Hrm - pacman - I like your posts more than Niphty''s.
The player defines the character, no matter what u do. The character won''t change the player in any way.
The character is restricted by the player no matter which way you look at it. Unless of course the character controls his own actions and the player watches it grow. Skills of the player are necessary in any game, and I''m sorry to seem to be neglecting the market with cerebral palsy but it''s difficult to make a game where the focus isn''t on the players skill. Because I guess i really want to make two things, an immerisive RPG where the player gets a chance to play a role, as well as a challenging game, I''m stuck with limiting some of the role of the character to the skill of the player, but it''s an unfortunate truth that I may not be able to satisfy every criteria.

You have spotted a flaw well and it''s one I can''t patch up.

And plus, when I say that stats aren''t so bad, it means that thru the progress of this argument I have gained some kind of knowledge and experience which has recently altered my opinions. Sorry - I''ll try and make it clearer from now on.
ie I will try to say...
I am more inclined to believe now that stats aren''t evil as a result of this discussion.

Or something similar to that. If I do that it''ll make it look like I''m not going insane.

A couple of points to clear up:

1. In my previous post ( about the intelligence stat ), there was a HUGE typo ( would instead of wouldn''t ) that I''ve corrected now.

2. In this thread, my ideas have been evolving, I''ve not been defending the same idea all along. I''ve tried to be very open minded about everything, and constructive about every suggestion that has been made. I was hoping everyone else would stay doing the same, or formulate some well-thought through criticisms of our ideas. Niphty, you''ve been doing that a lot ( hence the amount of quotes in my thread compilation ), but in your last few posts, it sounds as if we''ve hit a sore spot with you.
I''m not saying our ideas are always right, or that we necessarily have all the knowledge to do things, but that doesn''t give you the right to start personally attacking us, just because we''re willing to toy with "unattainable ideas".

3. The "text adventure example" had nothing to do with the idea of using visual ( and other ) feedback to generate the effect of stats. I am doing that example to demonstrate story-driven gaming, and AI-based story generation. The feedback mechanism would, quite rightly stated by Niphty, not work in a text-based system, unless you limited yourself to coded messages as puzzles and obstacles.


Okay, that leads me on to explain the last ideas that Maitrek and I have had, so that we might try to at least take the edge off your criticism, Niphty.
I''m not aiming for a "you can do everything" world. That is very obviously impossible. In fact, the impossibility is one of my driving forces in accepting Maitrek''s ideas. Having visible stats and skills in broad categories leads the player to believe that those skills can be applied everywhere, in a logical or illogical fashion, to reach a solution. This leads to frustration at times when the line is crossed?

An example: "If my character has the Survival skill, why is it still dying of thirst?" - in a situation where you are in a desert, and the objective is to find the oasis. Logically, your survival skill would guide you, but often, to give the player a challenge, this is not implemented, and the player actually has to happen across the oasis in his roaming around the desert.

There''s a discontinuity here, it''s not "internally consistent" as Kylotan would say;

Now, what I was hoping to achieve, and I thought that was along the lines of Maitrek''s thoughts, was to use stats, skills, whatever, internally, to represent the strengths and weaknesses of the character that represents the player''s role in the game. This is to allow for things that the player himself would not really know or be good at.
However, the use of these character skills (I''ll keep calling them skills from now on, to make things clearer ) should be transparent, automatic, definately not explicit. Never along the lines of "I''ll use my lockpicking skill here", but rather "I''m going to pick that lock", or even better "let''s try to open this door". Some of this implicit skill use could be through balancing it with the "player skill", real world skill the player himself has already demonstrated. If the game allows portrayal of footprints, broken twigs and flattened grass, and the player picked up on this, and followed those tracks, it doesn''t need to support the tracking skill much. However, if the character DOES have that skill, yet the player is not demonstrating it, the tracks could be made more obvious, by adding more of them, increasing contrast, or in extreme circumstances, highlighting them when you pass the mouse over them.
For the "survival skill" i mentioned earlier, this could come in many forms. The player could stumble onto the oasis by accident, quicker, if the character had the skill. There would be a suggestion of "you knew this was the right direction all along!" when you got there.

This will of course NOT necessarily be possible for all kinds of skills, and I would suggest NOT supporting them at all in the game. (After all, you don''t have tracking skills in Quake either, and nobody really seems to care ).

