From an RPG stand point, not a lot of people like old west games in regards to the sheer number of bullets one needs to expend to hit anything. Not to mention the most desirable weapons are well out of the price range of the common Joe Cowboy. At most they can afford cloths, a hat, and a knife. Forget getting a horse as they too are well out of the price range of most Joes.

From an action-adventure stand-point, a western done well (ala Outlaws) is a lot of fun, but the weapons selection is limited to knives, bows-n-arrows, swords, spears, axes, clubs, dynamite, six-shooters, rifles (repeating and non-repeating), and fixed artillery (it looks funny to see Joe Cowboy walking down the road with a gatling gun).

A realisitic game of either RPG or action would be a bit more complicated as it took the west a few dozen years to opt on a common size ammo/calibre of weapon.

I was waiting for you to weigh in on this one, bishop_pass. I see that the old Black Hat site is dead and gone, but you seem to still have an angle on a similar project. How''s it going? Do you have anything tangible? I always figured you''d be the one to take it further.

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Original post by kordova

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Original post by bishop_pass
My Old West game, if and when it is developed, will be developed by a team that has access to a different (and more diverse) set of resources for inspiration.

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Which (type of) resources, that is if you don't mind me asking?

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My growing library, which among other items, is comprised of:

• Two classic bibliographic works by Ramon Adams entitled Six-Guns and Saddle Leather and The Rampaging Herd .
  
• Tom Lea's illustrations and books.
  
• J. Frank Dobie's classics, including The Mustangs .
  
• Other titles by Ramon Adams, including The Cowman Says It Salty .
  
• Other titles referenced in Ramon Adams' bibliographis, including Williams' The Mysterious West .
  
• Over sixty titles on horsemanship, horse breeds, history, etc.

Also, development would be augmented by field trips to the major ghost towns in the Southwest and California, including Bodie, Cerro Gordo, Vulture City, Tombstone, etc. Other trips would include stops to museums, notably the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And speaking of art, numerous time would be spent studying Western American art depicting the Old West, including deceased artists such as Frank Tenney Johnson, Olaf Wieghorst, Edward Borein, Frederic Remington and Charles Russell and contemprary artists such as Howard Terpning, James Reynolds, etc.

Outdoor studies and excursions designed to help the artists and developers in general learn the lay and feel of the land in the West (and how the light plays across the land) with an emphasis on photography and perhaps a little bit of adventure involved would include a descent into the Buckskin Gulch, a trek across the Owens Valley and Death Valley (we can't forget the twenty mule teams of the Borax Mining Company), excursions into the High Sierra, and Southern Arizona, land of the saguaro.

Old firearms would be studied by visiting shops dealing in old firearms of the Old West. For example, I know of one in San Jan Capistrano that I am fond of.

A study of the railroads would be necessary. We would visit some of the sites of the more famous ones, and investigate closely the locomotives and learn about them, in particular, the 4-4-0s.

And lastly, every damned member of the team would have to become proficient at handling horses, plain and simple. A cowboy without a horse was not half a man, so to speak.

[edited by - bishop_pass on November 13, 2003 12:35:17 AM]

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Original post by Whirlwind
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All of these concerns suggest that the game has to fit within one of the generic systems most games fall into. Even as an outlaw, accurate or otherwise, I can''t see the need for more than ever handling a few weapons. Sure, it would be fun to have a backpack with a health potion and twenty-six weapons but I don''t think that system does/has to fit here. Also, why does a game even have to revolve around the use of weapons? Certainly the "Old West" has more to offer than gun fights.

Oh, yeah, one other thing on my list: Since I have access to horses, the artists, animators and AI/behavior coders would be spending a good deal of time observing their behavior, studying their movements and their gaits, in an attempt to portray the finer nuances of their behavior, appearance and movement, as well as their social tendencies for the richest portrayal of them to date in any computer game. Combine that with my study into the "Game Mechanics of Riding a Horse" for something a bit more than you might get from another team.

The historian Ramon Adams'' The Rampaging Herd is a classic bibliographic reference of more than 2,000 works pertaining to the cattle industry. Studying many of the works which it lists would help someone become more familiar with the real West. Likewise, his Six-Guns and Saddle Leather is a tome like reference to books about outlaws, debunking many of the myths.

