magic above or within the world?

[Traceur]

some fantasy lore's describe magic as forcing your will over the fabric of the universe. in this case, there's absolutely no reason why your fireball should care for physics: if physics had any say in the matter the fireball wouldn't have being there in the first places. in this case the Newton of fantasy worlds was clearly a dimwitted no-talent mage, since magic is beyond the rules of the world.

but other fantasy lore's describe magic as knowledge about the mystical unknown aspects of the universe: there are unknown aspects to the fabric of the universe that the common man can not comprehend, but those who do can directly interact with those aspects, like the classic trick of summoning a ball of hot lava out of thin air hurtling away from you in the direction your facing. in this case, the fireball should have it's physics - it would be within the world and subject to it's laws.

a not uncommon compromise is that you do in fact force your will over the universe - but only to a limited extent, based on your talents and know-how.
the higher your skills, the less you need to care for the constraints of the physical world.

another type of compromise is that the two ways of doing things - often called sorcery & wizardry - exist side by side for different schools.

[The Last Spartan]

Ah, this reminds me of The Matrix Online points system.

Assuming "Will" is a skill then you could force it on the world, creating small fires, and draining your stamina which is related to your ability to cast/fire/attack things.

So by training your Will, you also train your Stamina, and are able to cast things quicker, for longer and do greater things.

Just my idea.

[Traceur]

that would probably go under the 3rd version of magic on the poll

i like the idea of not having seperate stamina/mana pools and instead having only one.

[The Last Spartan]

I based it off The Lord Of The Rings and The Matrix.

Gandalf looked dead on his feet after the Battle in The Two Towers (I don't remember it very well so it may have been a different film) and I don't think it has to do with him using to much Magic.

In The Matrix, the fancier the moves used, the more tired people are in the Real World (Look at Neo after the Burly Brawl).

[The Last Spartan]

Magic System

By forcing your Will (A skill you can train) on the World, you can cast Fireballs and other spells, but it drains your Stamina. As your use it, you train your Will (How much you can force your will on the world) and training your Stamina (How long you can cast things, how many times you can cast in in x amount of time and what kind of things you can cast before it takes a toll on your health).

[OMGPIE]

Magic should be part of nature I think.

[Bjen]

Magic is like science, par se.
the same, as in there are branches. You cannot just pull it all into one strand without harming the trees branches. for example, there exists the elemental magics, which either pull from the four or five or otherwise numbered primordial magics, or the planes above and below the 'world' in which those elements reside. then there is the magic in which the own characters willpower and knowledge of the intricate powers of the world allow him to force, or connive, or whatever way you wish to put it, this power into acts undefined by previous said science like the act of portal or 'instant existent' teleportation. then there is the use of the natural laws of things to form magic via the channeling of a latent or ever present energy. This energy can and will run out, or your physical or mental faculties lose their focus in channeling it. these are the examples that pop into my head, at least for now.
Most importantly, it should stress freedom, being in that thats what this game is all about eh?

[Apollo]

I am not sure if you guys have heard of a book called Eragon or not but I personally believe it has the best idea of magic. In a sentence, magic takes as much energy to perform as it would to do the same task in a mundane way. Say you are going to cast a fireball. That fireball takes an extraordinary amount of heat which would be difficult to create with your body, assuming this was possible, and therefore would consume a large amount of energy or stamina. Essentially it is the same thing discussed above but say you wanted to throw that fireball farther than just a few yards. It would therefore take more energy to cast that fireball farther away. By using this system of stamina, I would like to see magic a privileged and a powerful tool. I wouldn't want it to be as widespread as other games but yet it should still play a part. I think that when you come across a magic user, your chances of survival without magic of your own would be as slim as I would imagine in real life. Imagine just a few powerful mages that roam the land and in essense control the entire server. That is a game I would like to be apart of!

[sushibandit]

@Apollo-
Only if you were one of those "few powerful mages" amirite?

