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[Araph]

About spellmaking, would they get rid of it in the Creation Kit? I would think they would still have the spell effects be put together to make spells in there, for convenience if nothing else, which would leave the ability to make custom spells available to modders. They'd still have to make the spellmaking menu, but it wouldn't be that hard, would it? I'm not very experienced at modding, though, so I might just be talking out of my posterior.

I'm checking out the games everyone suggested. Dark Messiah and Magicka look cool, but the Magicka demo I downloaded won't run on my computer. My computer is a piece of crap, unfortunately, but in a week I'm getting a new one. Hooray!

I tried Die by the Sword a while back, but the combat system didn't really work for me. Maybe it works better with a normal mouse, but on my laptop I ended up flailing my sword in circles as I got the crap beat out of me.

[ed boy]

A pretty interesting, albeit simple, magic system was the magic system of Arx Fatalis.

Basically, the spells were written with symbols, and each symbol had a meaning. So to create a fireball, you would have to write "create" "fire" "missile" using the symbols. The symbols are written in a book, and so are the spells, but there are hidden spells which aren't written and you'll have to experiment with the magic system to find out what they are.

I'd like to second the plug of Arx Fatalis.

Also, to clarify, the procedure for casting a spell is this:
-Find and learn magic runes
-Hold Ctrl and, using the mouse, trace out the shape of the runes. If you do it too sloppily, then it won't be recognized, or will be recognized for something else
-Release CTRL and cast spell (if you have the energy)
-(Optional) Hold shift while doing the above

If you hold shift, you can store the spells (up to three). They can be fired off later without having to trace the runes, but you pay the energy cost at the time of firing them off. Most spell recipies appear in one of the menus (once you have the runes), but there are a few hidden ones that don't appear (but can be guessed if you know the meaning of the runes). There are, of course, mods for Arx Fatalis, which can bring even more to the spellcasting system.

Here's a video demonstrating some of the spells.

[Virtz]

About spellmaking, would they get rid of it in the Creation Kit? I would think they would still have the spell effects be put together to make spells in there, for convenience if nothing else, which would leave the ability to make custom spells available to modders. They'd still have to make the spellmaking menu, but it wouldn't be that hard, would it? I'm not very experienced at modding, though, so I might just be talking out of my posterior.

That's assuming a bit. Like that spells can still have more than 1 effect at a time. That could be hard-coded for all we know, especially since apparently every combination of 2 spells (one for each hand) has to produce some effect.

On the subject of games with customizable magic, there's Two Worlds 2. You can mix and match various effect cards and put in some amplifiers and such. Look around youtube for some examples. Most notable is probably summoning junk and then making it spin around you, killing enemies and making their corpses part of the spinning projectiles.

[kulik]

There was a text based multiplayer game of two wizards fighting and you had to make chain of gestures to create spells and antispels, it was cool but there were people really good at it and i got my ass handed over to me most of the time. If i remember the name i will post it but it was quite long time ago.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Would "The  Void" count. The combat in that has you drawing symbols on the screen with your own bloodthe very life essence of the Void..

I was going to go with that but it seemed a little spoiler-y. If I remember it takes a little while for the first girl to tell you this.

I never did finish it, the whole "farming" mechanic confused me and I wasn't quite sure what I was meant to be doing. Might have another crack at it one day, perhaps the weekend.

[Dariush]

text based

chain of gestures

Huh?

[ductape]

text based

chain of gestures

Huh?

yup its true. this game has a thread in this forum, i just cant remember the name.

[3]

But with spellmaking? They'd have to recode the UI and probably even more.
You can't do everything with mods. For some things you just need the source.

On the converse, I see no reason why someone couldn't just do it all through a faux-conversation, as you said, storing whatever value wherever and creating a scripted effect using the desired values. If Oblivion's anything to go by it'll take some external engine manipulation (some equivalent of OBSE or something) to be able to make more magic effects for the scripts to use, and even if that's not possible one might be able to simulate the effects of a given spell purely through scripts. Even if that proves problematic, somebody could create scripts that activate on keybinds (again assuming the presence of something not unlike MWSE/OBSE) to create/fire spells, completely independent of the UI.

