Wyrom Transforms Transformation Rods To 21st Century!
Posted15 May 2018
Last Updated On20 September 2018
ByNewsby
Those 1993 Transformation Rods (you all have one, RIGHT?) got a facelift from Mayhem Master Wyrom. If you have one, it’s a runestaff now, complete with modernized code, and will be a candidate for special work, like banes and enhancives. Welcome to the 21st century, Rod!
Category: Game Design Discussions Topic: Items and Inventory
Date: 05/14/2018 04:46 PM CDT
From: SIMU-WYROM
Subj: Transformation Rod
A super old scripted weapon called the Transformation Rod created in 1993 was updated. Prior to the update, it made a quarter staff, which wasn’t very wizardly. It now has been updated to a runestaff. With this update, I modernized the code so that it will transfer over properties and be eligible for special work like creature bane and enhancives.
I doubt many exist, but it was brought to my attention in 2016 and it’s been on my list to fix since. A bug surfaced with it, which put some pressure on me fixing it up.
Wyrom, PM
Date: 05/14/2018 05:47 PM CDT
From: KRAKII
Subj: Re: Transformation Rod
Wyrom, it’s been a while since I saw any of the other morphing weapons, but in the same years’ Auctions that these ones you fixed up came out, there were the multi-form (five?) ‘quicksilver’ weapons, also. Since you’re loving on morphing weapons, you might see about those at the same time…
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(<cough> I, ahhh… can’t help you locate any of those. <cough>)
Date: 05/14/2018 11:45 PM CDT
From: LUXELLE
Subj: Re: Transformation Rod
… Ohmygosh, I remember both those things!
— ;tune towncrier Rohese: “… the TownCrier (tune in if you haven’t, it’s without doubt the best thing to ever happen on LNet)” Xanith: “It’s flat out amazing” Doug: “100.times ^”
I mis-remember who it was I was chatting about these with (maybe Ardwen & Balinworn, maybe 2-5 [??] years ago, when Krakii was, you know… in-game), but the topic of Kodos’ original–“an enruned eog rod”, originally +10, he Enchanted it up to +50–came up and it was said that the most recent owner had left it locked in rod (i.e. “mace”) form because of some persistent bug, and didn’t want to get it converted to ‘ora’ by asking for a referral to have a GM fix it.
.
To whomever that current owner is: it may well be that since Wyrom was working on the script behind the scenes, and did NOT actually have to touch the items… that your enruned eog rod is now un-broken, again.
Could be worth a try, anyhow.
Date: 05/15/2018 09:49 PM CDT
From: KRAKII
Subj: Re: Transformation Rod
“the multi-form (five?) ‘quicksilver’ weapons, also. I can’t help you locate any of those.” — Me
Hee! Let’s hear it hard-disks and their disgorged contents!
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1998 Auction, tent for levels 11-30: “a basket-hilt silver rapier”, +20, Enchantable, cycles through rapier & whip & mace & mattock & handaxe. Sold for 880,000 to Jukjuk.
.
.
.
Oh, and Ardwen? I think I know the provenance of that one item I sold you 18 months ago. Five lines below the rapier was “an oddly glowing dwarven mace with an etched image of a lightning bolt on the head”….
Date: 05/16/2018 08:17 AM CDT
From: ARSHWIKK
Subj: Re: Transformation Rod
That’s awesome! I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those though. What I have seen and no one can do anything with, are those runebelt/runestaves. They’re stuck at 4x and no one can seem to work on them. They should actually be player enchantable and at one time they WERE workable because I remember someone having a 7x (whether they enchanted it through a merchant or PP I do not know) but now they seem untouchable. I know you guys always have full plates and I’m glad to see some things getting fixed. Maybe you can at least throw the runebelt things into the pile to sift through at some point.
-Arshwikk
Date: 05/16/2018 08:55 AM CDT
From: KRAKII
Subj: Re: Transformation Rod
Weapons: There are the 13-form rods that Wyrom just modified so the 2Hand ‘staff’/was quarterstaff is now a 2Hand runestaff/still has the ‘staff’ noun’; it was only a change in weapon profile… but the items are now usable by spellcasters. They can be, in order: a rod [mace], longsword, epee, hammer, mattock, flail, [morning] star, greataxe, waraxe, falchion, trident, whip, or [rune] staff. Enchant, STR/DUR, flares, weighting, padding… all of those are same/same across every form. Enchant one to +35 and add Flare X? 13 different +35 weapons with Flare X. Taking a small form seems to have a shorter RT [2-3 seconds] than shifting to a larger [3-5 seconds].