I like the idea of spells requiring reagents or special ingredients, in addition to consuming "stamina" or "mana" or whatever you want to call the ethereal power source of magic.

Of course, generic spells like "fireball" would have a well known recipe but think about how interesting it would be if you were able to mix and match various reagents together to try and obtain different results?
Experimentation would be able to reveal entirely new and unique spells that only the user would know unless someone else figured out that exact same combination (and wanted the same effects). Say you wanted a fireball that didn't do much damage on impact, but continued to burn for a long period of time; essentially a DOT spell. You experiment with various reagents to find out what ingredients make flames last longer and you finally discover the perfect blend that damages just enough on impact, sticks to the target, and burns for long enough! Your custom spell now requires 2 "flame salts", 1 "pitch lump" and 1 "sulfur powder" in addition to whatever amount of mana/etc...

And that's just one example. Think of it like Oblivion's Alchemy system, but without the effects of each ingredient listed before you experiment with it.

[Sorjak]

I loooove magic. It should be physical as all hell, tearing up trees and lopping the tops off of mountains. Let me summon a fire elemental and then have it go out because it's raining! Mages need to be intelligent.

[auutumn]

I would like to have some physical contraints on magic in that if I threw a fireball, anything in its path would get incinerated until all of the magic in that fireball was depleted. If that fireball hit water, again, physical characteristics of the water vs the strength of the fireball would be determined to see which would win out and when. If the fireball it another fireball or other spell, there would be a constant between the two until one won out. I also don't mind if a fireball chases me around corners as long as it doesn't go through the corner (of the buildig for example).

[rejekt]

I liked how Asheron's Call did their magic / casting system. It did not chase you, go around corners, etc. You could jump over the spells, avoid the spells by dodging left or right, go behind obstacles such as large rocks, etc.

There was also no spell interruption, so if you decided to go toe to toe with a caster you better be quick about it as they could just continue to keep on casting.

@Apollo
I agree with you somewhat, as I do believe that magic users should have to spend more time to increase their skills thus making harder to train and gain skill in vs say your average sword swinger. Thus for the difficulty one faces when training, should be rewarded with being powerful. However, shouldn't be as rare or as powerful as you were stating with "a few casters dominating the server."

[arturo2020]

Originally Posted by sushibandit

I like the idea of spells requiring reagents or special ingredients, in addition to consuming "stamina" or "mana" or whatever you want to call the ethereal power source of magic.

Of course, generic spells like "fireball" would have a well known recipe but think about how interesting it would be if you were able to mix and match various reagents together to try and obtain different results?
Experimentation would be able to reveal entirely new and unique spells that only the user would know unless someone else figured out that exact same combination (and wanted the same effects). Say you wanted a fireball that didn't do much damage on impact, but continued to burn for a long period of time; essentially a DOT spell. You experiment with various reagents to find out what ingredients make flames last longer and you finally discover the perfect blend that damages just enough on impact, sticks to the target, and burns for long enough! Your custom spell now requires 2 "flame salts", 1 "pitch lump" and 1 "sulfur powder" in addition to whatever amount of mana/etc...

And that's just one example. Think of it like Oblivion's Alchemy system, but without the effects of each ingredient listed before you experiment with it.

In addition, I think it would be safe to say that the reagents would only be needed until the spell became trivial to cast, requiring fewer reagents, and a quicker casting time.

More training, or experience casting the spell successfully would lead to the spell school becoming trivial to cast from, and therefore making spells (from that school), create a greater result with less cost. This would have a loss of skill on the other schools, and possibly an even greater loss of skill on schools opposing that school... Per Dungeon and Dragons rules. Creating speciallist, but not limiting the schools they can cast from.

[Apollo]

Well I am just saying that I don't want magic as widespread as so many other games. Casters in any fantasy world whether it be book or movie is always more rare than the games present. I would like something more than every party having a billion casters and no melee.

[The Last Spartan]

Magic that requires reagents means they require items (like gunpowder, lighting dust, for example) is something I don't want.