Make the best of the skills you can represent!
I think that would make for a more consistent, believable world.
Suddenly, I also think this is why FPS games are so popular and immersive. They only represent one skill ( or a few skills ) ( with no balancing except for level selection ), but they do it incredibly well. This creates an environment where the only frustration to remain is that of the player trying to attain the right "real" skill level to manage. In an RPG, we''re allowed to fudge this (specifically single player, multiplayer is a whole different ballgame ) and I think we should.




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.

Actually - I''m beginning to see how this whole sort of idea that MadKeith has been patiently driving at is going to work.
I was thinking about his internal stats business when it came to my mind that the player may or may not know how much more strength he/she may need to hold an item, when I realised that MadKeith, or maybe someone else - not quite sure, had already pointed out that items like weapons should only be "special" if the are important to the plot, otherwise, a sword is just a sword, an arrow is just an arrow.

Which basically meant that there weren''t any situations I could think of in the game where the player would need to know the character''s strength. If the player tries to get the character to push a boulder bigger than the character can push, then it''s most likely that it is just too big. Or - if the player thinks about jumping across something but it seems a little too large - is there any need to try it out?

And also the skills padding out is something I kinda like. The player should be able to apply 100% of the skills he/she has, and the character should "pad out" the rest, this means there is little deficiency in challenging gameplay, but no real restrictions on what the player-character can do in terms of suiting a role.

Then the idea of a story driving the success is also very good - because that means the character/player has to play out the pre-designated (semi-linear) role in the game, and if anything in particular is skipped, it may detract from the character going further, but it may make the player go back and look for more stuff therefore perhaps finding a piece of the plot that they might have otherwise missed. You could even strongly "encourage" this by weighting the character down a little more if they have missed a particular point. For example.
At particular point "x" in game, the character could have got
70 story points if they tried and succesfully completed all of the puzzles up until point "x".
However, they only tried a certain number of the puzzles and could have got a maximum 55 points altogether if they''d completed all the puzzles they attempted 100% succesfully(previous stuff on degrees of succes). But they completed most of them succesfuly and ended up with 45 points.
So on one hand they have 45/70 = 64%
On the other hand they have 45/55 = 81%
And you could weight these depending on whether the puzzles are really important to the plot or if they are more trivial depending on the game. (a 1:1 ratio in this example would get an overall "story" percentage of 73% when the character is tested to perform an action).

This could be a very balanced system if worked properly...hmm...

Funny Maitrek, in responding to my post you failed to answer any questions that i had posed it in.

First and foremost, we are NOT all friends here. Mr 3d programmer extreme has failed to realize how popular text based RPGs are. Need i mention Simutronics? Gemstone 1, 2 and now 3! And DragonRealms! All text-based! Gemstone 3 has around a 15 thousand player character base, and dragonrealms near 5000! And that is the best numbers i can give you, there''s prolly more. They''re completely text-based and they''re not your "social MUD" kind of game. They''re a REAL RPG, and they beat the hell out of BG, and other pitiful attempts at RPGs that have come out recently. So by saying the text-based genre is gone, you''ve commited one of the most vile and uncanny sins of ignorance i''ve ever seen. I will argue with you until i hear some sort of appology for your ignorance towards the text-based gaming community.

You say "Fourthly - no - I don''t have a *company* devoted to games - I have a TEAM." A team is useless. You can''t market your game as a team, people will steal your code left and right. Are you SURE you know about how the industry REALLY works?

And unfortunately, any industry is designed to make money, regardless if that''s how you see it or not. If you ARE part fo the games industry, then money is the goal, period. You can say you want to make fun games, but how are you going to do this without money? You plan on making a server in your basement connected to a 56k leased-line? And there''s going to be what, 5 of your "team" members playing this game, and no one else? Explain how you plan on getting a viable product in store shelves without money. Will your customer tear open your package to see a disc with "Verbatim - 76 min" on the front of it? LOL!

I''m so sorry your MUD experience sucked. really i am, cause MUDs have worked out a LOT of the ideas you''re trying to say are yours and are "new". Because they''re not new, you''ve just rediscovered them. Big whoop, you''ve not had an original thought yet! you''ve just failed to go out and try to play in other places which are already making your ideas a reality!

I also still disagree with MUDs being a social place. You''re still an ignorant snob because we all know a MUSH is a social world, and a MUD is not. get your facts straight.

