While holding a fairgrounds chat prior to the update, I entertained myself by throwing disguise potions at several of the attendees. This item has been around for a while – it was created circa V321 – and I admit that I have never seen disguise potions available in game (I should also mention that I never saw oak bashers available in game, so your experiences may differ from mine). I had wondered as to why this item has been unavailable for so long.
Allow me to begin by stating that there's more to designing an item than "what can the item do?" A designer should think ahead on how the item will impact the game. Personally, when designing an item, I do not think "what cool things will this item do," but instead I tend to take the cynical view of "what can go wrong" and "how will this item be exploited?"
Having said that: the potion of disguise is a frivolous toy. The technology that powers this potion is similar to a butterfly's kiss. The change of appearance is temporary and cosmetic; it does not actually change the race of the player. One may not quaff a potion of disguise and then enter a tree on KI which one would normally not have access.
If the potion is harmless, then why is it unavailable?
It may be that the potion is simply confusing. If you see a character with a human icon and their /INFO reads that they are a thoom, then that is confusing. It may have been decided that such a situation conflicted with the expectations of the /INFO command, and therefore the potion of disguise brought more trouble than fun to the game.
Another reason why this item may not have made its way into the game is because, like a bottle of paint, one player may use the potion upon another (unwilling) player. We've all grown accustomed to our personal character's appearance, and I can understand how some players may not appreciate having a change forced upon them. A player who wishes to avoid a butterfly kiss may move away from the butterfly, but that is harder to do with a thrown potion of disguise.
In truth, I do not know the reasons why the potion of disguise was never made publicly available. But as a designer, I have some ideas.
Kill An NPC Every Session
5 days ago
Posts
disable throwing.
ReplyDeletethis would add more RP the game, you could now say things like you are half sylvan and half human, thats why you look like one, or you grew up in the sylvan lands.
Actually that would be a nice one to have. Instead of buying paint every so often to color Mujin, I might take a great pleasure in changing her into a dwarf, a zo or even a halfing :)
ReplyDeleteBut NEVER change me into a dwarf ever again ! ;)
I found that fairly funny though and why would you have paint and not these ? After all the effect quickly disappear and I'm not really sure how disturbing the /info would really be. And if that is like the butterfly thing, a d/c fix it fairly easily (that's what it seems to me though that was just before the storm so maybe that wasn't the log out)
And maybe that'll give something to do to the alchemists if the ingredients are not crazy to find.