Non-offensive spells get blocked

[Veroule]

Basicly all spells need to be reviewed for whether they should be blocked by the disallow offensive spells flag. I have noticed some very basic things like see invisible, blink, and teleport get blocked.

Blink and teleport should not be considered as offensive spells, and maps that want to block them should use the appropiate disallow teleport flag. Currently a map that doesn't allow offensive spells gives the message, "A mysterious force blocks your spell." Instead of the message, "You can not teleport here."

I am sure I have seen others blocked that probably shouldn't be, but I can't recall them right now. Perhaps we can a full list together for the wizards.

[Godhand]

Every spell should be allowed. The only place they shouldn't be allowed is in stores. Tesh and Arilou are putting way to much limitations on their maps and they are modifying most of the older maps to disallow spellcasting/pking too. There is already way too much stuff that don't make sense. Like not being able to pick up stuff on the ground?? A min/max value to auction an item that belongs to you?? Can't trade items that are different in value? Theres a ton more stuff that don't make any sense. Wyvern is being run like an authoritarian state and thats why the playerbase is down.

[Arilou]

Originally Posted by Veroule

Blink and teleport should not be considered as offensive spells, and maps that want to block them should use the appropiate disallow teleport flag. Currently a map that doesn't allow offensive spells gives the message, "A mysterious force blocks your spell." Instead of the message, "You can not teleport here."

First of all, teleport and blink will never be allowed in no-spell maps. Too much work is required to individually evaluate our 10,000+ maps (including ones in inactive wizard dirs which only the arch wizards have access to) and decide which of the no-spell maps should be no-teleport and which it doesn't matter in (which are actually a fraction of the overall no-spell maps - there's a legitimate reason for it in most of them). As a result of all that effort, there is no real payoff. All you get out of it is the ability to teleport in maps like New Verden - Big deal, it's fun for all of 5 seconds, but then who cares? We would never allow you to teleport in current no-spell maps where you can get behind something and the maps are not big enough to where it helps travel time so it's a complete waste of hours upon hours of man time that serves no real purpose whatsoever. We have real things to work on that will have real results without undoing things that work as it was intended to be just because one player would like a different design for novelty of it.

Second of all, no-spells was originally intended to block all spells. Being able to cast some anyway was an add-on and was not intended to give you the idea now no-spells is just meant to block only offensive spells. It's still meant to block all spells, just minus a select few that happen to be non-offensive. Many non-offensive spells still remain as things you shouldn't be casting for good reason. Teleport and blink are prime examples of this.

Third of all, this is not a bug, it's a feature request. Thus I've moved it.

Originally Posted by Godhand

Every spell should be allowed. The only place they shouldn't be allowed is in stores. Tesh and Arilou are putting way to much limitations on their maps and they are modifying most of the older maps to disallow spellcasting/pking too. There is already way too much stuff that don't make sense. Like not being able to pick up stuff on the ground?? A min/max value to auction an item that belongs to you?? Can't trade items that are different in value? Theres a ton more stuff that don't make any sense. Wyvern is being run like an authoritarian state and thats why the playerbase is down.

I hate to burst your bubble, but spells are usually disabled for the benefit of players. Instead of letting people go to jail for mistakenly hitting a spell alias, we block spells. Instead of letting people get trapped behind a wall by using their only teleport scroll, we block spells. Instead of letting people spam a popular area with spells just to lag people and make it hard for them to see, we block spells. Instead of letting people lock doors that make it harder for people to get around or block them in when done with doors in Inns, we block spells. The maps we've fixed by adding no-spells to, were early game maps where it was forgotten by the inexperienced mapmaker, but were in need of spells being disabled based on standards that have existed long before either of us were wizards. There's absolutely no justification to complain about any of these fixes as they take nothing away from the game (unless you consider locking people in Inns a fun part of the game) and only serve to make it better for the majority.

[Veroule]

Originally Posted by Arilou

Third of all, this is not a bug, it's a feature request. Thus I've moved it.

Perfectly understandable, thank you.

Originally Posted by Arilou

Second of all, no-spells was originally intended to block all spells. Being able to cast some anyway was an add-on and was not intended to give you the idea now no-spells is just meant to block only offensive spells. It's still meant to block all spell, just minus a select few that happen to be non-offensive. Many non-offensive spells still remain as things you shouldn't be casting for good reason. Teleport and blink are prime examples of this.

I a loath to disagree but I must. I have encountered maps that give a different message. Something along the lines of, 'You may not cast spells here.' Those maps are a true no spell map and don't allow anything. I will have to see if any of those still exist to point out the difference in the flag.