So please, start us a new thread and tell us all what a REAL RPG is to you, so that we might know where you''re coming from. I mean, you assume we all know it, and you assume very incorrectly. So tell us all what a "Maitrek RPG" is, since it''s not an adventure game with stats. Telling me "well it''s not this and it''s not that" is a useless endevor in which i''ll believe it is simply nothing in the end. So instead of saying what it isn''t, explain what it IS.

Maitrek says: "A stable world base should cope with what u want to add to it. And with your example, why should there be any problem there - the two locks could be programmed to be independant of each other and the door could be dependant on both. Almost like a inverse kinematics system - but in a totally different context."
A stable world base, do enlighten us zen master. I''d think ANY program should cope with what you add to it, but only if you add something to it which it was designed to have added. I mean, you can''t just call forth a routine in code that doesn''t exist yet, so you can''t add something to code later that suddenly does have the routines to call for it, can you?
I admit, it''s a bit off from a "world base" but it still applies. I suppose you''ve also worked out how to add something to the game, say.. a mountain of X size, and the game will automatically draw the mountain for you in your 3d world, since the "world base" is designed to have additions to it, eh? Do enlighten me on how this "world base" of yours is going to support additions to it without needing any sort of extra coding to it.

Maiterk whined: "Personal attacks really have no place here. This is the games industry, not politics Take it easy. I am sad to see what you have degraded this to (plus the cute little sad smiley was irresistable)"
Personal attacks are just that, personal. You''re whinning to the board because i disagree with you strongly, and you still refuse to answer the questions which i have set forth. I''ve asked basically the same questions time and time again and you sidestep them. So i''m hoping that if i make it a bit more personal and put your name on it, then you''ll be able to realize that they''re meant for YOU to answer, Maitrek. ANY industry is run by politics, regardless of how you want to see it. Society is political by nature, and yes, politics are EVERYWHERE. i''m sorry you''re closed-minded in this aspect. I guess you should stop programming and go forth into the real world and get a taste of how it is out there.

Maitrek also complained: "Hrm - pacman - I like your posts more than Niphty''s."
And that''s not asking for a personal attack in what way? Do explain. You''ve always said how you disagree with me and all, and so it seems you''ve been asking for a personal attack from me. if you''re not willing to read what i say, then i have total reason to attack you as an arrogant bastard that you are. For you''ve not proven otherwise.

J

Humm.. Pacman says: "Maitrek, you said yourself that the character is not the player. So why do you want to limit the character''s abilities by the skill of the player?"
And Maitrek says: "The player defines the character, no matter what u do. The character won''t change the player in any way."

Is this seeming kind of.. uhmm.. wrong to anyone else? Pacman, if you found his saying that, and he''s now saying something else.. which is completely different.. well, that''s kinda funny to me. Maitrek, when''d you change your mind?

I also disagree with you there. The characer SHOULD affect the player. This goes directly back to what Landfarce said about how he wants players to LOVE their character practically. And the reason we have to get rid of death in games and all this today that detaches the player from the character is because the player doesn''t feel like they''re the character. Isn''t your goal to make the player feel like the character, Maitrek? If so, then why are you saying the character won''t change the player? I''ve had characters i''ve loved and never wanted to lose. I''ve always used the name ''Jack'' for my rangers in D&D because that was my first ever character in D&D, and i''ve used the name Jack since way back when on the Sierra Network!!! I have a great attachment to my character, and to hear you say "the character won''t change the player in any way" makes me feel like you need to go back and play some good RPG games and understand what they''re SUPPOSED to be about. Landfarce has spent all this time trying to argue about how the character SHOULD impact the player on such a grand scale, and here you go and act like nothing''s been said!!!
The player IS NOT the character. Plain and simple. We WANT, read: our GOAL, is to make the player feel like they ARE the character. In reality they are not, but a good story draws you in, makes you the character! So we move from a book, set plot.. linear story line, to a game.. interactive plot, non-linear story line. And we try to make the two the same! Up to this point, the industry has mostly failed because they do NOT offer a lot of interactivity OR a non-linear plot. However, how do you write a story as immersive as a book can be, without leading the player in one direction? THAT is what we should be worrying about, not "do stats apply" because we''re always going to have SOME kind of stats in a game, because the player is NOT the character, once again.

Maitrek FINALLY admitted: "I am more inclined to believe now that stats aren''t evil as a result of this discussion."

