And here I thought all interest had been lost.TinyVoices wrote:Oh snap, I knew I forgot to do something nearly 2 months ago.
Okay, that makes sense.TinyVoices wrote:Well, that way the rare ability comes at a cost. You get to change races entirely, therefore unlocking the special abilities and chances that race gets. Yet, it comes at a cost of a small percentage of your life.BadFoMo wrote:Why should the player work so hard to get this rare ability when it will make them older every time they use it?
‘Chromes suited travelers’? Anyway, as I sort of said earlier they would only be found on the ‘Abandoned’ lots, and rarely if ever more than one.TinyVoices wrote:That'd be interesting. Just don't add in too many of those chrome suited travelers.BadFoMo wrote:One of the many things you can get off of them is some sort of injection device which when used allows a Keidran to age like Humans and Basitins for a certain amount of time.
I was thinking that when you visited one of these lots there would be a one in X (however rare you want this encounter to be/how many could be on a lot) number of chances that one might appear there.
Also, they wouldn't technically be dead. Similar to how a cash register will spawn a cashier in the normal game, certain objects would spawn these NPCs. For example, certain trees could spawn them and they would ‘interact’ with it to make it look as if they had sat down and prop themselves up against it when they bled out, or a small patch of flowers could have spawned one for them to lay face down. Either way, they're just there for the player to interact with and get some items from.
Also, if I remember correctly you can hover your mouse over NPCs to find out what their names are. Should all of these deceased NPCs be part of the Owen family and all be named U.N., or should they all be part of the Doe family and all be named Jane (for the ladies) and John (for the gentlemen)?
About the recharging, I'm not exactly sure how we would give an item in the inventory a ‘charge bar’ or how it would remember how many charges it has had (although that gives me an idea on something to look into and test in the game already), but tell me what you think about this. My original idea was that each individual stone would be one point and that you would buy them in bulk leaving it up to the player's imagination how many stones they have. To introduce the concept of recharging the stones, let's just say that the spell that's being cast costs five points. So five stones would be used to cast that spell. And each stone has a, let's just say 75% chance of being returned to the users inventory as an uncharged stone giving the illusion that the thing is losing its ability to hold a charge and becoming worthless.TinyVoices wrote:The concept of reagents will work. I just never had that expansion pack, so didn't know there was already a way to limit your magic use.BadFoMo wrote:In this case, there's only one Magical Reagent. [...]
For example, you could click on your Sim and tell them to ‘Draw Mana’ [...]
As for the use of Dark Mana in the game, I have two ideas. Either you can only draw Mana from certain places and if you need more but can't find these certain places, you can tell your Sim to ‘Draw Dark Mana’ which would cause them to draw little black and red lights towards themselves which would cause their Mana amount increased by ten every five seconds. Or once you're out of Mana and try to cast any spells you automatically draw and cast with Dark Mana.
Draw Mana might work too. Coupled with how many crystals you have, perhaps we'd have a system of buying rechargeable crystals. Each one holds a different amount of mana, and once as soon as a crystal has held two or three times its capacity, it can't be recharged again. So, a crystal with 50 mana points can be depleted to zero, then recharged to 50, then depleted, then either it's dead, or else we can make a second or maybe third recharge possible. Recharges can also be interrupted, much as you hinted. Just make it so the 50 mana stone can only hold 50 at most at any time, and in its career can only hold a max of either 100 or else 150. After that further recharges are not permitted. Humans can get mana crystals, or else recharge their "Natural Mana Reserve", which could just have a capacity of, say, 100 or what have you. This can then just be a single crystal in their inventory, which can be recharged an indefinite amount of times. Thus giving humans a slight advantage. Maybe make varying sizes of mana crystals. A small (10-40), a medium (40-80), or large (80-100). You can mess with the final numbers some, but that way you have an idea of what to work with. If instead we just work with spells that only require maybe 3 or 4 points on average, then the numbers for the crystals would be much lower. How big the humans' natural reserve is would also be up to how much they need to use spells, and how much each mana crystal size holds. Beyond that I think it starts getting really complicated.
I'm not sure which dark mana method I like better. I think defaulting to using dark magic when out of regular would be quite dangerous. If you did implement that method, you'd have to alert the player of the action as best as you could. Maybe making it trigger one of those camera views to pop up, much like what happens when something important happens out of view. Pretty lights and whatnot around the character would probably also help.