[kulik]

text based

chain of gestures

Huh?

yup its true. this game has a thread in this forum, i just cant remember the name.

I found it is called Warlocks.
Warlocks is a free web-based game of the conflicts between the evil Warlocks. Players compete in ethereal duels, performing magical gestures with their hands to create their supernatural weapons - spells. Some spells are so potent as to blind a person, call forth terrifying monsters, or even kill the victim instantly. Warlocks must rely on their own cunning to be able to cast enough defensive spells to avoid the brunt of their opponent's attacks, yet deliver enough offensive spells of their own to crack the magical defenses of their opponent, and, if possible, kill him outright.

Warlocks is based on the game "Waving Hands" or "Spellcaster" by Richard Bartle, which I discovered through "Firetop Mountain" - the email-based version of the game. I hope players will find Warlocks more user-friendly than they did Firetop Mountain. That was, after all, the point of rewriting it.

Did I mention it's free to play online? I did? Good. Now I've mentioned it again, too.

http://games.ravenblack.net

outtake from the rules:
Gestures, and how they make up Spells
On the Spell Reference Page, you'll see that each spell has a sequence of Gestures associated with it - quite a long sequence, in some cases.

"How," you may ask, "can I cast one of those Spells when I can only make two Gestures in a Turn?"

The answer is, you have to make the Gestures of a Spell consecutively, through a series of Turns.

There are 8 possible Gestures:

    The Wriggled Fingers (F)
    The Proferred Palm (P)
    The Snap (S)
    The Wave (W)
    The Digit-pointing (D)
    The Clap (C) (this must always be performed with both hands to be useful)
    The Stab (>) (never part of a spell, it is an attack in itself)
    Nothing (-) (never part of a spell, this gesture is generally chosen for an opponent)

The abbreviation for each Gesture are used when specifying Gestures for a Turn.

Note that a single Gesture can be used in more than one Spell. For example, the consecutive Gestures PSDD will cast three spells - P alone is a Shield spell, SD in the middle is a Magic Missile spell, and PSDD is a Charm Monster spell. All of these gestures would, however, have to be made with the same hand. Also note that a single Gesture cannot be used as the final gesture of more than one Spell, eg. SPFP is Anti-spell; you can't use the final P gesture to cast both Anti-spell and Shield.

Similarly, in the two-handed sequence
PPWS
WWWS
You could not cast both Invisibility (PPws, in which both the w and s must be two-handed), and Counter Spell (WWS on one hand) in the final Turn, even though the Gestures are there for both Spells - both hands' "S" Gestures would be used for Invisibility, so you must choose which spell you want to cast. You don't need to choose a spell until the turn on which it will be released.


...this may sound complicated but it is not, try it.

[Virtz]

But with spellmaking? They'd have to recode the UI and probably even more.
You can't do everything with mods. For some things you just need the source.

On the converse, I see no reason why someone couldn't just do it all through a faux-conversation, as you said, storing whatever value wherever and creating a scripted effect using the desired values. If Oblivion's anything to go by it'll take some external engine manipulation (some equivalent of OBSE or something) to be able to make more magic effects for the scripts to use, and even if that's not possible one might be able to simulate the effects of a given spell purely through scripts. Even if that proves problematic, somebody could create scripts that activate on keybinds (again assuming the presence of something not unlike MWSE/OBSE) to create/fire spells, completely independent of the UI.

Mods overly reliant on scripts and script extenders tend to look very glitchy. Deadly Reflexes for example. Their idea of having enemies "dodge" was making them teleport around just as your weapon was about to hit them. Some of the effects looked delayed, some of them worked in draconic ways. Either way it was far from looking or working on par with any good combat system.