Gambling was big business then. The devices and techniques for gambling and cheating were phenomenal and fascinating. Aside from studying texts and stories about the subject, some of the old gambling devices such as pocket roulette can be found at specialty antique dealers. Also, another form of gambling was streetside wagering, whether on fights or horse races. Horse races were often spontaneous affairs, and it was a quarter mile sprint down mainstreet, hence the birth of the Quarter horse. Steeldust provides inspiration here, and Wayne Gard''s research on the subject.

The Wells Fargo strongbox, which can be found at certain specialty antique stores provides interesting material and inspiration for that whole industry, and the crimes which arose out of it.

If more projects were centered around actual research as yours seems to be I think the gaming market would be far different from what it is today.

Anyway, I think that Six-Guns and Saddle Leather sounds interesting, if only to get a better idea of such romantic characters and how things really were. Also, I''m not much a gambling man myself though I think learning more about how it was back then would be very entertaining.

Did someone mention that you had/have a website concerning this side project of yours?

Wow! I want to work for bishop_pass!

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Original post by kordova
Also, why does a game even have to revolve around the use of weapons? Certainly the "Old West" has more to offer than gun fights.

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Are you talking "Sim Cowboy"? Who would play a western where you couldn''t up and slap leather with Quick Draw Joe Cowboy? The western doesn''t *have* to revolve around gun fights, but heck, they sure are fun to have. At some point, the player would require the use of a gun, if the game wasn''t written to be an ''acurate'' western, then wouldn''t just modifying The Sims to look like a western give you the same results?

Hmm..

"Joe, Cowboy Environmentalist..

.. help Joe Cowboy save his heard of cows from the meat market and save a few deer from the natives along the way. Joe, first American environmentalist cowboy, saving the West for the animals without becoming one.."

Theme song: "hug, hug a tree, hug a cow, save a deer..."

I know about 80,000 green peace members who would buy that game.

Nah, gunfights kick butt... gotta have gunfights, but give the environmentalist the chance to go be one with nature...

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Original post by bishop_pass
Also, development would be augmented by field trips to the major ghost towns in the Southwest and California, including Bodie, Cerro Gordo, Vulture City, Tombstone, etc. Other trips would include stops to museums, notably the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And speaking of art, numerous time would be spent studying Western American art depicting the Old West, including deceased artists such as Frank Tenney Johnson, Olaf Wieghorst, Edward Borein, Frederic Remington and Charles Russell and contemprary artists such as Howard Terpning, James Reynolds, etc.

Outdoor studies and excursions designed to help the artists and developers in general learn the lay and feel of the land in the West (and how the light plays across the land) with an emphasis on photography and perhaps a little bit of adventure involved would include a descent into the Buckskin Gulch, a trek across the Owens Valley and Death Valley (we can''t forget the twenty mule teams of the Borax Mining Company), excursions into the High Sierra, and Southern Arizona, land of the saguaro.

Old firearms would be studied by visiting shops dealing in old firearms of the Old West. For example, I know of one in San Jan Capistrano that I am fond of.

A study of the railroads would be necessary. We would visit some of the sites of the more famous ones, and investigate closely the locomotives and learn about them, in particular, the 4-4-0s.

And lastly, every damned member of the team would have to become proficient at handling horses, plain and simple. A cowboy without a horse was not half a man, so to speak.

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Um, when exactly will anyone on your team have time to code with all the field trips, studying, and learning to ride horses? And what producer is going to fund all this? Even if the team works for free, you''re talking about thousands in travel expenses alone. It costs us $1000 per week to send one guy out of town to stay in a frickin'' Motel 6 while he attends a training!

I''m all for realistic, well-researched games, but this is over the top, verging on gradiose.

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Original post by bishop_pass
The first problem with developing an Old West themed game is the people who would likely create it. Where would they get their information? How would they approach it?

If you take a look, you''ll see that a lot, if not many, think an Old West game should look and feel like an old Western movie, which, of course, perpetuates cliches, is shallow, certainly lacking the finer nuances of the real Old West.

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I don''t think it''s necessarily a bad thing to take a lot of your influence from Western films. I myself am particularly partial to the Leone''s Dollars Trilogy—they provide examples of great stories that aren''t inextricably bound with the American West, but take advantage of the fact that the West''s relatively lawless society makes it a great setting. I mean, A Fistful Of Dollars (as I''m sure you know) is a remake of the classic samurai movie Yojimbo. The films don''t dig deep into the Western way of life, they merely use it as a backdrop. Obviously you would have to do some degree of research, so as to avoid clichés and make your world feel authentic.

Of course, if and when you manage to get your game into production, I''m sure the great lengths you propose to go to would make it an astounding product.