Silvermyst, your ideas are very original, and would work. However, how would you explain that two swords made exactly the same way would do different things just because of the person using them? And, I agree that discovering stuff about items is cool, but the way this would work really isn''t realistic at all (isn''t that why we are trying to get rid of stats?).

In fact, if we really want to be realistic about things, the maker of the weapon is going to know what the capabilities are of the weapon they craft. They are also going to advertise this info, since the consumer isn''t going to buy something that they have no idea what it does. They are going to be honest about this info, or else they lose business by word of mouth and go out of business. Thus, the player will know what the weapon does when they buy it. Finding it, that''s a different story, because then it''ll have to be appraised by a smithy of some kind.

Just a few thoughts, please share what you think.

"Here comes armageddon, we're gonna have some fun.
Here comes armageddon, everybody grab your gun"

Humm.. Silvermyst.. i have to disagree here I think you''re going too far.

We have stats to make the player something they are not. The character is NOT the player. The player wants to be in control of someone more powerful than they are, or just different than they are. They want to do things, try things and achieve things they could never do in reality. Why do people powermax? they want to find out what''s next. Think about it.. look inside yourself. You thurst for knowledge. People WANT TO KNOW. It''s human nature

About stats.. they''re nessicary to make a character above and beyond the person. It''s unrealistic to think that people will play a character and the game will accurately return what the character is doing without some way to CHECK this. Only first person games in which you ARE the character are ones where it''s feasible to do this. In Doom, you had no stats because you WERE the guy. You aimed your gun, and you pulled the trigger and you opened doors. That was all. You never had to build a trap, or skin a bear. Imagine trying to do THAT in doom! Yeah, it wouldn''t work out. So we impliment stats and skills so that we have a way to measure character growth. Who wants to play a game where you don''t grow in some way? Even in a MUSH the point is to socialize, so you grow in SOME way

I don''t know if you''ve ever actually held a weapon before, but you CAN tell stats. If i hand you an Uzi 9mm, what the hell do you think it is, a rock? No, it''s a gun and it uses 9mm bullets and the name Uzi implies it has fully-auto capabilities. When a Knight was handed a Spanish broadsword, he knew things about it. Spanish made good, strong steel. A broadsword has specific applications on the battlefield. You pick up a sword and feel it. There are ones that''re much better balanced than others, this i know for a FACT. Also, there are different styles. Wavey blades, blood channels, different hilts, swordbreakers in the sword.. etc. If you''ve never seen a collection of weapons and gone through them, then you''ve no idea where to start here. Get thee to a local festival or convention! Having gone to ICON two years in a row, TENNCON, and the Festival in nashville, tenn.. i can say i''ve played with a great many weapons (i own 3 now, two swords.. one dagger). I can tell their balancing and if they''d be right for me. It''s all a matter of how it fits you. My girlfriend is a fencer, and she''ll tell you this all day and all night if you want to listen A knight didn''t just pick up a sword, lop off some heads and say "nope, not for me". A sword was a major investment. it''s like buying a car today. A sword would have costed roughly 10-20 thousand dollars in today''s money. This reflected the sheer fact that these were a lifetime purchase for many people. You didn''t toy with your sword, it was sometimes your only lifeline. A horse also would cost roughly 60-80 thousand depending on quality, more for a warhorse. Things back then were EXPENSIVE. You didn''t joke around about buying a sword, and you didn''t get a refund.

What would a spellcaster know about a weapon? Jack shizzit. A spellcaster would take one look at you and say "what the hell is wrong with your head?" Warriors appraised weapons because they knew them the best. That''s like saying you''d go ask a voodoo shaman about your next car purchase! You ask the people you know and trust to know these things. That''s why my girlfriend''s draggin me all over lookin to buy a car, she knows i know about them, i know what questions to ask and how to go about getting a good deal on them. She wouldn''t take someone who didn''t know. How do you justify a spellcaster knowing about a sword moreso than a warrior?! Maybe a MAGIC weapon, but not a normal one for SURE!. And that brings on another point.. when you pick up a magic weapon, you should be able to feel it somehow. Magic is some kind of power, energy or force. When you pick up a battery you don''t feel it, per se.. but something MAGIC should have some living energy within it that makes you say "yeah baby!"

It''s nice that you want to "force" players to find things out about their world and such.. but that''s a cheap way of tryin to solve the problem and i am willing to bet that NO ONE will enjoy it on a grand scale unless they already know how to RP. 95% of your incoming gamers won''t know a damn thing about roleplaying, they just want another game.

J

PACMAN:
Well, I actually carry the ''individualness'' even further: I would make it so some players will find Orcs to take 3 swordswings, some players would find it to take only 2, yet for those same players, a goblin would take both players 2 swordstrokes.
Why? Well, I''m not SURE if it would work, but what you basically get is a really unique feeling for each player. Basically you create a single-player feeling in a multiplayer world.
What would happen is, players would try to find out just exactly which monsters are easy to fight for them (relatively) and which weapons are best for them. Spoilersites would no longer be able to give you too much information. Basically, the spoilersites would become more like sources of information that players would be able to gather in the world as well (maps, stories, tactics etc).
I think I started crafting this idea when trying to find a solution for spoilersites (I don''t think there''s really anything wrong with spoilersites, but it would be nice if a game would give a player the freedom to discover things for him or herself).

