[RECONSIDER] Thief System

[Juniper Onyx]

(from a previous discussion on Forced RP)

Personally, I think a Thievery system should be worked on. I know it's annoying and all to have thieves, but I would rather have them following a system like all other job classes. I believe skill hold up and enhance RP, so sorry but Thievery, although RP'd well by some, really should be a system.

Some ideas for skills (based on Mana?):

Disguise (Good idea-Scrambles your Numbers or even Name-when used only as long as the Mana holds out)

Poison (Crafting skill-Make different levels of poisons - some kill, some only slow down an opponent so you can run for it)

Treatment (A crafting skill which enables the Thief/assassin to treat weapons and arrows with poison)

Pickpocket (Should be able to walk by a character, and randomly steal anything on their 'belt' with a chance of being caught which decreases as the skill gets better)

Sneak (You should be able to 'hide' near hedges and trees, maybe make the avatar invisible when using the skill, as long as Mana holds out.)

Assassinate (Allows x2, x3, x4 damage when fighting the opponents back - like Tactics does but in reverse)

Just a few ideas.

((There are so many good ideas the players have, how come I only see a very few, if any implemented? ))

[Michael Isman]

I have a feeling this thread will soon be Nitramified.

[Juniper Onyx]

Bring it.

[Mr. Cromwell]

Pickpocket (Should be able to walk by a character, and randomly steal anything on their 'belt' with a chance of being caught which decreases as the skill gets better)

I just want to say this: PLEASE GOD NO!

[Vilarion]

((There are so many good ideas the players have, how come I only see a very few, if any implemented? ))

That is easy to answer: Due to lacking manpower, time and last but not least: technical restrictions

Vilarion

[Cassandra Fjurin]

((There are so many good ideas the players have, how come I only see a very few, if any implemented? ))

Now i will see links here.

[Juniper Onyx]

((There are so many good ideas the players have, how come I only see a very few, if any implemented? ))

That is easy to answer: Due to lacking manpower, time and last but not least: technical restrictions

Vilarion

LACK OF MANPOWER, TIME?

Is it because you all don't recruit? How many new staff(besides GM's) have been added this last year?

Technical restrictions?

You all are about to revamp the whole crafting system (I really liked the current One BTW, but whoever asks me?). It can't be that hard to add a few skills related to thieving?

[Michael Isman]

Dusty, calm down.
There are only a few active developers that are coding Illarion, which are Nitram, Vilarion and Cassandra. Nitram and Vilarion have to study, as Cassandra is over-busy with the whole deep-server scripts (e.g: Did you notice the game doesn't crash but very rarely?)

It is rare to find Lua programmers, as it's not a common programming language. If you can program Lua, or know someone that is willing to without being paid, I am more than sure they will let new 'recruits' join the ranks of the developers.

[Juniper Onyx]

Dusty, calm down.
There are only a few active developers that are coding Illarion, which are Nitram, Vilarion and Cassandra. Nitram and Vilarion have to study, as Cassandra is over-busy with the whole deep-server scripts (e.g: Did you notice the game doesn't crash but very rarely?)

It is rare to find Lua programmers, as it's not a common programming language. If you can program Lua, or know someone that is willing to without being paid, I am more than sure they will let new 'recruits' join the ranks of the developers.

Wow, and I thought you were a newbie?

You know a hell of a lot more than me.

Yes, Cassandra is doing a wonderful job. And I offered to learn Lua to help some time ago.....never got any help to find out what it is. It's like finding out how to learn Fortran. It seems to be a dead language or something.

If Lua is so hard to learn, why can't we set up something like a tutorial, or post sites, so players could try to learn it, providing a 'crop' from within of future coders? There will be a time when the current coders will get bored, tired, overworked or whatever, and who will keep Illarion going then? The future of Illarion depends on it!

[Michael Isman]

I am PO Johnny Lant, re-metamorphosed.

If you type 'Lua Tutorials' on google, you will find many, very useful websites. There is also a small thread in the technical board I set up, you might wanna check it out if you're interested.

