MMORPG based on Powers and Perils

[David Jackson]

At 02:23 PM 5/29/01 +0200, you wrote:
>This would be great, but there are some serious issues to overcome. #1,
>what do you do about special events (which NORMALLY unbalance the game
>quite a bit).

It is fine to have strong characters, as long as they have strong challenges.
And most players will have to learn how to exploit their "special events"
anyhow.

>#2, eventual character growth turns out fine, but when one is
>maxed out, what is left to do? You can get your CEL up, fine, but that
>turns the game into a hack and slash... Better Idea would be to search out
>new training I guess.

Once a player has developed his character to a point that he doesn't feel
challenged
by his environment, then those players can delve into politics.  I will put
up parts of
the design document here, and you will see what I mean.

>#3 Mages can learn spells up to certain EL's, what is
>to prevent a stat maxed mage from sitting back and "practicing" his art
>until he is the all powerful mage on high? (NOTHING I HOPE!).

No reason at all that it can't happen that way, as long as the player is
willing to invest
the time developing his character that way.  The problem will come from
other mages
not wanting to let this one up-and-comer get too big for his britches.  We
have seen
perfect examples of this in literature - why can't it happen in our games?

>Actually the game mechanics would lend themselves to an online game fairly
>well. Eventually you could even have upper/lower worlds for people to
>adventure in (and terrorize). Going to the Upper World Chaos regions
>(translation - Hells) would be pretty cool... Me, I'd want some pretty
>decent protections. Also, what would you do with possession, fascination,
>etc... character dies? or would you actually have the AI "use" them for
>something... that could be pretty cool... but online gamers wouldn't want
>to wait while their "best character" got used in some epic battle launched
>by L'p'nth, Clima, or Formoria...

I tend to think that the mechanics would work good in an online setting as
well.  The
upper/lower worlds concept is already a part of the design document - but
of course,
we have changed names, etc. to protect our lawsuit-prone butts.

>ps. swimming in armor could also be fun to do... oops, you drowned... have
>a nice day!
>
>-Marcel


David