Chaos Magic

lord_kungai · Post by **lord_kungai** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 7:09 pm

This idea has come up in many forums but it seems to have been rejected then and there. I was thinking about this concept and I have a few suggestions for it.

Make magic a weapon...

Yeah, I know it sounds weird but still, it'll be much easier to make a wand or spellbook or staff.

These are the buttons for it

AmmoSwitch: switches between four 'runes'
Primary fire: binds a rune to the spell
AWO: resets the spell
Secondary fire: Cast spell

Different spells have different rune combinations. If a spell combination is not right, the spell will not work. The more powerful the spell, the larger the rune combination should be.

E.g.: Fireball - 112233
Electric arc - 22443311
Heal - 3344
Speed - 3311
etc...

So, if I want to heal myself magically, I press the SwitchAmmo button twice, left click twice, press the Switch ammo button once more, left click twice more and then right click to cast the spell.

It might sound a little complicated, but it's just like melee fighting and it'll ad a chaotic element to the game!

BTW, there shouldn't be any mana to the magic spells. That'll really mess things up. What you could have is the spell resets each time it is cast. That means to cast another spell, you'll need to make it all over again. That would make magic using need a lot of skill.

Post by **Shadowstar** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 7:33 pm

UT is a rather fast paced game. If magic were to be implemented, we would have to make it a viable alternative or option to normal combat. Most players aren't going to want to spend thier time fumbling with runes when they could be shoving a rocket or bastard sword down someone's throat.

A faster solution would be neccessary. I've got alot of ideas for how it could be done and kept simple, but at the moment, we're busy doing alot of other things to tackle something new of this scale.

Rythmix · Post by **Rythmix** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 2:39 am

jb already has magic implemented... its called hardcoding the high score to his name whenever he plays

TKATK · Post by **TKATK** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 4:34 am

Rythmix wrote:jb already has magic implemented... its called hardcoding the high score to his name whenever he plays

WoW,now thats MagiC

Imo if magic would be added it should have only enchancing spells,not damaging,so it would be used as a bit of boost not as a killing machine

Gen_Identikal · Post by **Gen_Identikal** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 9:09 am

If you wanna implement magic, make em more point n click like those vortex launchers. Pretty magicky already i reckon but anyways, here are a few of my "magicky" ideas.

VOLCANO?
Sumfin cool wud a thing similar to a fire mine except its a constant volcanic plume that lasts for a certain amount of time. You can have a vertex mesh animation of "cone" of the volcano growing and then erupting out this cylinder of lava into the air.

WALL OF THE DAMNED?
Or mebbe something like a barrier would be good in Chaos CTF games. A gun that shoots a node which when on touching the ground spawns a wall of screaming faces. Something like a "wall of the damned". Possibly when you walk into it you dont get damaged but your speed slows down to a crawl, it strips you of the weapon/relics you're currently holding and annoys the hell out of ya with blaring sounds of screams.
...maybe a wall of fire?...

TORNADO?
This would be a alternative to the vortex launcher. I imagine this wouldnt be too hard to implement as basically the physics will be very similar to the vortex launcher instead. It would suck you up just like the Vortex Launcher but will also carry you up the tornado. It wont do any damage but the fall itself will probably kill you unless you could somehow grapple some nearby object whilst falling. Maybe limit this to large outdoor maps only?

STORMS?
With the CGL's poison and napalm nades, the lingering poison/napalm "smoke" they leave behind might be a bit too powerful and spammy? I dont know if this is possible but it would be cool if on impact the grenades burst into their inital cloud of poison/napalm except the smoke released forms a small cloud over the area of impact and then rains down green plague or fire. The rain would be fairly scattered so it would allow skilled players to dodge the death from above

GRIM REAPER
This would be THE most powerful magick weapon. This idea maybe impossible but still...

Like the vortex launcher you shoot out an orb which breaks in half and releases this growing black void thingy. The enemy has time to destroy this void but if they dont it turns into a portal and a grim reaper is summoned.

The grim reaper doesnt give a fcuk who he kills, so he basically targets the nearest player within sight (even yourself), floats towards them and then slashes them dead with his arms which are like scythes. The dead player "spills" ALL his weapons and adrenaline which then you could salvage providing you didnt get killed.

jb · Post by jb » Fri Oct 22, 2004 12:30 pm

Rythmix wrote:jb already has magic implemented... its called hardcoding the high score to his name whenever he plays

Well I know that Genman1{HHR} can verify that is not the case as when we play it used to be a close call on the winner....figured I would Let him win the last one

lord_kungai · Post by **lord_kungai** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 1:32 pm

Gen_Identikal wrote:If you wanna implement magic, make em more point n click like those vortex launchers. Pretty magicky already i reckon but anyways, here are a few of my "magicky" ideas.

