vbGore Free Online RPG Engine

Hey, hey!
Every think that, spells are always earth, fire, lightning and water (sometimes, wood)?
Why don't we make other elements to keep people entertained? The last time my friends played FF, they rolled their eyes and said "yeah, fira again..."
You see, there are no variations on these things, in every(yes, I emphasize on the every)game, there will be these elements only. Mere repeats.
why can't there be cloud? space? air? energy?

Well, it's the easiest way and the "common player" is kind of used to this. If you have this standard element system, some may be bored, but if you use a original system, it may turn some players off because it seems so complicated to them (although it's basically the same with other names)

Also, common elements are easy for opposing them. Fire to weak to Water and that stuff.

It's kind of hard to find these if you're using original elements and giving a reason for it.

Of course you could say "Jaratsu is weak to Obligo" but people will in that case just thing "Wait, what?". Fire to water is actually easier to remember, because it's also a term in real life.

With things like Cloud, Space, Air (isn't that one of the genreic elements, anyway?) and Energy it's a bit more easy, but you still would have to make things up. Like Space is weak to Void or something like that. Or Cloud to...uh....Sun or something.

Or you skip the whole element stuff and just call it Mana

I personally get annoyed with the whole "elements" theme of magic, and using it to have elemental weaknesses and strengths. Make spells that are cool, not that follow a pattern. Have a spell that just completely explodes a target, splattering their guts all over...

Oh wait, don't use that, I think I'll be using that one.

:good: :kill:

:drink:

I think elements are cool, but so are not having elements. I always liked metal as an element too. =P And wood. I'm big on specializing though. I think it's super cool when someone is ONLY a swordsmen, or better, and fencer, and when given an axe, they're helpless. The same with mages. Just taste I guess.

I've seen games use wood, astral, time, etc too, which is neat.

Thats one of the funniest ideas i have ever read!! But its true!
Yeah, spell should be fun and... fun. After all, spells(yes, usually blk magic) are used to kill!!!



Emm, yeah, cool



Yeah, simple elements are fine, but they limit the spells that could be created. For example, if you want to create... "starfall" what do you categorise it under? I would categorise it under... space... or any names you think of. besides fire or water or... or...

If I'd take standard categories, I would give "Starfall" 60% Fire and 40% Air. You know, it's Stars, that fall after all. And comets tend to be hot.

But, yeah, I know what you mean

Well the problem I have with elemental spells is that it limits your playing style. For example, if you choose one element, you usually have to stick with it since if you master in all elements, you often end up weaker. Take Diablo II for instance - as a sorceress, like 90% of your skills go to one element, while the other 10% go to others just for protection-based spells. If you were to evenly divide your skills, you would be weak as hell since no one skill would be very strong. This forces you to follow the path of enemies that are weak to your element. If you take on any adventures to enemies that are strongly resistant to your element of choice, the result is a hard challenge with a near-crap reward, making no one want to do it.

Of course, this is a flaw in design and can easily be avoided by not allowing people to master in elements at all (no bonuses or anything towards a specific element), along with keeping spells of different elements at a reasonable relative strength. That doesn't mean you should have Ice, Fire and Lightning that all do the exact same damage, but you could have something like:
- Ice: 10 damage, slows the enemy
- Fire: 12 damage, 50% chance to catch enemy on fire, 20% chance that any enemy they touch catches on fire
- Lightning: 15 damage

Then it becomes strategy. Ice would suck against weak monsters, since the slowing would be useless, but perfect combined with lightning for a big boss. Fire would be great for multiple enemies clustered together because they all catch each other on fire. But after you catch them on fire and/or freeze them (yeah, who said you can't do both? ), you just blast blast blast with lightning. Now you have strategy involved based on who you are fighting, not spamming of a single spell. Then if you want a fast boss that can't be slowed down, making him resistant to ice, so he can't be frozen isn't going to make mages want to quit and start over as a warrior, since how many monsters do you see in games "Resistant to physical attacks"?

Hm, thanks 4 the suggestion spodi!

But I think more elements will make things easier.

A long time ago, like in the times that most of the MMORPG's I imagine people will make are set, the common belief was that the word was made of 4 and only 4 elements... Now we have some 117 or so. The elements were earth fire water and air; the elements were combined in different ways to make up every substance known at that time. However there was one other element. It was called quintessence (litteraly meaning fifth element); it made up everything in the sky. It was sort of a heavenly substance that made up all those lights we see when we look up.

That's what primitive physics and chemistry was based on, which I only imagine is how lots of RPG's got stuck into the 4 element stereotype.

Oh, crap.
Hm... thats a good point.
since it was primitive, I was thinking rpg developers should move on to modern. don't you think?