I just looked at the topic and the first post. I think
Cause the programmer wanted them in the game to indicate how well the character is to the other characters are.

Reading over the last few posts in this thread, I''m kicking myself for having ignored it so long. I apologize. Can someone give me the low down? What have you guys concluded? What are we talking about right now?

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"The unexamined life is not worth living."
-Socrates

"Question everything. Especially Landfish."
-Matt

quote: Original post by Landfish

Reading over the last few posts in this thread, I''m kicking myself for having ignored it so long. I apologize. Can someone give me the low down? What have you guys concluded? What are we talking about right now?

You''re forgiven, I know you''ve been busy, but I sure as hell have been waiting for you to show up .

The lowdown is this: Stats may be unavoidable in order to recreate any kind of experience on the computer, but they can be very abstract, and very hidden.
Specifically for Role-playing games, we''ve slowly gravitated to a more story-based concept, using "story stats" or "story points" to evaluate actions and success/failure.

Right now, we''re opening up old wounds, sometimes about representation issues ( how do you present a challenge to the player ), sometimes about stat issues, and sometimes we get into implementation issues. I''m writing up a thread compilation that will have the most interesting tidbits in it, in only a few pages. It should be done soon, I''m well over halfway now.




Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~
ERROR: Your beta-version of Life1.0 has expired. Please upgrade to the full version. All important social functions will be disabled from now on.

I've just posted up a HTML version of my thread compilation ( the Word2000 version looks a lot better I can tell ya )

It's up right here.

I'll be adding some real design stuff to that document soon.



A definate link to check out as well:
http://www.media.uwe.ac.uk/masoud//author/story/story-2.htm.

This is what I'm thinking about at the moment, only, BETTER, more suited to games.


Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~
ERROR: Your beta-version of Life1.0 has expired. Please upgrade to the full version. All important social functions will be disabled from now on.

Edited by - MadKeithV on July 13, 2000 10:54:28 AM

Boy I wish I had stuck with this thread instead of forgetting about it, it has really jumped! I''m gonna read through this monster and see what it has developed into.

MadKeith, you have really taken control, it look like you got your feet well planted.


My view on programming, what It means to me, what it meant to me. ~Squall012

quote: Original post by MadKeithV

We''ve reached an amount of computing power where we no longer need to say "dammit, we''d like the character to be able to track animals, but we don''t have a way to show it in game, so we need to give him an automatic skill."
Follow the adventure-game route. If there are tracks to follow, SHOW tracks to follow. Be these footsteps in the mud, broken twigs, a light in the distance... This is a MUCH more immersive way of doing things. You don''t have to make it difficult, the fun of just doing it is probably enough. The players will start to pay a whole lot more attention to their surroundings instead of the ubiquitous "lets try my treasure-finding skill in this room."
Players are intelligent enough to try these things for themselves. Allow the player character to attempt ANY action that the player wants to try, but let the players'' skill count in the determination of success. Make it count a LOT.

Ok.. here''s the deal. this will wind up another game of "run the mouse around the screen looking for highlighted objects" or "type in look followed by every noun in the room description to see what is real here". If you like these, go away.. i will be bashing them now.

the first one, move the mouse looking for highlighted objects, applies to games like those made be sierra and others who followed suit. You walked around, no stats, no skills.. and you simply solved puzzles and adventured. No killing required. The problem? the character was you, you were the character. It came down to "do these three pixels look like a needle or is that just my video card or monitor?" It sucked. it still sucks. if you want to make the player do all the work, you''d better make MASSIVE footsteps in the mud. The reason in D&D that you rolled to see if someone finds something is because they CAN''T see it, there''s no visual representation. Just because you put a visual thing down, doesn''t mean they WILL see it. Suppose you have to follow the evil villan''s tracks and you can''t find them. Well.. guess what, refer to the walk-through thread! cause your people are going to be going and downloading a walkthrough guide, since they can''t SEE these tracks you''ve put there. I''m sorry, but you can''t expect people to enjoy something like that to where THEY have to find things. I can''t tell you how many times i simply went screen by screen moving the mouse all around until i noticed something highlight! And this is what you want?

Now for the second one.. text based games. how many MUDs do you see people walking around going look this, look that, look these? There''s a lot of people who are trying to find hidden passageways and such in games. Now, suppose you''re walking and looking for these villan tracks. What, you''re going to have a room description that reads "this is a quaint forest meadow with wide rolling hills in the distance, a peaceful babbling brook by your side, and oh yeah.. there''s some evil villan footprints here leading to the west."? Is this how you plan on treating you characters to an "adventure"? If i recall correctly, i hated it when MUDs had things like "go down the path" and the path was some part of the room description sandwitched somewhere in 12 lines of fluffy room description! This forces people to wonder around looking at every room description typing go , go , etc ad infinitem!!! THAT is why we have stats, because no one simply wishes to walk around looking at ever blasted noun in your room description till they find the ONE thing you meant them to find. How fair is that? how FUN is that? wasn''t that what we''d determined, the goal is to have FUN when playing our games? tell me how you would derive FUN from this.. cause if there''s something i''m missing, i''m gonna go make this game myself and start marketing it right away!!!

Stats are there to make the player NOT have to spend countless hours trying to find things that are two pixels wide!!! And there''s no gaurentee that if you TOLD THE PLAYER OUTRIGHT "go find the villan tracks in the forest meadow" that they would remember it or actually DO it, or even talk to the guy who''s supposed to tell them this!!! Is it realistic to have this guy try to find the player? and regardless of where the player is just pop up at the same time in every game saying "no no, ninny, the evil guy''s tracks are THAT way!" And this is realistic how?

Ok, the fedex guy just arrived with the rims for my car.. so i''m in a better mood now. you had better be glad he came.. otherwise.. i''d have to keep grilling you guys for this ;p i shall go drool on my rims now. good day.

J

The answer is this. RPG''s were paper and pencil games long before they were computer games. Stats are used so the player has a general idea of how good his character is at something. They also exist to make the dungeon master''s life easier. When in doubt he can tell the player to make an attribute check for an attribute that makes sense. They exist in computer games for similar reasons.

Later,
Eck

Niphty makes a very good point.

I think I''ll have to put him on my "blindly agree without reading his posts" list from now on.

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake

Way to go Niphty.

Stats of the char are necessary because YOU ARE NOT YOUR CHARACTER. You don''t know what your character is capable of, and trying something 50 or even 10 times to see how good the char is is just stupid. If you want to limit munchkins, then limit what the attributes do for the char. Make the majority of the damage come from HOW and WHERE you hit the opponent, not how much strength the char has. It''ll play a part, of course, but it doesn''t have to be the most important part. But make the majority of all things come from developing your character and, ideally, playing IN character.

There are physical and mental and social (and spiritual?) limits to what people can do, and yes, skills are a part of these limits. Skills are how much you know about a particualar topic and/or how well you can perform some kind of action. They are all derived from your attributes, though, in one way or another.

Like it or not, it''s not the stats that suck, it''s how they''ve been done. We need to worry about how to implement them differently, not find a replacement.

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

I thinkt he stats are there, whether you look at them or not, it''s the stuff your character is made of, besides a picture and how well you push buttons(or click).