Wednesday, September 11, 2002

Weaponry

In pursuit of goal 3, ensuring that the IRC MUD is a good dungeon crawl, the player will need weapons to hack or bash away at the creepy undead that shuffle their way around Weirden. Okay. What sort of weapons are available to players?

Honestly, I’m tired of the standard weapons available in MUDs. There are always clubs, bows, knives, swords, and spears. While they do provide variety of combat, that whole system is just so boring.

Let’s think about our own world. In the early Renaissance, despite the fact that the above weapons existed, did people carry battleaxes around on the street? Certainly not.

All right, then what if only certain weapons are available? You wouldn’t walk into a weapons shop and see a rack of wooden clubs. But you would see swords, let’s say.

In fact, Soul Hunters abandons the whole idea of the generic “weapons shop.” There are shops for specific types of weapons — sensible enough in a dangerous world — so that the shops available limit the types of weapons available to the player.

Swords are popular, so there are Swords Dealers. Bows, too, are respectable. I can’t imagine anyone selling clubs or spears, so they’re out, though I suppose one might be able to find a club somewhere.

Won’t this be boring in itself, though, with only a few kinds of weapons available? Well, for one thing, the game provides a wide variety of each type of weapon. You don’t just buy a generic sword; you buy a rapier or a halberd or a broadsword or a scimitar or whatever. Moreover, players will be able to cast a wide variety of enchantments, so that your little rapier may have three simultaneous enchantments.

Also, weapons wear out over time. You’ll be encouraged to explore different weapons, and different enchantment combinations.