///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
	Design ideas from everyone

This is a compilation of Cliff's, James', and my ideas so far that I really
liked.

Morphing:

  * Players can morph into other creatures; most likely, all
    mesh creatures in the games will be playable.

  * As the player kills each creature, his mana for
    morphing into that particular creature increases a bit. Once the
    player fills up his mana for any one monster he then gains the
    ability to morph into it.  Now, the player can use that creature's
    special abilities as far as movement, sight, speed, and defense for
    as long as he pleases. However, each time he attacks, the mana for
    that creature will decrease. When a special attack is used, twice
    the mana will be taken. (see "Special attacks" for more info) When
    the player runs out of mana, he can no longer attack as that creature,
    he can only exist as it and move around until he kills some more of
    that species...in another form that can attack. (at the very least,
    the human form will have unlimited attack abilities).

  * When the player morphs from one form to another, the morph
    is from one form, to a scaled generic form (scaled to
    the average size of the source and destination in all
    three dimensions), to the destination form.  The generic
    form is probably a blobby human form.  This means that
    only one morph anim is needed for each creature.

  * Morphing takes a certain amount of time depending on the
    ratio of source and destination sizes; changing to a similar
    creature would be fast and changing into a giant would be slow. 
    This could range from 1/4 sec to 1 sec; don't want it to take
    too long.

  * Control during morphing: The player has full directional
    (looking) control while morphing, limited (slow) movement
    control, and no use of weapons or fighting abilities.

  * Duration of morph.  The morph could last for (a) a limited
    amount of time, or (b) until the player's health drops to
    a low level, at which time he morphs back into a human.

Creature types:

  * Human.  Male, female, and Wizard.

  * Humanlike. Creatures which aren't human, like a troll, but which
    are similar and can use all weapons that humans can.

  * Non-humanlike: Creatures which aren't human and can't use human
    weapons.  These creatures typically have their own set of
    weaponage, such as the dragon breathing fire.

Creature attacks:

   Each creature will have one or more special attacks.  Some will
   be offensive, some defensive. The creatures that have excellent
   attack abilities will have special abilities that are more
   oriented towards defense, the creatures that have weak attack
   abilities will have attack oriented specials.

   The idea here is to have balanced characters so that no player
   can win constantly in net or regular play. Think of the morphing
   abilities like weapons in Doom - you've got limited ammo, and
   can get more ammo by killing more of the same foes. However, the
   "weapons" in this game also give you special abilities such as
   flight or ability to go through small passages.  Also, remember
   that each creature is of varying sizes, so you can only change
   into certain monsters in certain areas, and the point of view of
   the player would shift accordingly.

Creature/player inherent traits:

  * Speed       (maximum walking/running speed)
  * Agility     (speed at swinging or using weapons)
  * Strength    (power in melee or close-range weapons combat)
  * Size        (bounding ellipse dimensions)
  * Mana factor (increases mana by a certain percent)
  * Special moves/attacks/control aspects

Creatures:

KOBOLD
WING HORSE   Teleport           Speedy flight      Defense, attack
WIZARD       Most mana          Attack   
MAN          Attack             Least amt. of mana   
WOMAN        Defense            Attack
SPIDER       Web freeze         Speed, eyesight    Attack, defense
AIR DRAGON   Earthquake         Attack, defense    VERY slow  
LAND DRAGON  Dash with horns    Defense, speed     Attack, eyesight
GOLEM        Hide               Attack             Slow, low magic
DOG          Speed, eyesight    Defense
TROLL        Attack             Eyesight

Difficulty levels:

  Easy, medium, hard, and ungod.

Weapons:

  * Traditional hand-held weapons only apply to creatures
    with

Powerups:

  * All weapons

Registration incentives:

  * Tons more creatures, not just to kill, but to morph into
    also.

Creature-specific visuals:

  * Perhaps status bar (and window around screen?) looks like creature,
    i.e. a weird dragon skin pattern when a dragon, etc.