About the blacksmith knowing what type of weapon he has crafted...indeed, he would be able to tell you ''this one is faster than this one, and this one is probably faster than this one, this one will do a lot of damage, this one even more''. I guess in the beginning weapons could be shown as ''slow'' ''medium'' and ''fast'' but I do realize that players in the end will start to find a system and will start to assign numbers to certain speeds (slowest becoming number 1, fastest becoming number 10).

NIPHTY:
Yeah, it might be going a little too far...but usually what happens is I pick an extreme idea and mold it until I like it

What exactly would a blacksmith on Earth be able to tell about a weapon he has crafted? Because that could (should?) be exactly what the description of a weapon in a game could be.

As with magical weapons, I agree, magic should be a force that can be felt (maybe not by ALL though). I''ve always liked the idea of discovering what a magical weapon does (been reading a lot of Drizzt lately, and I like the way the characters find out about their items while using it...''hey, I didn''t know it did THAT!'').

Example: Warrior finds a magical sword that is +4 to hit undead (using AD&D terms because they are pretty simple). He immediately feels a power in the iron veins of this magnificent weapon. After his first fight against the local skeletons, he finds that everytime he hits one of the undead he feels a magical sensation coursing through him (message: ''you feel as if the weapon seeks out the undead by itself'').

Now I''m absolutely not sure how to not use stats with magical weapons. For how is a player really going to tell the difference between a +1 or +2 bonus? And indeed, how will the player decide which weapon to use if the player can''t ''feel'' which weapon has a stronger magic in it (although...of course some sort of ''magical detection'' slider bar could be used).

This is all going a little off topic, but I really do think that there are possibilities of making a game without the necessity of stats...maybe

Silvermyst

Hrm - okay.

quote:
They want to do things, try things and achieve things they could never do in reality. Why do people powermax? they want to find out what's next. Think about it.. look inside yourself. You thurst for knowledge. People WANT TO KNOW. It's human nature

Niphty : This is the main problem! People shouldn't be wanting to know what happens to their character's physical prowess (or combat prowess) we should be able to entice them into just plain thinking about what happens next in a story line. This is what I think silvermyst might've alluded to, in that the player should be able to sustain interest due to the actual ROLE playing experience rather than the more "other person" playing experience.

The idea of the role play is to play a ROLE, ie - have something to do with a bigger plot. The game shouldn't be focussed on the strength of the in game character, it should be focussed on the unfolding events in this totally different world where the player gets to play a ROLE in. Not a BODY in...

And about weapons - I just think that making particular weapons that look extremely similar have different stats is stupid, having a large choice of weapons may be good on the one hand, and the character may feel that he's something special with his new weapon (the same way killers think they are in control too I guess ). The game designer might as well just have fewer weapons and try and spend more time thinking about plot and character development than different weapon types and strengths AND then trying to balance the game as he's made up all this new garbage.

Edited by - Maitrek on June 28, 2000 12:19:50 AM

It''s ALIVE! ( the thread I mean )
And it''s still a very good thread - so I''ll post some more


1. Weapon Stats.
Someone who can make good weapons, knows what a "good weapon" is. He or she knows what separates "good" from "bad". For instance, a swordsmith will be able to appraise a sword - because he actually has to make and sell them thingies all the time.
Now, picking up on the "weapon individuality" - what if you consider more than one "statistic" for a weapon in which it can excel. You have fast weapons, light weapons, damaging weapons, weapons with special abilities ( magical and non-magical, the swordbreaker hilts are a good example ). These stats are NOT communicated by the game.
You might find a weapon that suits your style by accident - you whack an orc and it has a speedy sword, just what you needed.
But you could also commission the sword from a swordsmith: spend a day or so with the swordsmith, trying out different weapons, communicating to him what you like and don''t like, and he''ll see what you are comfortable with. Then, given a week or so, he''ll create a sword for you that is tailor made, and excellent, for you. Not necessarily for anyone else. It creates a bond as well, that is YOUR sword ( perhaps you can have an inscription and everything ).
It would also add a sharp edge to finding weapons. Imagine finding that amazing rumoured Vorpal Sword of Bunny Slaying For Huge Amounts of XP, and finding out that you HATE using it. It doesn''t suit you, it''s awkward, it''s ugly, it doesn''t matter.

I know I''m probably perverting all your ideas here
That''s because I am a programmer, and I believe strongly that there is NO way to do away with stats INTERNALLY in the game. They should just be transparent and invisible to the player.

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Picking up an older thing : "blank sheet starting".
At the start of the game, you CAN direct the player in a certain direction, namely the direction of the theme of the game. He''s not required to follow this path though, but you shouldn''t mislead him into thinking it''s alright to do ANYTHING. Playing an evil character may be fun, but very "against the grain" of the rest of the game. It''s important to warn the player that this will happen.