Stats are merely a way to represent something we can''t be. It''s the truth of it to no end. I can see how Landfarce wants to rid himself of an intelligence factor, but IT does need to be there. The character has to be a sort of wrapper for the player. Kind of like a combat armor or something. I mean, when you sit inside a tank, you''re not the tank, are you? You''re the pilot, the gunner, something.. but you''re not the tank! The character is the same way, you ARE the brain and the will of the character, but your are NOT the character. The goal is to make the character a fluid extension fo yourself. The character should ADD things to you, not take them away. True, a tank can''t turn in a circle as fast as the drive could if he were on foot, so the tank therefore implies limits on what the drive could do should he be on foot. The point is, the driver has more advantages IN the tank, than OUT of the tank.. and the tank has more advantages than disadvantages. THAT is the goal and key of a successful character/player relationship. yes, i agree seeing your stats really puts you outside of the "roleplaying" of the character. However, they''re there because people like to know that they are, in fact, in something with more advantages than disadvantages to reality. So, what do you do? You think of ANOTHER solution. Because not showing stats to players will make them think you''ve got an adventure game with roleplaying elements, instead of what you call games today which are adventure games with stats, Maitrek. People will label you like you''ve labeled them. And only then will you see your own pitfall. You will not be able to call it an RPG, cause no one will believe you, just like you don''t believe them.

Now to Keith: Character intelligence is NOT all-encompassing. If you believe this, kill yourself now Intelligence is something which adds to the character, and IS needed. I sat and discussed this with my girl, playing devil''s advocate for a while and we both came to the determination that if you take out one stat, you take them all out. Why? because they''re an intracit network of support and if you remove one, it''s like a building made out of cards, they all tumble. Since you wan tto remove a bottom card, then the whole thing goes.
Intelligence is NOT related to magic according to Landfarce. However, that is merely his point of view. Not ALL magic is spirtiual. There is ESP, mind over matter, etc. All that has to do with intelligence, NOT spirit. So you can''t see one side of the road without seeing the other, and blinding yourself to either one will only show that you are a narrow-minded individual. Intelligence is there because of skills. Take your intelligence, for example. Intelligence is how well you apply what you know in the past to the current situation. The more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to do something correctly the first time! Intelligence IS need for a character if you plan on having skills, because intelligence tells you how well the character can adapt those skills to new things! If you drop intelligence in all respects, you kill the skills in the game, and thus.. you lose out. If you remove it, it''ll still be there in the skills, except you''ll make it varible by each skill. It''s impossible to NOT include intelligence when you''re adding something more than what the player can do.
So perhaps you disagree.. well, i see room for that easily. You can say that the player is the intelligence of the character.. and that might be. If the player is the intelligence, then that means the character is limited to what the player can figure out. If you''re retarded, this means you can''t play this game and get very far. Retarded people have skills, they just lack the intelligence to apply those skills to a current situation. THEY KNOW things, they just can''t use what they know. THAT is their handicap. And if a player''s character is stupid, and the player plays them like some intelligent person, then that''s not roleplaying. Which is an arguement for taking intelligence out. Perhaps if the stat doesn''t exist, then it won''t matter cause the player will play how they know to play.
This brings up an odd conflict though. Without intelligence, then the character can do ANYTHING, regardless of if he''s been exposed to it in the game. If the player KNOWS there''s a key here, and he walks up to it and goes "get key" well, he''ll get it, right? But is that really fair? I mean, if he''s sidestepped a whole sub-quest to find the key because he''s got a walk-through, how fair is that to your time and effort you spent programming and writing out that subquest?
So as a deisnger, an intelligence stat limiting the player to the reality of the game forces roleplaying, but may make the player feel cheated out of his full money because he can''t do "anything s/he wants". Tough. If they''re not roleplaying, they shouldn''t buy a roleplaying game. If they''re not going to play any sort of role, then why bother making it a roleplaying game, it should be an adventure game, right Maitrek?!

Please do explain all of this to me, as your little theory you''ve decided to go forth with has several holes in it, which you''ve gracefully overlooked in favor of using what you believe it right. You''re little fish in a bag is loosing water, i hope you can save him.

J

Keith says: "For the "survival skill" i mentioned earlier, this could come in many forms. The player could stumble onto the oasis by accident, quicker, if the character had the skill. There would be a suggestion of "you knew this was the right direction all along!" when you got there."

