specific skill slot with the value (save space by not recording zeros). Then, a player's max can be determined by: base_max[skill] + player->race->skill_adjustment[skill] + player->class->skill_adjustment[skill] and then checked to make sure this value is greater than 0 and less than 100. I would eliminate minimums all together. Since they are so transient (as everyone progresses eventually), they don't seem worth the time or effort.

I wonder if you've considered just making it harder/easier for certain races to progress in each skill. At 5'7'' it would be harder for me to dunk a basketball than someone who is 6'7'', but I'm sure with enough practice it could be done. The reason I suggest this is because, as a player, it can really suck to max out in skills, levels, etc. There is always room for improvement, as they say. I'm sure some like it and consider it 'winning' but I think in general, things just get boring when you know you can't progress any further.

As for guilds, they can be used for all kinds of things besides training. It always seemed awkward that one would have to go see a trainer to advance in skills after they've already spent all week practicing the skills, anyway. Inter-guild conflicts can make for fun RP scenarios. Guild-specific quests can be done. Guild vaults can be established to store equipment and cash for new members or to equip powerful members on especially dangerous quests. As you donate more money to your guild or complete the quests, they might initiate you with secret, guild-specific skills. (Now there's a reason for guild trainers.)

If you have a crafting system, the guilds could relate to that instead of the classes. So you'd have a combination of mages and thieves and fighters in the swordmaker's guild or the weaver's guild, etc. Along with some of the above perks, members of more prestigious guilds with many high-level crafters could sell their wares for better prices in the shops...

Just some brainstorming. I'm not sure how Circle's guilds are set up, so some of that might take a lot of work. But I would say don't scrap guilds altogether, since at the very least it can provide for cliques and roleplaying.

Thank you for some great ideas.