  * Creature's "hand" changes form, i.e. from a human hand to a dragon
    claw.

  * Eyesight can change according to creature, but only if the tradeoff
    is fair, i.e. no creature's eyesight is annoyingly lame.  Parameters
    that can change:

    - Palette tint: Colorblind creatures see more gray than other colors.
    - Field of view: Reptilians would see a wider field of view; they'd
      see more stuff but details would appear farther away.
    - Some creatures would have better night vision, though this shouldn't
      spawn annoying levels that are too dark.

  * Creature's height changes, affecting the view.

Creature-specific weapons:

  * Non-human creatures cannot use human weapons, so they have one or
    more of their own intrinsic base weapons.  For example, a dragon
    may have a "breathe fire" weapon, a slash-with-claws weapon, and
    a pounce weapon (or special move).  Some of these intrinsic weapons
    may be upgradable, for example the dragon's fire breathing ability
    could increase with powerups.

Behind-the-player view:

  * We'll try to set up the game to allow both first-person-perspective
    and behind-the-player views.  The behind-the-player view may not
    be practical because of the problems in having the camera smoothly
    and unannoyingly track the player, and because it will require far
    more precision in movements, i.e. climbing stairs.

Map mode:

  * The player will be able to bring up an overhead map that is overlaid
    on the playing screen.  It will be a simple anti-aliased wireframe
    map that moves as the player moves (meant to look magical, not
    computerized).

Experience level and powerups:

  * Even if you kill everything in the game, you are still not at full power,
    so that you always can get more powerful.  It just takes longer to get to
    the next 'level' of power. If you beat the game once it starts over again
    at a harder difficulty but you keep your level, similar to Tyrian and
    Zelda.  Then people will be talking of rumors of people who made it to 'the
    twentith level' of power.  It would be cool, because these characters will
    be very rare.

  * Weapons can be designed so that their powerup capabilities are nearly
    unlimited.

  * Powerups and experience levels have their full effect on other creatures,
    but only have a slight effect in combat against other players.

	 How to do this: During melee combat, this is simple because all hits
	 come directly from a player;  hits can have a diminished effect during
	 player-to-player combat.  During projectile combat, the source player
	 is tracked along with each projectile, both to aid in damage
	 calculations and to track (pardon the term) frag counts.

	 Why to do this: In player-to-player combat, exciting combat relies
	 heavily on real gaming skill.  In fantasy player-creature combat, having
	 an unfair powerup advantage can be fun, and enemies can adapt to
	 players' abilities.

  * Your weapons can be powered up in two ways: (1) by gaining experience,
    and (2) by grabbing powerups.  Experience increases all of your weapons
	 by a certain amount, but powerups are specific to a type of weapon.

Weapon classes:

  * There can be several weapon classes, perhaps "Earth", "Air", "Fire", 
    and "Water".

  * Powerups are specific to a class of weapons.  A "fire" powerup would
    affect all fire weapons (bow-and-flaming-arrows, dragon breath, etc).
    This prevents us from having to make tons of powerup types for all
    weapons.

  * Some weapons may belong to several classes... See below.

  * Types of weapons you'd find, and their classes:

    Earth: Sheath, double-sided axe, crystal shards, crystal balls,
           rocks, summon sandstorm.

    Air:     Whip, bow, crossbow, thunder blast (magical).

    Fire:  Dragon breath (dragon only), can be powered up.
           Bow-and-flaming-arrows, result of bow/crossbow being powered up.
           Fire whip, result of whip being powered up.
           fireball (travels along ground and walls), flame walls (surround
           player for defense).

    Ice:   Ice shards, icicles that shoot at other players, ice beams.

Enemy intelligence and aggressiveness:

  * This is a function of both a preset (design time) value and the target
    player's power/experience.  Even in a multiplayer game, enemies will
    be much more aggressive towards powerful players than weenies.  This
    is fine, since those players will be better equiped to fight them.