[icon]

I want the UO system regents means you have to not only know the spell have the skill to cast the spell and the higher you skill and intelligence your character had the better the spell got but also you needed different regents to cast a spell. Low level spells only needed one easy to get regent the harder the spells the more regents you needed.
So before adventuring if you needed magic you had to make sure to farm or buy what regents you would be needing. Or you could scribe spells onto scrolls and cast from scrolls each scroll held one spell.
This did away with the need for mana or cast times but you had to be clever about what spells you used and use the right ones for the job else you where doomed. Nothing better also then looting another players regent bag.

[F0rd]

Reagents should never be required. They're nothing but a horrible time- and money-sink, gathering them is usually annoying, and always manages to take away from the gameplay in a non-minor way.

[Unomat]

I like the effects of spells to be just as avoidable as other weapons, so mages are actually forced to use a proper spell for the job at hand.

[Slyther]

I agree with FOrd. however, i think spells that are really impresive (if we have them) like summoning a storm, or elemental(really powerful ones), or even turning yourself in to a part of the earth making a realy big rock/stone golem, should cost some kind of regent. while other less powerful or more simple spells should be regent free, and only cost mana, mabie a little stamina but would not work if a mage had more stamina to outrun a ranger hunting him wouldn't be right, so i think not so much stamina/energy cost. i gotta go though. just my thoughts.

[Stormblazer]

Magic should in some ways be part of the laws of nature, but the more skilled you are the less bound by physics.
Think of it this way: a novice just makes something explode by igniting it or something. A master could choose exactly how he wants it to explode. In other words, it's a matter of how much you are controlling the effect. What you don't control, the laws of nature take over.

[1reaver1]

While i am not for reagents, i am for experimenting. It would be interesting to intellegently experiment with arcane knowledge and movements to develop your own customized spells. Not sure how complicated you could get, but what would happen if i mix some speach and movements of a standard fireball spell awarded to me but also some from a lightning spell.

Would i create "fire rain"?
Would i create a "ball of firely lightning" that caused both types of damage?
If i have a low skill would a catch myself on fire including any members in my group within 10 yard?

Better find a nice quite place to practice and then drop your creations into hot buttons.

(note: if you do something like this, it would be nice if you don't get penialized for emploding yourself. Or at least not as harshly as being killed by a mob. It would bite to have a craft that keeps you crippled.......or would it.....hhhmmm)

You are basically crafting a spell of your own making. Give a slider bar to choose what spell is dominate in the mixure and to what degree. The effects could even be randomized a bit for stats when you do the same things. This way if you stumble on a good combo (i.e. a master crafted version) you can drop it on a hot bar and always have it. No different than crafting a rare master piece of armor. Just make it random and rare but saveable once it is done.

[Unomat]

So you'd prefer something akin to the Ryzom Stanza system, 1reaver1?

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Skill system

In many other MMORPGs, each character has a single class, and predetemined benefits and new abilities are gained based on experience points. Ryzom has no classes and no overall character levels. Instead, each character gains levels independently in the fields of weapon-oriented fighting, magic, crafting, and harvesting simply by performing appropriate acts (killing enemies with a sword for fighting, assembling jewelry for crafting, etc.). Each level gained in one of these fields awards the character 10 skill points that can be spent on new abilities specific to that field, spent on general character improvements, or simply saved.
All abilities are built of components called stanzas. Each stanza defines one of the ability's effects, costs, or usage restrictions. Players may assemble actions out of any legal combination of stanzas their character knows. For example, if a player wanted to make an attack that strikes all enemies which are engaged in melee with a circular weapon swing, causes extra damage, and also leaves its victims bleeding, he would assemble the Circular Attack stanza, an Increase Damage stanza, and a Bleed stanza. (He would then have to add enough credit and restriction stanzas to balance the beneficial effects, such as a high Stamina cost to perform the action, or a moderate cost but the limitation that it can only be used after parrying an enemy blow).