Swimming

Micheal · Post by **Micheal** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 11:06 am

Good day from the Land of the Morning Calm,

I am of the firm believe that swimming should be a config skill. Config to noswim and you will not attempt to swim (takes swim skill to not known) config to swim and you will be able to swim.

Kirkus · Post by **Kirkus** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 8:06 pm

I don't think he meant to say that a character would forget it, but more like that character wouldn't attempt to swim. I have had times when my vt was bugging out or my computer was lagging a lot and have accidentily walked right into a river.

Pakur · Post by **Pakur** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 8:19 am

That happened once for me, I ended up with no stamina and it didn't end well.

Kregor · Post by **Kregor** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 2:56 pm

Pakur wrote:That happened once for me, I ended up with no stamina and it didn't end well.

Agreed.... mind you when it happened to me, I RPed it all through after ressurection and it became a huge piece of Kregor's storyline, but I doubt many of us want to have repeated experiences when the lagmonster attacks or your keyboard registers "S" instead of "SE" or whatever.

Either having it as a config, or even as a move option (eg speed swim) or even popping up a confirmation before entering the water ("Dude, are you sure you want to swim?") would assure that any attempts to swim were interntional rather than due to ghosts in the machine

Mele · Post by **Mele** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:19 pm

Fully support Mystra here. There is no need for a config on swim, just don't train it.

I did not train swim on Lunette until level 51, because I drowned so much with Mele. :)

~Danica

Caius · Post by **Caius** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:42 pm

I could understand a confing that can prevent you from swimming unless you were drunk, lost, or some other status that affects your reasoning. Maybe insane with poison too.

Elenthis · Post by **Elenthis** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 6:42 pm

I think the idea was good, and I know swimming has caused a lot of death, but if we start putting in checks "are you sure you want to swim here?" we might cause more problems that it is worth. By the same right we could put in checks "There could be a mob in the next room...are you sure you want to go east?" or "This weapon could potentially be cursed...are you sure you want to draw it?" I just think that if you get a lot of lag, move one room at a time, or dont walk near water. (or you could hire a friendly mage to walk with youand make you fly

)

Hope that helps.
~Elenthis.

Kirkus · Post by **Kirkus** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 7:59 pm

First I would like to see Elenthis walk from Waterdeep to Zazzesspur without getting close to water.

Can't be done. Just making the point that you have get near it some times. The only reason I support this is that I believe water is one of the biggest killers in the game. We arn't saying there should be checks like this on anything else, that would be rediculous. I really like Caius's idea about status checks for drunks and crazy with poison those are good ideas.

Caius · Post by **Caius** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 8:25 pm

This may be extreme...

How about if you accidently type a direction you can't go, you bash your head on a wall and fall unconscious.

Gwain · Post by **Gwain** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 1:39 am

I think in the end if you train swim you need to accept the consquences if you drown. It could happen anytime and if it does your char has a chance of dieing or sustaining damages. The important thing is to just live with it as best as possible. Maybe there could be warnings added to training such things, just to tell the those that don't relize the skills they will need to hone might hinder them if not properly trained. Or items like Waterwings could be developed.

Kirkus · Post by **Kirkus** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 2:30 am

I would just like to point out that this was brought up by a priest of Umberlee. Is he preaching water saftey, or is he afraid to swim?

Pakur · Post by **Pakur** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 8:56 am

I'm not sure if everyone understands the main point, if you all do then great, i'm wasting my..uhm...movement of fingers

. The use for this is when lag hits. Say you're going down the high road. ( South, South, South... no response.. *hit it again, again, again* ) The lag goes away and you find yourself in the middle of a river, losing health quickly and expending stamina trying to swim out onto land. It can be frustrating to die from this, it happened to me once. Ever since my character has stayed away from water unless he/she didn't have to touch it. It's just a measure for accidents during lag. Maybe i'm just not seeing the big picture, I may be wrong, but I believe it's a good idea at this point. Anyone?

-R

Micheal · Post by **Micheal** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 2:53 pm

Lag is not the reason. Because everyone is so scared of accidently drowning, no one trains swim. This is such a problem it brings up the unrealistic situation where no one can swim for adventurers. I think there was one kid who decided he was not going to follow my goddess because I required that he know how to swim. The kids are this scared of this skill. I would like to see more people swiming to get to places. This would cause a situation where people might shed some armour and drop some weight and try to get places, rather than just fly everywhere like people do now.

Remember, Umberlee is not only the Goddess of Waves and Oceans, but of Water Fun

Gwain · Post by **Gwain** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 5:08 pm

I thought Valkur is the God of water fun?

(just kidding)

Swimming needs to be taken seriously, it can be trained but you need to take small steps or avoid it completely. learn from example and observe other characters, make a survey and understand the risks and choose what best suites you, if swimming is worth the risk to you the character and not you the player.

Jerigo · Post by **Jerigo** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 3:42 am

I just want to make sure I understand this since my only character has had swim trained for as long as I can remember. If a character has not trained the swim skill then is it impossible for them to walk into a water room?

Telk · Post by **Telk** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 4:04 am

One thing I have found for less drownings is if you have lag and type south south. Dont press south south again press another key like inv. Hope that makes sense, anyways that's what I do

Remember: Watch your kids around water

Mask · Post by **Mask** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 10:48 am

Good idea, Micheal. I just coded it (only 2 minutes required!), and it'll be in the game shortly.

Cheers,

Martin

Belose · Post by **Belose** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:13 am

I thought it had it's good merits, too, Mask... the thing is, look at how many drownings happen because people are careless, NEVER learn to swim, or just don't pay attention and BOOM! <chug, chug> I understand how lag can kill people.. so can hitting the wrong directional button, or using abbreviated key strokes... &*)!..err, STUFF happens... but I was thinking if you wanted to do something like Micheal mentioned, might it not be better for combatmode? For those who are used to switching - & + combatmodes, it could go there....just my 2 coppers...

Tretch · Post by **Tretch** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 4:30 pm

You could also turn this into a command like dig, doorbash, etc

swim <direction>

swim east; swim east, etc

That way if you start heading to a river/body of water and try to WALK it says somethign like, "You would have to swim to get there." similar to DIG

You don't always doorbash (if you have the skill trained) when you try to walk into a closed/locked door do you?

No difference to me whether or not this idea, config or otherwise, comes in....just adding ideas/choices.

Later
Jake