Multiplayer flow:

  * This shouldn't be a fight-for-30-seconds-die-and-start-over game
    like Doom.  A player should be able to reincarnate at any time
    and keep a major portion of his power/experience/posessions.

    All player attributes should be divided into three categories:

    * You lose it when you reincarnate.  For example, keys to
      unlock doors, limited-time powerups.  Player morphing should
      revert back to the player's default form when killed.

    * You keep it when you reincarnate.  Your name your kill record,
      special-purpose amulets, spells etc.

Dying:

   * We should do something cool when players die, so they can see
     stuff till they choose to reincarnate.  Doom did well with this,
     but it could be even better if the player had control to look
     around, perhaps even move his "spirit" a limited amount after
     dying.  Could be cool and give players more insight into secrets.
     Dying should be fun.

   * When a morphed player dies, his dead body should morph back into
     his original dead body.

   * Where the player reincarnates:  At design time, a bunch of
     reincarnation points will be set (just dummy 'reincarnation' actors)
     to say where players will reappear.  When reincarnating, the player
     will be placed at a random location nearby.  Designers must take
     care not to place reincarnation points in really hard or rewarding
     places to spoil the fun.

Player Stats:

   * Name/alias.  Can be entered to aid in large multiplayer games
     to avoid confusion.  Optional (not used) in 1-player game.
   * Health (0-100%, perhaps higher with special powerups).
   * Mana; tracks player mana stats for every type of creature
     in the game, plus an overall mana rating.

Auto targeting:

   When the player has "targeted" a creature (i.e. an infinitely fast
   projectile shot would hit the creature), a bit of information pops
   up on the status bar saying the type of creature or the name of the
   network player controlling it,

Enemy damage:

   Several bloodified versions of each enemy skin is stored to show
   different levels of damage corresponding to the player/creature's
   health.  100% means totally undamaged, 0% means dead.

   When enemies die, his body falls on the floor in a distorted, dead
   position.  Some enemies may disappear in magical flashes after laying
   dead for a while (so that bodys don't accumulate and slow the game
   down), and others may sit there permanently.

Possible network game scenarios:

1. "King Kong"
   The players, all needing the ability to turn into a flying dragon, return
   home to their castle after a crusade to find it being attacked by a giant
   troll (5 stories high or so!) They must destroy the troll before it wrecks
   their castle; flying around it like biplanes around King Kong.

2. "Motherlode"
   The cave in the northernmost regions is rumoured to contain an abundance
   of treasure... one problem, though. An enormous, ancient dragon is
   guarding it!

3. "Kingdom of the Spiders"
   Your bride-to-be has been taken off to be dinner for the Queen Spider...
   You, and a band of your best men, must take on the spiders and save her.
   Change into an arachnid to fool the other creatures!

4. "Regicide"
   Each player starts off in his castle and must somehow protect his own king
   while trying to exterminate the other players- and their lords!

Large multiplayer games:

* Players can have password-protected accounts (based on their name/alias)
  so that large ongoing games are possible online.  When the player leaves
  a session, he dies and loses any non-reincarnatable objects or abilities
  he has.  When he comes back, he reincarnates.  This works just like
  regular death and reincarnation.  This makes it neither beneficial nor
  harmful to avoid being killed by leaving a game.

* Any items which are crucial to the game must be set to be restored
  back to their original positions (as placed at design time) when a player
  carrying it dies.  Players may die by falling into endless or unreachable
  pits so they mustn't drop crucial items upon dying.  However, they may
  drop their regular inventory items, including weapons.  This gives players
  a big incentive to challange powerful opponents because of the chance of
  stealing their stuff.

* There must be a built-in time limit for players lives, after which they
  die and reincarnate, to prevent players from hoarding items that are
  critical path to the game scenario.  

* Dungeon master(s) can roam around world freely, creating ongoing
  scenarios for players by adding actors/items and by posessing actors.
  For instance a DM could play the role of a massive dragon during a
  critical place in the game.