[Korm Kormsen]

dusty,

here it is:

http://www.lua.org/

http://evilmana.com/tutorials/lua_tutorial_02.php

good luck!

[Nitram]

LACK OF MANPOWER, TIME?

YES

Is it because you all don't recruit?

For sure

How many new staff(besides GM's) have been added this last year?

1 new, 1 pending
Sadly the 1 new developer does... well. Nothing.
Basically the main problem is that the good developers, that we really need, don't fall down from the sky. As least, not a single one did while i was here.

Technical restrictions?

If we make a random crap system that is just worse. Yeah. Possible.
If you want something good that works for some time, then we have technical restrictions.

You all are about to revamp the whole crafting system (I really liked the current One BTW, but whoever asks me?).

Good that we don't ask you. The current one is impressive crap. Thats a fact. If you see the new one you know, that the old one was really worse.

It can't be that hard to add a few skills related to thieving?

As i said. We can drop in something... crappy. Like the magic stuff is now. Then we get something like this that causes only problems.

[Senrin der Ältere]

I have a feeling this thread will soon be Nitramified.

How could you know?

[AlexRose]

That is the lamest emote ever.

I'll learn lua if there's like a site which teaches it.

[Nitram]

http://lua-users.org/wiki/LuaTutorial

Have Fun.

[Lord Arcia]

Good luck Alex...

[Michael Isman]

Good luck Alex...

[Estralis Seborian]

The current one is impressive crap. Thats a fact.

Signed.

First off, concerning a thief system or better a pickpocketing system, a rough sketch for this exists. A concept can be developed from this, however, currently it has no use to develope a concept for something that won't get implemented within one year at least. Also, it is not clear wether such a system would have a positive impact on the game. I have thought about serveral additions that make this system anything else but a "Should be able to walk by a character, and randomly steal anything on their 'belt'"-kind of system. Something like this can be implemented in some hours and piss off entire ingame populations.

Cassandra asked for links for good ideas. I also ask for those links - not because I doubt there are any, but I can't remember any.

Concerning the lack of manpower: It is a fact that Illarion could use more scripters, coders, sfx-guys and such. If you are skilled, contact a dev and ask for a job. If you are not skilled, you won't get skilled just by reading a tutorial. Lua is a professional scripting language (note: it is not a programming language) used for games like Baldur's Gate, nothing I'd call a dead language. You don't really have to "learn" it for if you know a language like C++, it is very much alike. The problem with new devs is that most people underestimate that effort one has to spend for a simple script and one has to work much on his own.

Now, one thing about the implemention of ideas - an idea is not enough. If you have a smart idea, you need a concept for a script, only with such a concept you can really explain what a scripter should code. For this, you need a certain knowledge what is possible and what not. If anyone wants to help with the conceptional work of the bard system, feel free to contact me (german is mandatory, sorry). I have made the experience that most persons who promised to help with a concept lost interest after my very first PM with tasks to do...

[Taylor]

See, I would by all means help with the Coding. However, I program in C++ with the SDL libraries. For anyone that doesn't know, that Isn't what Illa is made in. Illa is made in Java Applet programing for the Client, and Lua + some C++ for the Server side work. I'm still learning SDL, so I can't start on lua just yet. Well..To be Honest I haven't even finished C++ yet. I'm half way through the first semester of three, and I'm on Basic Object programing(Classes and Structs and what-not). Also, I noticed in LUA that most of the Variables are Globals, which might completely screw over any person that tries to come in to program, as if you have a Var-name that conflicts with the Global, it wont work. Also. Any work done will be a Function, However, what if you have to make a class for the function? Or even a Struct to hold the information that you create dynamically? Is that illegal or is it possible to do aslong as you destruct the Dynamic Memory(Pointer)?

[Mr. Cromwell]

If I was Nitters, I'd recruit you right away. You might not have teh skills now, but you seem to be likely to have them in the future.

