Here''s my two shiny things:

The mouse is used to control direction. Look up, down, left or right.
Use the arrow keys to sidestep and move forward and backwards.
Left mouse is attack. Right is block. (Like Thief). Maybe both togehter do something, too (like jump in Ultima Underworld, one of the best games ever made).
Or right button uses the item in your right hand, and left uses the item in your left.
I also like the hold down to get a more powerful result idea. As long as you can cancel the action. Like, you pull back on your bowstring, and then your fried Bob kills the giant spider. Rather than waste an arrow, you press a key and put it away instead of firing it.

I realize a lot of this is a rehash of what has been previously said.

Saran Edorir,
-M



Saráth evenü, cán el-sayü liné!

I think the best sword fighting control dynamics I''ve played are on the consoles. Bushido Blade was the best i feel. It''s a good combination of simplicity and flexiblity. There is a generic context sensitive action key (used for such things as climbing up walls, etc..), 2 modes of attack (high stance and low stance), a parry button, and 3 attack buttons (3 unique ones for each stance), and ofcourse the direction pad which control your movemement. I''m not 100% of this since it was a long time ago. However even with this dynamics i think it could be improved and adapted for the PCs which don''t have a direction pad.

The mouse isn''t equavialent to the direction pad. The direction pad is a constant feedback device, in that the player has to constantly maintain a force to keep it pointed in the right direction and it returns to origin if the force is released. With the mouse it''s impulse driven, in that the chain of small forces (direction + speed) result in the desired action or change of state (in conjunction with the mouse button ofcourse).

So you''ll have to do some adapting if you want to make it work on the PCs.

Good Luck.

-ddn

I''d go for the numpad-movement , mouse-pointing , keys-attack(or defend).

I don''t know if i would like the 3D environment for sword fighting.I mean it will be very complicated(for the programmer AND the player)

I first so a "real" sword fighting in Prince of Persia and Moonstone.I pretty like it even now.They go more than the usuall "use the arrows to walk ,hit Space to attack".

I mean it depended on which arrow key you were pressing along with the attack button(if you pressed up and the attack button the character would hit upwards).
Unfortunately these are not even close to real swordfighting.

Bushido Blade is the best swordfighting game i''ve seen(but never played).But i never had good relationships with consoles...

I hope someone implements nice swordfighting technics in his game(not complicated! please).
Voodoo4

I''d have to agree the best two examples I have played would have to be Die by the Sword and Prince of Persia (original 2D).

Die by the Sword gave you a great feel of actually weilding a sword coz you had to ''swing'' by sliding the mouse in different directions and also handled strength really well, modelling it off mouse speed (as well as physics of how your arms was moving). (This is something I detested with Diablo, I found it so tedious and point and click, point and click, there was not a challange, no skill to be mastered, but I guess that wasn''t where the skill in the game lied)

With Prince you had the great lung, parry thing happening : ), something saddly missed in Die by the Sword (basically coz it''s not easy to do a good interface for it).

I like the longer you hold the more power idea (worked well in 4D tennis : ). Prehaps if you do as you were suggesting with the left right mouse button idea, but if you hold down the mouse button and ''swing'' (slide mouse) it slashes and if the mouse stays about the same position then you lung (or what ever is appropriate to the item held).

Sof? Diablo? Skill?

I don''t remeber any skill in Diablo, unless you consider using force of will to keep playing a game even past the moment when your brain leaks out your ass. But I guess that''s talent.

This post was brought to you by the letter "Land", and the number "Fish!"

LoL, Landfish...

I really think you're being hard on Diablo. I think that Diablo is exactly what Blizzard intended. It's just mindless killing with a very nice interface. Pretty damn nice graphics for 8bit. Just plain fun, and I believe that is what Blizzard wanted it to be. I agree ppl referring to it as an RPG is not quite right. Otherwise, it's like Quake. It's all that it's supposed to be, and they didn't try to bullsh*t their way into pretending there was a serious plot or point somewhere.

And, for the record, I don't mind my brain leaking out of my ass that much. It happens quite often actually.

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"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." -William Blake
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Edited by - Nazrix on June 16, 2000 6:29:40 PM

for the record: I *DID* play a lot of Diablo when it came out. I even liked it, for a time. I even still like it, sometimes. But we can do better... and should. That game could have entirely maintained it''s addictive gameplay and othersuch things, but still could''ve used some of the GDNetter''s awesome ideas, right?

Betcha thought I would hate Diablo, right? But hey, my initial statement still stands.

I don''t think Landfish is being too hard on Diablo at all, I couldn''t stand it personally, "soooo tedious" as my old math teacher would say : ). But a got the impression some people around here saw some merit in it and I guess that''s fair enough.

When I suggested a point-click realtime targeting system, I was not talking like Diablo. That game assumes that you are attacking an object, not attempting to wound a specific location.

What I had in mind was MUCH bigger target objects, with dmamge-by-location, al la bushido blade. Hence, skill would become knowing where to hit, and being able to pull that off. If this sounds familiar, it''s because that''s what fighting is in realty.

Any of you who practice a martial art will know why games always look funny with combat. Real people NEVER use obligatory attack arcs to strike an opponant, rather they use general attack arcs that are modified improvisationally to suit the actual combat. In the case of games, this means the location you are attempting to hit is VASTLY more important than obligatory attack arcs.

This does not guaruntee a hit! Your opponant will be constantly moving to evade you! Hence your "skill" will come to reflect how well the attack "tracks" the opponant, thus increasing accuracy. This is very useful to us as designers, allowing us to apply an abstract combat skill to a realtime combat system.

I have plans to make a game like this, but it''s WAY off in the future. If you beat me to it, please, give credit!

This post was brought to you by the letter "Land", and the number "Fish!"

Yeah, thought you''d hate Diablo

I realized you weren''t talking about Diablo when talking of point and click. I definitely think Diablo could you some of our (self-proclaimed) great ideas. Every game could! =)

Sorry..jumped to conclusions...