VOLCANO?
Sumfin cool wud a thing similar to a fire mine except its a constant volcanic plume that lasts for a certain amount of time. You can have a vertex mesh animation of "cone" of the volcano growing and then erupting out this cylinder of lava into the air.

WALL OF THE DAMNED?
Or mebbe something like a barrier would be good in Chaos CTF games. A gun that shoots a node which when on touching the ground spawns a wall of screaming faces. Something like a "wall of the damned". Possibly when you walk into it you dont get damaged but your speed slows down to a crawl, it strips you of the weapon/relics you're currently holding and annoys the hell out of ya with blaring sounds of screams.
...maybe a wall of fire?...

TORNADO?
This would be a alternative to the vortex launcher. I imagine this wouldnt be too hard to implement as basically the physics will be very similar to the vortex launcher instead. It would suck you up just like the Vortex Launcher but will also carry you up the tornado. It wont do any damage but the fall itself will probably kill you unless you could somehow grapple some nearby object whilst falling. Maybe limit this to large outdoor maps only?

STORMS?
With the CGL's poison and napalm nades, the lingering poison/napalm "smoke" they leave behind might be a bit too powerful and spammy? I dont know if this is possible but it would be cool if on impact the grenades burst into their inital cloud of poison/napalm except the smoke released forms a small cloud over the area of impact and then rains down green plague or fire. The rain would be fairly scattered so it would allow skilled players to dodge the death from above

GRIM REAPER
This would be THE most powerful magick weapon. This idea maybe impossible but still...

Like the vortex launcher you shoot out an orb which breaks in half and releases this growing black void thingy. The enemy has time to destroy this void but if they dont it turns into a portal and a grim reaper is summoned.

The grim reaper doesnt give a fcuk who he kills, so he basically targets the nearest player within sight (even yourself), floats towards them and then slashes them dead with his arms which are like scythes. The dead player "spills" ALL his weapons and adrenaline which then you could salvage providing you didnt get killed.

I like your ideas! Especially the Grim Reaper

!

Shadowstar wrote:UT is a rather fast paced game. If magic were to be implemented, we would have to make it a viable alternative or option to normal combat. Most players aren't going to want to spend thier time fumbling with runes when they could be shoving a rocket or bastard sword down someone's throat.

A faster solution would be neccessary. I've got alot of ideas for how it could be done and kept simple, but at the moment, we're busy doing alot of other things to tackle something new of this scale.

I was thinking using magic in UT would be a lot like fighting with melee weapons. The player would have to keep changing runes and binding them, much like changing stances for better attacks in Duel. It is sure to be very fast paced.

chaoskirina · Post by **chaoskirina** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 2:32 am

Perhaps for the spells we can have you start with a random spell. like you spawn and you have ---- spell and all you have to do is press a button and the spell activates where you are standing. if you want to use the previos mentioned spells then the grim reaper would be rare to get. takes a couple seconds for grim to come out but he does. just so that it isn't like a suicide button.

Kyllian · Post by **Kyllian** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 5:02 am

I think this would work better as a new gametype than to integrate into existing

Heavy Metal · Post by **Heavy Metal** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:13 pm

Did someone remember the Dark Magic mutator for the First UT? would be nice to introduce it in UT2004...
spells like weapons and scrolls improving spells and mana vials...

The_0men · Post by **The_0men** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:27 pm

What about having a list of spells in the chaos settings menu and choose 1 like u do with melee weapons

.Gotta be fair tho so spells r powerful than the rest but in different ways. The grim reaper one would probably not be fair, but a tornado or twista one would be a good one

TKATK · Post by **TKATK** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 4:05 pm

The_0men wrote:What about having a list of spells in the chaos settings menu and choose 1 like u do with melee weapons .Gotta be fair tho so spells r powerful than the rest but in different ways. The grim reaper one would probably not be fair, but a tornado or twista one would be a good one

that would make no sense,methinks becouse a self respecting mage wouldnt limit himself to only one

The_0men · Post by **The_0men** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 4:46 pm

Yea but its fair

. and y cant any1 learn spells? im not talking about different classes. it seem like the fairest idea and it would get rid of the wasting time picking spells thing cos it would be set to a button

Hedge-o-Matic · Post by **Hedge-o-Matic** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 5:10 pm

Heavy Metal wrote:Did someone remember the Dark Magic mutator for the First UT? would be nice to introduce it in UT2004...
spells like weapons and scrolls improving spells and mana vials...

Dark Magic rocked hard. Great mod. I do like the more complex system suggested here, though.

Post by **Shadowstar** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 6:32 pm

The Dark Magic team had plans to update thier mod for UT2k3 but it became vaporware eventually.

All you need for a good spellcasting system in an FPS game is lots of cool particle effects, a complex but simple system that makes sense, and a way to minimize the number of keybinds neccessary. That can be a bit of a challenge, but it is possible.