[Vilarion]

Well, to answer some of your questions:

- the server is coded in c++ mostly, some parts which are likely to change more often are exported to lua
- lua is not dead (most well known project might be WoW)
- the client is not an applet, but still java
- lua knows private variables, they are only global by default
- you have no direct memory control in lua like you have in C(++)
- you have structs in lua
- you do not have classes in lua directly, however: You can emulate them with some tricks (metatables). It is very simple to make severe mistakes doing so. I migrated the soon to come crafting system nitram wrote to object orientation.

If you have any more questions about lua feel free to ask on msn, icq, irc...

Vilarion

[Aust]

Good luck Alex...

You dunno Alex. Hell make it if he wants to.

[Aust]

Sneaking skill: The POs can see the character sneaking, but the POs are also given some indication that their characters dont? That way you wont have the "do I see him or not" dilema.

Sneak attack: Sucessfully sneaking character deals more damage according to his sneak attack level?

Camouflage: ID number is scrambeled and partly hidden, again according to skill?

Pickpocket: Give the thief a chance of stealing a small amount of coppers, and coins only. (Just somthing for thieves to play around with til somthing better comes up?)

Would this be posible in the future? I dunno the magic system, but at least there is one. There is no Thief/Assassin system:(

[Taeryon Silverlight]

The current thievery system would be good, if thoose 90% of players wouldn't be able to log out when they get into trouble. How about making it impossible to log out when an other char is erm.. let's say standing within the 20 tiles next to the char who wants to log?

[Pellandria]

You can't force someone..he jsut needs to close the programm or shut his i-net connection down, but he still stays online for guess 1 minute or so..so you could crtl kill him.

[Estralis Seborian]

Sneaking skill: In principle, possible. The use is below a simple emote, though.

Sneak attack: Attacks from behind can already be devastating. From the few words you wrote I cannot make out what you mean by a "sneak attack".

Camouflage: Not even half worth the effort I'd say. One could remove the numbers totally, but I doubt the game will benefit from this.

Pickpocket: I thought about this and came to quite a satisfying solution how to handle this. A simple "shift-click-get-coin-system" won't do. Feel free to elaborate your ideas.

btw, what would be possible without more than a blink [for a skilled scripter / coder]: Make chars 'invisble' for a short moment. But something tells me there are major prejudices against thieving/assasination actions in Illarion - so sophisticated systems have to be developed if any. As long as there is no druid magic (note that this game waits two years for it now), I don't want to see devs spend time with such things...

[Cassandra Fjurin]

currently there is no thief system possible without server changes. Maybe a few parts can be scripted like pickpocketing, but no sneaking or hiding. This need some changes in the source.

And currently there are other things more important than that (lights, mapupdate)

After that i think about possibilities for sneaking.

[Karl]

Pickpocketing would be easy to write, and would surely satisfy the 'plz make a thieving system' demands.

It should:
- Give out random items/coins from victim's belt/bag. (I think I don't need to explain, why 'random'.)
- Should be learnable by ANYONE. It's NOT magic. Anyone can stretch his hand and try to snatch something off.
- It shouldn't be totally random.. Though level scales of; 1/10 ; 2/10 ; 3/10 ; 4/10 ; 5/10 ; 6/10 ; 7/10 ; 8/10 ; 9/10 ; 10/10 <-- being the chances/on how much to successfully steal something.
- If failed, the victim would get a message.

[Estralis Seborian]

Those are some basics, but this is far away from being sophisticated. Think about this scenario:

A good thief walks up to a char. The act of pickpocket (how?) is innitiated. Since the master thief has a "level scale" of 8/10, he can steal ~5 "random items/coins from victim's belt/bag" - including a plate mail, a gold coin and that fancy GM-quest-item. The "victim would get a message" after the 5th attempt maybe.

No way!

[Thomas Greenbottom]

Could a counter be implemented? Like on a second try on the same victim, the chances drop dramaticaly? From 8/10 to 2/10 or something?