It also tends to take a while before the script extender is made. Around 3 years after Oblivion was made, its script extender was still at version 0.1 or so. Currently it's at 0.2. And I'm pretty sure that making it involved reverse-engineering the game, so in a way it really does involve looking the source code (a non-human-readable version at that).

Although on the interface side of things, I'm nearly sure they'd be able to make it. Since FO3, they've been making the UI easier to edit, hence a lot of mods adding in extra UI elements like item text descriptions or a better health screen. I think they even mentioned it's defined in XML.

[3]

I think Deadly Reflex, specifically, has improved since its earlier iterations. It mostly uses the stock animations (shield bash, dodge etc.) which could be replaced with something more suitable if somebody bothered to make animations to its specifications (and it already has some, as I'm sure you know). There's a line to be drawn somewhere between mods looking bad because they're ramshackle and mods looking bad because they're ultimately the products of amateurs with limited time and inclination.

It might not look like it's progressed much, but don't understate the importance of OBSE. 90% of mods attempting something that wasn't ordinarily possible in vanilla rely entirely on it, mostly because it supports the creation and use of further libraries (with the exception of Midas Magic and similar things, that 10% of mods attempting to do something new are ones trying to create a compelling gameplay experience, har har).

Part of the UI has been in XML since Oblivion. Modifying existing files is fine but creating entirely new menus is a different matter... I don't even know if it's possible, regardless of whatever engine-hacking there is going on at the moment. I suppose the only thing to be done is wait and see how painful the implementation is when the release comes about.

[Virtz]

I think Deadly Reflex, specifically, has improved since its earlier iterations. It mostly uses the stock animations (shield bash, dodge etc.) which could be replaced with something more suitable if somebody bothered to make animations to its specifications (and it already has some, as I'm sure you know). There's a line to be drawn somewhere between mods looking bad because they're ramshackle and mods looking bad because they're ultimately the products of amateurs with limited time and inclination.

It might not look like it's progressed much, but don't understate the importance of OBSE. 90% of mods attempting something that wasn't ordinarily possible in vanilla rely entirely on it, mostly because it supports the creation and use of further libraries (with the exception of Midas Magic and similar things, that 10% of mods attempting to do something new are ones trying to create a compelling gameplay experience, har har).

Part of the UI has been in XML since Oblivion. Modifying existing files is fine but creating entirely new menus is a different matter... I don't even know if it's possible, regardless of whatever engine-hacking there is going on at the moment. I suppose the only thing to be done is wait and see how painful the implementation is when the release comes about.

I saw DR at about version 4, I think? The one before horse combat was implemented, which looked even more awkward in the preview videos. Looking at version 6 videos on youtube, it doesn't look much better at all. But I dunno, I'd have to see for myself, I guess.

And I understand what a wonderful tool the script extender is, just that it takes time to make it (so expect at least a few months before one appears for Skyrim) and the seams really start to show when a mod tries to do something the game was never meant to do gameplay-wise.

[FunctionZero]

Mods overly reliant on scripts and script extenders tend to look very glitchy.

As opposed to mods reliant on something else? Fact remains that scripts are the only way modders can do anything complex.

It also tends to take a while before the script extender is made. Around 3 years after Oblivion was made, its script extender was still at version 0.1 or so. Currently it's at 0.2. And I'm pretty sure that making it involved reverse-engineering the game, so in a way it really does involve looking the source code (a non-human-readable version at that).

Nah, nobody would bother with decompiling the code. What they did was inject additional instructions using DLL hooks. While the Oblivion version took a long time since they had to figure out how to do it, the F3 and FNV versions were easy to port. It's at 0.2 because that's just how they versioned it. Also, they made most of the changes in the first release and later just updated it for new patches.
Skyrim might take a bit longer because it has a "new" engine. (Though that's just Bethesda propaganda, in my opinion.)


And in the end, it all just depends on how much have they changed the spell system. Who knows if the engine even supports spells anymore and it's just mixing of effects.