Ok, i had to discuss this with the girlfriend because i was missing something here. What i came up with was two situations where the ''survival skill'' would help you to find the oasis. Either the oasis moves towards the player or the player moves twoards to oasis. Now.. listen good.

If the oasis moves towards the player, then it''s not in a fixed place. The character simply stumbles upon the oasis at some random point determined by your ''survival skill''.
It the player moves towards the oasis without the oasis moving, then he''d hafta move in a direction towards the oasis, regardless of what the player wanted. the player gets frustrated at this "messed up" game because the character seemingly walks on his own. And if the oasis is always in a set spot, then people will know where it is, regardless of survival skill, which is not actually roleplaying, is it? I mean, the player posesses knowledge the character doesn''t, so it''s not actually playing the role, it''s using what you know and making the character know it. so like i said earlier, it''s all stats and skills or no stats and skills. The only way to get a variety in the game is to go all stats and skills, cause once the player learns things.. then they''ll go right to it, regardless.

As for the moving oasis, does it move away from you if you have too low of survival skill? would that then be considered crappy to the player?

You''ve not described in ANY detail how this is better than anything else. In fact, it seems worse. I admit, there''s one other option.. to have a big flashing arrow on screen as the character says to the player "i think the water''s that way!" and having a set oasis or a map that draws the elements differently each time, but the oasis doesn''t move once set. This is kinda like Darkstone, where things can appear in different orders and whatnot. This way the player''s knowledge of the oasis is not taken into account and the player''s understanding of how good the character is at knowing where the oasis is accentuated. THAT is what should happen, right? This assumes a randomly designed desert every single time. And means the player, as the character''s brain, has to know "well, i''m ok at survival skill, so i think it''s this way.. and i think i''m right" or "well, i suck at survival skill, i think it''s this way, but i''m not sure!" THAT is what you seek, yes?

I mean, take a good hard look at it, if the player cannot SEE their skill level, then they''ll be left high and dry simply following the arrow, which may be pointing the WRONG WAY! but does the player know his character.. no! because you''ve hidden those stats and skills from him. I''m sorry.. but i don''t think that would be very much fun, at all.

J

Boy, these huge posts. You''ll have to excuse me for ignoring most of them :-) ... sorry i just don''t have the time this week.

Going back to the story development stage of this thread... we should separate story development from role-of-character and statistics. I believe these are completely different but inseparable.

Viewable stats i think are a good idea, but how dependent a game should be on the use of viewable stats all comes down to how you want the game to be enjoyed.


I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

To clear up anyone''s confusion over a statement I made, I meant that the character does not change the ability of the player in anyway, the character may amotionally change the way a player feels, but cannot suddenly make them good at basketball in real life. Evidently - the biggest aim (as niphty has stated) in RPGs is to make the player believe he is playing out a role in another world. This ''role'' is generally thought of in physical terms as a character.

There is some latent form of restriction in the character''s ability by the player. The player *has* to have a say in some abilities of the player - it is unavoidable. The player has some skills of his own that he should be able to take from the current world that we live in, into the imaginative world we create for them. Whatever the player can not possibly do in the next world should be done by the character. I''m sorry that this may actually impose limits on the character, BUT we aren''t trying to get the player to guide a different body in another world, we are getting them to play a role - which is what I''m focussing on, and is the reason why the story-driven idea was spawned by other people probably thinking in a similar manner. A role doesn''t require skills and stats, it requires the character to have an effect on the world around it.

What I aim for is a more immersive experience where the player gets to feel like he is more or less inside this world. The character happens to be the medium for that - so the player has to associate himself with the character and the better I can manage to do that, then the more immersive the role-play is. I could make up a whole new body for the player in the other world, and he could just control it like a little toy, but that''s not what I''m aiming for - and it''s not my place to say sorry if this isn''t what your idea of an rpg is, I shouldn''t have to apologize for my opinions. If my idea of an rpg isn''t your idea of an rpg, then (niphty) talk to some of the other people in this post about their ideas because mine may somehow piss you off if u r that kind of person.

I''m starting to think more about the idea of using items and equipment and other types of things to dictate the player. Tools have long been what''s made mankind powerful, far beyond our natural strength. Our physical prowess was very minimal at best until we developed the spear and hunting mechanisms. In medieval RPGs this would still be different, the strength statistic would determine how big a sword you could carry and the dexterity would change how well you could use a bow and arrow etc, but in future RPGs the character''s development and control could be more or less equipment based. Statistics become somewhat less useful in these cases - mainly because they are too general and don''t really have a big enough say in what the character''s strength is. For instance, a man with a gun is infinitely better than Arnold Schwarzenegger with a straw (depending on the physical distance I guess)...