Originally Posted by Arilou

First of all, teleport and blink will never be allowed in no-spell maps. Too much work is required to individually evaluate our 10,000+ maps (including ones in inactive wizard dirs which only the arch wizards have access to) and decide which of the no-spell maps should be no-teleport and which it doesn't matter in (which are actually a fraction of the overall no-spell maps - there's a legitimate reason for it in most of them). As a result of all that effort, there is no real payoff. All you get out of it is the ability to teleport in maps like New Verden - Big deal, it's fun for all of 5 seconds, but then who cares? We would never allow you to teleport in current no-spell maps where you can get behind something and the maps are not big enough to where it helps travel time so it's a complete waste of hours upon hours of man time that serves no real purpose whatsoever.

Yes teleport and blink should probably be blocked in many cases where the existing spell limitations are. It is most definitely sad that these sorts of thing weren't done right in the first place. Fixing them will take inordinate amounts of time, and I can understand saying fixing teleportation vs other spells is unnecessary.

Originally Posted by Arilou

We have real things to work on that will have real results without undoing things that work as it was intended to be just because one player would like a different design for novelty of it.

Once again a small disagreement. I know wizards are completely voluteers, and I do some work elsewhere in a similar volunteer status. It is quite thankless. Let me take this moment to say I appreciate the consideration you made in your reply to both myself and Godhand. I like all the various wonderful maps and things you make.

I am not asking for a novelty item here. I am asking for someone that can update 1 list to spend 5 minutes looking over that list and the full spells list to decide which spells should be added. Nothing more and nothing less.

[Arilou]

Originally Posted by Veroule

I a loath to disagree but I must. I have encountered maps that give a different message. Something along the lines of, 'You may not cast spells here.' Those maps are a true no spell map and don't allow anything. I will have to see if any of those still exist to point out the difference in the flag.

I don't know what this has to do with anything I said, but yes that's from a map object. Since the elder wizards cannot edit maps outside their directory, but they can place objects in them, I created an object which disables one's ability to cast (there was no way to do it so it allowed certain spells). It was meant to be a quick fix to a serious problem with the two Inns in Minath Elion that were effected by people being locked in their rooms on a regular basis. We have since gotten the arch wizards to manually fix those maps and the map object was removed (I do not believe it was placed anywhere else and I have no intention of using it ever again).

Yes teleport and blink should probably be blocked in many cases where the existing spell limitations are. It is most definitely sad that these sorts of thing weren't done right in the first place. Fixing them will take inordinate amounts of time, and I can understand saying fixing teleportation vs other spells is unnecessary.

Well again, it's not sad as it was intended to work this way and we continue to agree that this is the best way to do it. So there's actually nothing to fix. It's a design issue - You have your opinion of how it should've been designed and we have the way which we are quite pleased with. I only explained how difficult it was to change for effect (even if that issue didn't exist, we would keep it as is).

I am not asking for a novelty item here. I am asking for someone that can update 1 list to spend 5 minutes looking over that list and the full spells list to decide which spells should be added. Nothing more and nothing less.

My entire reply was to the teleport and blink part of your post (thus I only quoted that part). So when I said it would be a novelty, I meant teleporting in a no-spell map would be one, not your idea for allowing other spells to be cast. Currently, I believe that there's nothing that needs to be added to our list of allowed spells. But if you have anymore specific suggestions I will take it into consideration and either agree with you or explain why (like teleporting) it was meant to never be castable in no-spells maps.

[Binyamin]

<<waking up from a nap early, and thus very grumpy>>

<<scratches belly>>

<<scratches chin>>

I fail to see any dilemma here. Wizard magic is infinitely more powerful than peon, er, player magic. We cast our spells to block yours. Yours' is not to understand why we didn't want you to cast magic in our glorious creation. Yours' is to move along and quit whining.

<<glares at whiners>>

I'm running low on cheese.

[Salkand]

Binyamin is right, our powers of magic can't compare to that of the wizards. Activate powers of bribery!

[Klodin]

Originally Posted by Godhand

Every spell should be allowed. The only place they shouldn't be allowed is in stores. Tesh and Arilou are putting way to much limitations on their maps and they are modifying most of the older maps to disallow spellcasting/pking too. There is already way too much stuff that don't make sense. Like not being able to pick up stuff on the ground?? A min/max value to auction an item that belongs to you?? Can't trade items that are different in value? Theres a ton more stuff that don't make any sense. Wyvern is being run like an authoritarian state and thats why the playerbase is down.