The idea of the stones coming in Small, Medium and Large sizes along with the natural reserve sound like good ideas. Also, should the natural reserve’s capacity increased with age? For example, a child would have like maybe 25 whereas a full grown adult would have 100.
Now that you mention it, using Dark Mana by default would probably be a bad idea (I've known Sims to not be trustworthy/all that intelligent). Plus I think the thing I was basing it on was what happened to Trace when he was fighting Natani and Zen, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't all that in control when that happened. So, it would probably be best if it was a player dictated type of thing.
Also, should I try making another altered screenshot of the Mana Stones and the ‘Natural Reserve’ in the inventory screen?
Actually, keeping the fun up would sort of be easy. In a similar way to how we give the illusion that Keidran live shorter lives, the custom items would give more fun than they naturally would. I mean, if you had never even heard of televisions or computers wouldn't you be content with simply reading a book, painting or getting drunk at the tavern?TinyVoices wrote:Injection device addendum is good, just remember what else I said about it. I like the idea of fast entertainment boosters. I totally forgot that TV won't exist (or shouldn't, at least) and so keeping Fun up will be pretty tough. It would mean you'd have to have your sims play with each other more, most likely. Unless we put in some easy and chronologically correct ways to entertain them. But the electronics with batteries or solar are good. Clothes could also be cool. Besides that, I'm not sure what else to add either, though I haven't exactly put much thought in it.BadFoMo wrote:Third, getting things from the future from deceased NPCs. Earlier I mentioned rare items and clothing (like these) which could be found on and taken from deceased NPCs who have mysteriously fallen back in time. Although I don't have many ideas, I do have a few.
Now that you mention it, that does seem like a very bad idea to include (not exactly sure what I was thinking there). But maybe they can still sort of be in the game. For example, when looking at the description of the panties it might say, “They look like some sort of strange undergarments. It feels like there's something inside the very fabric to make it do something. You’re no expert in these sort of things, something tells you it's broken.”. The tentacles can maybe appear as a small potted plant with an animation to it. Maybe in addition to the option ‘View’, we can include a joke option which does the exact same thing only labeled, ‘You can't do anything else other than view it, you weirdo!’.TinyVoices wrote:Prank Pixies in general could be added, or else have their effects randomly occur if you manage to trigger their wrath. They like light, so maybe the more light your house has, the higher the chance at shenanigans? A spell or maybe "Pest Control" guy could be used to halt their attack. Temporary affects caused by them should be okay. Such affects would include just what the comic has. Gender bending, attraction alteration, and race change. Might not be too hard to add that in. Would be interesting to have that happen. Trading halves would get confusing, I would think. Gender swapping as a spell might be okay, since gender really only affects attraction, child rearing, and whether or not you can pee standing up as long as your bladder is less than half full. Shouldn't be too much of a game changer. Just hoping it doesn't make things too weird...BadFoMo wrote:Trading Halves could be included with some of the things that Prank Pixies do.
The panties could be something from the future.
The tentacles could be a normal plant available from the get go.
The gender swapping can easily be one of the many magic spells which can be performed in the game.
Tentacles and panties are just what the [censored]... I don't think the Sims ever had anything like the panties before, so let's not go in and add anything sex tool related. The tentacles could just entangle the Sim, but let's not add in any erotic action or anything here. The worse thing I recall being in the Sims, is the act of woo-hoo itself. Let's not turn it into a porn game.
That's exactly what I was talking about. Controlling whether or not the hybrid children were a possibility.TinyVoices wrote:I'm not entirely sure I understand this concept entirely, so I don't know what extra little option it would include. Choosing to prevent hybrids would be nice, but would only be needed if hybrids were in-game. So, it depends on if they can work on the regular sims 2, or else which expansion packs they would need. We could add the Demi-God thing in just to control hybrid creation, though.BadFoMo wrote:Right now, I'm sort of debating between wanting to include it for that extra little option, and not including it because at the moment its only feature is to allow or disallow the different races to breed with one another. Any ideas on this?
I'm not exactly sure how to categorize them, but for now I shall continue to procrastinate on this.TinyVoices wrote:As for list of spells, ya that can just be put off for when you want to make a screenshot of what that would look like. Maybe try to find a way to categorize them, though. Attack, defense and maybe like alteration or something. Then go from there.