* DM's can shut individual levels down (without affecting the other
  levels), upload new (modified) levels, and reopen them.  Before
  shutting a level down, existing players must be

Chat & network communication:

* Players can easily bring up a list of other players on the server
  they are on.  This list shows names and perhaps some (non-private)
  stats.

Tagging:

* All actors in the game may be tagged to appear or not appear in
  single player and multiplayer modes, as well as having four flags
  for their appearances on various difficulty settings.

Items, pickups, powerups:

* These may be set with several flags, including:
  - Respawns periodically (with a set period).
  - Respawns when carrying player dies.
  - Never respawns.

Cool spells:

   Spells can be picked up then activated at a later time.  They have
   no immediate effect (as opposed to powerups which take effect
   immediately when grabbed).  Some possibilities include:

   * Levitate.  Can be cast on creatures (effectiveness is a function
     of your mana and the creature's weight).  Takes effect for a certain
     amount of time.  Causes the creature to float up to either 10
     feet high, or 2 feet below the ceiling (whichever is less).  Can also
     be cast on players, but takes effect for only a few seconds (to prevent
     annoyances).  Levitate may also be applied to game objects (those
     tagged with a "levitatable" flag), such as a big stone blocking a door.

   * Heal.  Can save these up and heal yourself later.

   * Feign heal.  Makes you look healthier than you are, to fool other
     players.

   * Feign damage.  Makes you look nearly dead (or fully dead if you have
     several) so you can fool other players.

   * Ressurect.  Allows you to resurrect dead creatures, who will
     remember you, attempt to follow you (dumbly), and not attack you
     (their shots cannot damage you).  Can use this to create a lame
     undead army to follow you.  Perhaps the player could also switch
     among undead creatures to act.  Undead creatures have double the
     health of ordinary creatures and half the strength and speed (so
     they are tough to kill but not so aggressive).

Effect zones:

* Designers may create areas (bounded by invisible rectangles) that
  cause certain effects in particular areas of the map in the same
  way that ambient lights may be placed.  These areas are simply tagged
  with an effect type and parameters.  Some possibilities include:

  * Mana enhancement zones, boost players' and monsters' mana while in
    certain areas (causing them to act with a higher effective mana
    only while in that area).  Wizards would want to frequent these areas.

  * Mana diminishment zones, where mana has less (or no) effect.

  * Mana scrambling zones.  Causes each action you perform to have a
    random factor added to it, causing unpredictable results.

  * Neutral zones.  Useful for network servers as chat areas.  Weapons
    can't be fired in these areas, and shots cannot travel into these areas.

  * Holy ground.  Enhances power of humans and good creatures, decreases
    power of good creatures.

  * Evil ground.  Decreases good creatures' power, increases evil power.

World time:

  * There is indeed a day and night in this world (noticeable mainly
    when outdoors).  The player can see this solely by the brighness
    of they sky, sun, and moon.  This could be a function of the CPU
    clock in single player games and could be set by the server on
    network games (to any period, not necessarily 24 hours).

  * Things may behave differently during day and night.  Creatures'
    motivation stats may change according to day and night, and doors/
    passages may open and close depending on the time.  This is done
    via the internal event system (using dawn, dusk, noon, midnight,
    hour, and minute messages).  Crypts may open at night.  Churches
    may close at night.

  * Certain types of enemies may exist in different forms during the
    day and night.  Some good, some bad.  For example, the dog could
    morph into a much larger wolf-like beast;  pegasi may morph into
    bats at night.

In-game cinematics (and screwing with the players' mind):

  Here are some bizarre scenarios that are possible:

  * You're in a bright, cheerful desert setting and you walk up to an
    extremely high wall (wall-of-china-like) with a door in it.  You
    open the door;  as soon as you walk in you see a door on the other
    side;  the door behind you immediately shuts and cannot be reopened.
    You open the door ahead and walk out into a dark, stormy setting with
    an eerie castle ahead;  the music changes from bright to scary.

 *  Etc.  Can script out event-driven scenarios that begin once the
    player reaches a certain spot in a level.