Look, all those rules were set into place afterwards BECAUSE someone tried to abuse the system.

The trade thing was added after a player tried to scam Rhialto!

[Arilou]

Originally Posted by Klodin

The trade thing was added after a player tried to scam Rhialto!

It was added after years of being disturbed by players being able to trade whatever they wanted to their alts but being unable to do anything about it. There had long been a note in the rules that we don't like you doing it and although we realize we do not have the manpower to put a stop by it manually, we will take into consideration that you've been doing it if we catch you doing something else. Meaning, if you normally might get silenced for something and you've been trading between your alts, you could get a banishment instead.

Players, of course, went wild with it despite it being technically against the rules and eventually Rhialto figured out an in-game way to put a stop on it (it was not the first piece of code written to stop it, though it was just the first to be implemented - a different concept was designed in 2002 to prevent it from going on). The idea, that this was a sudden thing that was added on the drop of a dime is a rumor put forth by those people who had become comfortable with no trading limitations. They completely ignored that big warning about it in the rules while making their rants and "they" confused Rhialto happening to say he was scammed on an alt, while discussing the changes, to be the reason for the trading limitations - It was not. The point of him bringing that up was only to describe how he was in touch with what it was like to be a new player.

[Veroule]

From what I can gather in the API docs published in the wizard manual section there is no existing list that would be useful to evaluate my suggestion. Someone would have to write up some java to go through the full spell list and display the status of the okNoSpells. Also it would seem to require Rhialto to make the changes in order for them to stick permenantly.

Right now the only spell that I think should have the flag added is see invisible. Basically it is totally worthless to bother for just 1 spell.

Originally Posted by Arilou

Since the elder wizards cannot edit maps outside their directory, but they can place objects in them I created an object which disables one's ability to cast (there was no way to do it so it allowed certain spells).

I took a stab at writing up an arch and java class to do just that. Since it is the first time I am writing something in java I am sure some of the finer points will be missing. Feel free to fix it and use it if you want.

<arch class="wyvern.wiz.limitspells">
  <size value="3x3"/>
  <image layer="-400" path="special/NoSpells"/>
  <boolean name="blocking" value="false"/>
  <bean name="spell-list" class="wyvern.kernel.player.SpellListImpl">
    SummonDemon
  </bean>
  <string name="BlockMsg" value="You may not cast that here."/>
</arch>

package wyvern.wiz.limitspells;

import wyvern.lib.*;
import java.lang.*;
import java.util.*;
import wyvern.lib.classes.StaticObject;
import wyvern.world.World;

public class LimitSpells extends StaticObject implements HookCallback {

 public void setMap(GameMap thismap, int x, int y) {
  super.setMap(thismap, x, y);
  Rectangle rect = getBounds();
  thismap.addRoomHook(this, rect, "castPreHook");
  thismap.addRoomHook(this, rect, "firePreHook");
 }

 public void remove() {
  GameMap thismap = getMap();
  Rectangle rect = getBounds();
  thismap.removeRoomHook(this, rect, "castPreHook");
  thismap.removeRoomHook(this, rect, "firePreHook");
  super.remove();
 }

 public void hookEvent(String hookName, Rectangle Room, CommandEvent event) {
  // wizards and non player objects can do whatever
  // might need to add a check for summoned monsters being told to cast something bad
  Boolean Blocking = FALSE;
  String spell = "";
  if (!(event.isPlayer())) { return; }
  if (event.isWizard()) { return; }

  spell=(CastEvent) event.getSpellName();
  if knowsSpell(spell) event.veto(getProperty("Blockmsg"));
 }
}

[Arilou]

Since we do not accept code from players, I'm not even going to look it at it. However, I am curious as to why you made something for it when I already told you the thing we used was just for emergency purposes only and has since been retired. If we need a map to be set to no-spells it's easier to ask an arch wizard to do so now than it was back then. Problem solved.

[Veroule]

Well, I am always thinking ways to make it easier for Binyamin to kill us. Like suddenly a map that blocks the use of Heal, Resist Fire, Resist Cold, Resist Lightning, and Mana Shield in all different random spots. Hence my desire to write it.

I guess it is a good thing I didn't take the time to write dispel traps for specific spells, because then a wizard couldn't use it.

There is also the logic that only 3 squares on each side of a door needs to disallow wizard lock. So I thought it worthwhile to write a design that solved the original problem you had without the possibilty of creating additional problems. Pretty much just to say it could have been done.