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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.

Ok, I just have a few things on my mind here...

Silvermyst, I''m with you on the spoiler sites. I hate them, and I think you are right in trying to make them unfuctional in your game. I''ve no idea how you could do this, but good luck, and if you pull it off, I''d be interested to know how you did it

Maitrek, I also agree with you on the fact that the player should be looking forward to the next plot line instead of the next level of exp. However, I disagree with your statement about similar looking weapons having the same stats. Humans aren''t perfect, and even the same blacksmith doesn''t make two swords EXACTLY alike. There are going to broadswords that are better than other broadswords, and in AD&D, they are called "fine broadswords". I also think that if you can balance and incorporate a large number of different weapons and armor types, it makes the game more immersive, because "hey real knights used this stuff".

MadKeithV, man you took the words right out of my mouth. I totaly agree with everything you said about the weapons, and hey, at least the Bunny-Slaying Vorpal Blade will fetch a good price, eh? Though I think that not letting the player do whatever they want (that won''t wreck the story, of course) can be disapointing sometimes (Hey, why can''t I leave this town right now? This sucks!). You can always try to disuade them with consequences though...MWHAHAHA(evil laugh continues)HAHAH

"Here comes armageddon, we're gonna have some fun.
Here comes armageddon, everybody grab your gun"

PACMAN:
Well, I hope to get to learn how to program within ten years...by then, I''m sure that dataspace has been updated enough to make it possible to store a whole lot more personal information on serverside. That would allow for making each character a real individual .

For example: to each character, a certain Monster, let''s say Goblin, has a different health -let''s use hitpoints- For one player a goblin has 10 hitpoints, for another it has 8, for yet another it has 12. Now one and the same sword for one player does say 8 average damage, to another it does 10 and to yet another it does 12 damage. Mixing these numbers up, you can have multiple outcomes. The person with 12 damage sword fighting a goblin with 8 hitpoints will have an easier battle than the player with the 8 damage sword fighting the 12 health goblin.

Now instead of using the actual numbers, percentages are used when calculating damage. A person with a 8 damage sword hitting a 12 health goblin will do 66% damage.

So the goblin''s health will be reduced by 66% after one hit by that player.

Now, as for stats/numbers, you could easily give away the percentile loss of health that the goblin suffers from one hit. That way, the player will know that his weapon does a certain amount of damage against goblins (in this case 66%). He will not find out exactly how much hitpoints a goblin has, he will not find out exactly how much damage his sword does. He WILL be able to assign a number to his sword (66% against goblins) but he will HAVE to find out for himself...

Because another player, the one with the 12 damage sword and the 8 hitpoint goblin, will find his sword (the exact same sword the other player just used) to do more damage (150%).

These numbers are a little extreme (the difference shouldn''t be quite as big) and I''m sure it would take a heck of a lot of work to get this system balanced in some way, but what it would do is make the players really find out for themselves just what weapons to use in combat, and which creatures to fight...

I''m still not at all sure if this would be beneficial to any game, but it was just something that popped up one day and worked itself into my small brain...poor brain.

Silvermyst

Silvermyst, that system would undoubtedly work, but let me ask you this. What happens if two players get in a fight, and one of these player''s "human" damage is 10, where the other one has 12. Even if these players were exactly the same, one would always be stronger, and thus, be unfair to the player with only 10.

Taking this question one step further, let''s assume that these personal valuse are assigned randomly. What happens when one player was really low stats all the way around? That is certainly not fair for that player, since this person payed just as much money to play this game as everyone else. I don''t know, I just think that for it to be fun for everyone, the things that change between players have to be in the players'' hands.

Please correct me if my interpretation of your idea is whacked

"Here comes armageddon, we're gonna have some fun.
Here comes armageddon, everybody grab your gun"

PACMAN:
Well, if two ''human'' opponents face off, and one of them has a lower ''human hitpoint'' average...good for him. He might even decide to take advantage of it and prey on human beings, an assassin laying in waiting for another victim.

The ''personal values'' could still be assigned fair even when using a random system (just balance the random system so that there always is a certain average).
Example:
Orcs have an average value of 10 hp, goblins a value of 6 hp, Grizzly bears have a value of 20.

A player would have a total average of 36. The random selector could for example add or substract a certain percentage (10%?) for each value.

A player could end up with:
Orc: 11 hp
Goblin: 7 hp
Grizzly Bear: 18 hp

or
Orc: 9 hp
Goblin: 5 hp
Grizzly Bear: 22 hp

With tens (hundreds) of different creatures and beings to fight, and combined with weapons doing different damage for each player (and spells?) the result would be that players have much exploring to do

(whats with stats)
I think stats offer a level of intrigue to a game. Especially to new players. They are also a good learning tool as they help us to categorise things that are very difficult to truely understand. They are definitly useful as a gaming element.



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