In it''s current implementation, intelligence is useless. Niphty makes several good points saying that intelligence is related to how well you can apply your knowledge to learning new skills based from previous stuff, and that ESP is managed by intelligence. But however, I don''t personally see this getting done particularly often in RPGs, maybe in some MUDs that I haven''t played but more often than not, I find the intelligence stat just changes how much mana I have, or how much energy I have to do ESP - rather than actively affect how quickly my character learns things. If intelligence were applied properly, and was strongly related to the character''s ability to improve then I would say it was useful, but in most cases it isn''t. This is especially a problem in a heavily skill based system. Most of the time skills are related to the amount of experience you get doing something, rather than the character''s natural ability to gain skills - if this is the case - then how can intelligence change during the course of the game?
There are two stances I can take here.

If we were to treat this realistically, skills will be affected by the character''s natural intelligence - this is the main justification of the intelligence statistic. But how often do we see people getting their ability to learn go up and up during the course of their lives? Very rarely, in fact 99.99% of people lose their ability to grasp new concepts over time - this mainly leaves intelligence as a mana statistic which is almost useless. Intelligence would be better represented as a "skill enthapy" if you were to justify the need for "intelligence" in that manner.

However, if we were to look at this as a game, then intelligence would invariably be best used as a mana control device, otherwise intelligence would become an extremely unbalanced device as the higher intelligence character''s would be far more quick at learning skills and could quite easily kick the crap out of a brute strength character - unless you make all the stats control the amount of skill a character can get - in which case it would be a total bastard to program, but would allow certain people to really play out a certain role. However this totally restricts character diversity, as the typical strong person will be forced into a typical strong person set of skills.

Personally - I think that intelligence is pretty much best left out of RPGs - because it either has too much say, or too little, or an average amount of say that just reduces character diversity.

Niphty, I think I''ve finally figured out the box you''re thinking in, and I hope I can relieve some of that tension, since you seem to be having a really bad week...

This is about the survival skill, and how you thought I meant it worked:

quote:

---

Original post by Niphty

What I came up with was two situations where the ''survival skill'' would help you to find the oasis. Either the oasis moves towards the player or the player moves towards to oasis.

---

I''ll try to answer this with a question:
Until you have found the Oasis, where is it?

Think long and hard, and then think of how we could use this to our advantage.

What I was ACTUALLY thinking of doing, was have the oasis appear wherever the character goes in the desert, but sooner or later depending on the survival skill. If the character went into the desert without survival skill, I''d let him pass out somewhere in the desert, and wake him up on a stretcher in a nomad''s camp in the oasis, several days later. ( Or with another disadvantage, if time is not critical in the scenario ).
Where the oasis is, is entirely unimportant in this scene. There has to be one, and you have to either find it or not find it. The player has to believe that either he stumbled onto it by accident, or he didn''t. It also removes "freak discoveries" from the list of possibilities. If the player isn''t meant to find the key, it isn''t there yet;

Now I know the criticism that might follow: what if the key has to appear in a location that the player has already visited?
I don''t know the answer to that yet, but I am sure I''ll find one. It''s all about driving the story - adapting the world to the story, and not the other way around.




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.

quote:

---

Original post by Paul Cunningham

Going back to the story development stage of this thread... we should separate story development from role-of-character and statistics. I believe these are completely different but inseparable.

---

These posts are big aren''t they Paul

Anyway, I''d like to use your post to talk about another little brainwave I''ve had just now.

Story Development and Stats can be separated, or they can be intricately tied together.
The "separated" version is what''s mainstream at the moment. You basically have a "world simulation" and a story set in that world. This has it''s advantages and weaknesses. Advantages? Freedom of movement, high performance, lower programming cost.
The "tied together" version is what I''m currently trying to get down in my thoughts. This also has advantages and weaknesses: deep story immersion, ability for consistency, vs. high programming cost, limited movement (though this may not be obvious to the player) and probably lower performance.

I''m going to keep working on that thought, nomatter how unfeasible people might think it is. I believe it can be done!

( but Paul, you are correct in saying that it doesn''t have much to do with "visually supporting character skills" )



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.