Frankly, I’m bored. Really bored. I’m just kind of wasting time till I have to start my GSoC job, which I’m tempted to start early.

I made some changes to the settings recently, one of which was to require users to register before being able to post. I realize now that my email settings don’t work and I don’t know why. So if you registered to post, I apologize for the screw up there. I’ve removed that requirement now.

Now, what I have been doing is working on the combat mechanics for a roleplay MUD me and my friend are writing. She’s the creative expert, I’m the programmer and mathematician, and we work cooperatively on the design issues. Because we’re both very strong Explorer-type players, there’s going to be a lot of depth, from the combat system, to the varied races, to the continent and city you can explore. Plenty of in-character jobs; craft-your-own-spell magic system; trainable, breedable, raiseable animal pets/mounts/combat partners; learning and migrating NPC and animal mobs; and a complex ecology are just a few of the massively in-depth systems we plan to implement.

You know what I’ve learned? Writing equations and formulas for combat mechanics is HARD, and frustrating. You have to balance the initial character growth, against late-game character growth, and because me and my friend both hate combat being just a matter of whose stats are higher, I have to factor that in as well into the formulas. The damage equation is particularly tough, because with our design and playability goals, we want to avoid even the highest level character being able to OHKO noobs every time. One particular thing I’ve learned is that when you have four variables, and you end up multiplying them together, amidst divisions and additions, you have quickly exponential values. However, when there are just 3 variables, it is very easy to make it a linear growth equation. Anyone know why, or is my math-fu still weak?