Re: Further notes about 0.90.1.

["'Evil' ERic Mehlhaff" <mehlhaff@ocf.Berkeley.EDU>]

"Rupert G. Goldie" <rgg@aaii.oz.au> recently wrote:


>> From: Tyler Van Gorder <tvangod@ecst.csuchico.edu>
>
>> plus the guys at berkeley has radically changed the spell stuff....added lik
>e
>> 50 new spells, made spell dependencies based on the level of the caster...it
>s
>> VERY COOL. 
>> 
>
>Can you or someone from berkeley tell us a bit about the new spells and how mu
>ch the code has changed ?

We've added a good 50 odd spells. Let me see if I can give a quick
description:

shockwave -- it's a cone spell, but does physical damage
color spray -- a cone spell that does damage of a number of random types.
face of death -- a blast of skulls that does a special 'death' attack on
    things.  It's an all  or nothing kill.
haste -- speeds up its target
ball lightning -- makes htis little electivied ball that moves around and
	zaps things.
comet  -- perhaps one of our most visually impressive spells.  Shoots a 
	rock out at the target, leaving a fire trail behind it.  The rock
	hits the target for physical damage, and then bursts into a small
	fireball.  Definitely a cool spell.
meteor swarm -- a blast of several comets.  They originate from squares
	around the caster (but not behind!) and fly in the target
	direction.  Our 'swarm' code could be used elsewhere, too. 
	like a 'bullet swarm'!

mystic fist  -- basically a golem that looks like a hand.

raise dead
resurrection
reincarnation   -- we hacked the player death code to keep the 'spirit'
	of deceased players, so that thy might be resurrected later.  Not
	useful if you have NOT_PERMADEATH   (does anyone else thing
	that's a stupid define name?) compiled in.

immunity to [damage type]  -- several spells that individually make the
	target temporarily immunet to that damage type.
invulnerability -- immune to everything
defense --	protected from everything

rune spells:  (most of this is peter's work)
	The rune spells make these magic 'runes' that are partially
	invisible.  When a being steps on them, they trigger some effect.
	we coded runes for fire, frost, shocking, death, marking, 
	magic (sets of another spell).

spells to build active walls -- create bulletwall,s, firewalls, etc.
	experience  for things killed by these walls goes to its creator.

transferrence spell -- give your friends some of your spell points

counterspell -- a cone spell that suppresses hostile magic effects, such
	as dragonbreaths, etc.

erase rune -- get rid of them annoying runes.

cure confusion -- very useful!

restoration -- fixes things like depletion, does a nice general heal.

a few fixes to summoning rules.


Additional structural changes to the way spells are done -- i.e. the level
dependency code.   spells' damage, duration, extent of effect, etc vary
with the level of the caster.  This wasn't hardcoded either -- there was a
separate config file that describes them, for easy customization by the 
crossfire administrator(s).

Much of our new spell code we put into a separate .c file, so it should
be relatively easy to merge in (unless game structures have changed
radically).
	
We have lots of cool ideas for more things to put in.  For example, we
didn't want the runes to  be invisible, but rather 'concealed'. Our
current hack is non-optimal.  Unfortunately, most of my time is spent
right now trying to get us a functional machine to do crossfire
development and testing running on -- our old server machine is currently
down.   :-(


 ERic mehlhaff, mehlhaff@soda.Berkeley.EDU