There are the 5-form quicksilver ones that I mentioned just yesterday. (I never ran across any of them, outside of seeing the Auction bidding.) Enchantable, and–one would assume–able to get flares, weighting, whatever.
There are the cylinder/pole arm things. These go from 2Hand quarterstaff to PoleArm <whatever; I think lance>. Same deal with Enchant.
There were quite a few of the rune-morphers you mention. I think I have one as a bracelet and one as a belt, on different characters; maybe another belt somewhere. Off the shelf, I think they were released as 1-through-4x Enchanted, and they take [two?] mana to change shape. Basically, I bought these as my “ohcrapIgotDisarmed!” fallback solution. 🙂
Non-weapons: There are the armor changers: plate, chain, at least two rigid and soft [now with four AsGs possible, rather than only three… thanks again, Wyrom!] leathers. The auctioned plate from about the 2008 (or so) EG that Cryheart won was 7x/+32 & had plasma flares, but the others were all plain so able to be Enchanted and so on.
There are at least two flavors of shield changers: one takes all 4 sizes and one swapped only 2. I don’t know of anything that would prevent these from being Enchanted.
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In non-combat items:
Morphing dresses, as well. (Different from the Metamorphic ones, which have multiple facets each of a single fixed alteration. The morpher can change just the adjective or the material or the noun, or all three at once.
And of course there are the beanbag toys, which can morph a bunch of different things. I keep mine set on homunculus, so that I can have Super ‘Munculus soar of the city on a mission for its dread Mistress. <beam>
Date: 05/16/2018 09:28 AM CDT
From: OM1E5GA
Subj: Re: Transformation Rod
There are also shields that can morph into bracers and armor that become non-ASG shirts. I made the mistake of having the former put on my spiked greatshield when I got picked for it and now it can’t be blessed… so if I ever win a script swapping service, that’s what it’s going towards.
Starchitin
A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.
Date: 05/18/2018 11:53 PM CDT
From: AXEMAN
Subj: Re: Transformation Rod
It has come to my attention I undercharged you for those things Krakii, an invoice is in the mail!
Ardwen
Date: 05/19/2018 09:17 AM CDT
From: KRAKII
Subj: Re: Transformation Rod
Pretty sure it’s been longer’n 7 years, dat transaction’s considered dead by now… 🙂
Date: 05/20/2018 03:52 PM CDT
From: HIRAETH
Subj: Re: Transformation Rod
Stuff like this is why I love Gemstone. The history!
-=Avawren=-
Date: 05/20/2018 04:29 PM CDT
From: KRAKII
Subj: Re: Transformation Rod
“The history” — Avawren
I was amused when Wyrom posted about the script being 1/4 century old. 🙂
Since you’ve been making staff/runestaff changes with the Rods, I was wondering. (And thanks again! I was grinding for other things at the last Duskruin, but I’m looking forward to doing something schmancy with these in the future…)
Would you consider something along the lines of either:
Request
Result
– changing the base weapon profile of a (non-cross-)bow in the RIGHT hand, to be a ‘runestaff’ rather than a ‘quarterstaff’?
Basically, make exactly the same change you did on the morpher.
OR
– if not such a global change (so, all current bows would remain staff-in-the-right), coming out with a new line of (non-cross-)bows–perhaps with some distinguishing mark? or made only of specific materials?–which ARE like that?
So melee folks would use Old-Style, staff-in-the-right/bow-in-the-left; casters would use New-Style, runestaff-in-the-right/bow-in-the-left.
OR
– incorporate all into the same item, and just start using a three-sided ‘grip’ verb to cycle?
From melee [== staff, R] to magic [== rune, R] to ranged [== bow, L].
You know…. Krakii would prolly forget all about polearms if you let bards be the only profession to duel-wield runestaves….
Starchitin, the OG
A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.
Actually, I was approaching it from the standpoint of that three-slot Fusion bow I picked up out of somebody’s shop a year ago… 🙂
But yeah, just passing the same stick from hand-to-hand depending on what I want out of it’d be great. Gives me a reason to train in Bows, too: Dancing Weapon/1025 would be worth something for me, even as a Caster!
— ;tune towncrier Rohese: “… the TownCrier (tune in if you haven’t, it’s without doubt the best thing to ever happen on LNet)” Xanith: “It’s flat out amazing” Doug: “100.times ^”
