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Original post by nicba
OK, Im reading the doc right now. It''s pretty late so we''ll se how long you manage to hold my attention (and keep me awake). But I''ll comment on the text as I go:
It''s good to have some feedback. At least it lets me know what I need to change/add and what is good as is.
. I am kind of preoccupied, so I will add as I read through your message
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1) Font Size:
Your HTML version didn''t work so I''m reading the RTF version. Do something about the font size! I had to increase it several times to get it readable.
I already said about this. It is in size 10, but I will increase it for the next upload. Appologies for this.
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2) NPC''s:
I''ve recently finished System Shock 2 and it was an awesomew experience. But there wasn''t really any NPCs! Every time you found another person they where always dead. All "contact" was performed by replaying Audio Logs left behind by the dead and and sometimes (audio) Emails recieved from other people. But still you never relly felt alone in the game and I think the key to this achievement was that all the "communication" was always "in context" with what you very doing. Example: on straying from your task to explore some not relevant area you first got a warning and then an email saying something like this: "I hope you enjoyed your little burst of disobedience. Now get back on your task servant!". Another thing was that the Audio Logs found laying about was very clever written and some of them even contained rumors about your progress. Example "I''ve heard that someone on the 5th floor is fighting back too. He managed to restart the elevators". My point is that you don''t always need advanced AI to get the right result. Simple means may do the trick. Seeing newspaper acticles, TV shows or letting NPC''s tell rumors of something the player did previosly is very revarding and will let the player feel that his/hers actions matters and has consequenes.
Sounds like a good game. I really would like to see it now. But something that I don''t think that I cover in the doc is that most things really depend on how you implement them. I have just got a bad outlook based on the majority of games that I have played. Unreal (if you ever bothered actually playing the single player) had messages that you picked up on your translator whenever you went past a dead body (or message likely area
) and I thought it was really well done. In RPG''s though, you really need to interact with the town at some point. Maybe you could make it easier by making the town ignore the player, at least until they acheive something... More for the doc
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3) Conversing with NPC’s, “click here for this quest”:
I think you have a good point in this paragraph. I''ve seen this done somewhat in the old Fallout where you could click the "Ask" button and type in a subject. But it useually just resultet in a lot of "I don''t know about that" messages. To make this work propperly I think you need to make some initial vocabulary for the NPC but also make the vocabulary able to "grow" by an in-game-algorithm. So when the story progresses and something happends in the general area of the NPC''s they would start to find out about it and be able to respond (somewhat) intelligent to questions about the new situation.
Most games with any conversation in them usually use this method. Ultima (up to the numbers that I have played at least) have used this. You can always randomise the "I don''t know" response, or allow riddle answers. That way they might or might not know what it is, but you can''t really tell because you are trying to figure out the riddle
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4) Murder based experience or “End Goblin Genocide”:
I think you might want ot add a reference to Ernest W. Adams here. In one of his excellent monthly articles he wrote a "Letter from a Dungeon" (I think that was also the title of the article, try find it on gamustra or ask me for a link) and complained about that running around slaying monsters and stealing from their dead bodies wasn''t very heroic.
I should read it. I think I saw it go through the features. I will check gamasutra for it. Thanks for the tip. But most of the body of that came from the discussion here "End Goblin Genocide" as well as a fair bit of my own personal view... anyway, I will put in that reference, and see if I can expand it. Landfish has already stated that it didn''t really hit the mark, but considering the small relative size of the paragraph in respect to the size of that post, I think it would be a little difficult to clearly define the point.
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5) “Learning through death sucks…” the advent of the save game:
You''re right about this one but saved games are necersarry because CRPG''s are useually too long to be completed in one "gaming session". You need to be able to save the game and take a break. Also it is very frustrating too lose ones progress just because you made a mistake or got unlucky in a battle. To relieve the "Save Game Syndrome" you described I think you could do a number of things:
- Pay (in advance) some clerics at a temple to ressurect you. If you die later you will be ressurected by the clerics at the temple and can continue the quest (maybe after reclaiming your inventory from the place of death). It would be less "dangerous" to die and therefore not necersarry to save so oftent.
- Remove all "suddent deads". Always give the player a warning before stepping into a dangerous situation. No traps that suddently kills you without warning (unless you KNOW the area to be dangerous and filled with traps).
- Always allow the player to "back out" of a dangerous situation and to return later with better health or equipment. Let the player be able to flee from most or all battles.
*sigh*, It seems that my idea did not really get through. I am not saying "eliminate the save", but rather that the current position be saved, and then continued from that point. You cannot choose to load games, you can only load characters. It really comes back to pen-and-paper RPGs where every action is saved, and death is final (although - due to the other paragraphs, it doesn''t need to be
).
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6) RPG’s and Character aging, and the implementation of timing in games:
Well, I think aging could be usefull in some online games with persistent worlds very you return and play again and again. But in single-player CRPG''s the story very rarely spans longer that a couple of months (or years at most). Aging effects would not be noticable in such a short time. Also, remember that many of these characters are not humans but elves, orges and other fantasy creatures with a differend life-span and aging pattern. And in many fantasy-books powerfull mages is oftent granted a very long life by their strong powers.
It was just an idea. If you were going to have a game that spanned that far, then it could be possible. It was also there really to introduce the reincarnation and possession ideas
. This paragraph was written before I mentioned them in other paragraphs. I don''t really know where most of them are located (because I move them around to suit my preferred order) but I think that those references follow this paragraph.
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7) Linking eating and sleeping with energy:
I think you need to be a little carefull with the eating and sleeping idead. It very easily degenerates into boring micro-management. In books you don''t constantly hear about characters eating, sleeping or going to the toilet. It''s just not entertaining. Only add it when it is relevant to the story.
The sleeping idea was really more to do with my "Learning Experience" than anything else. The eating would have to be tied in with the "automation scripts" because it is only fun to think about when you are running out of food. You must find the nearest supply. I definitely think that thirst would be interesting
... More to append.. thanx.
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8) Putting the mystery back into magic: When click casting defeats the purpose:
Again, I think you need a reference to Ernest W. Adams. You have practically "stolen" the title of one of his articles. But the idea about "drawing" symbols with the mouse is very good. For a similiar text-based system you might require the player to type in special magical words or series of words. Maybe you could even design a "language" the player can try to learn to create their own combination of symbols/words to get new spells?
Am I referencing him because I have stolen his ideas? or his work? Ideas are free, and I happened to come up with them... But I will reference anyone who contributes. I am sure that if I read through his stuff then it will cause me to contribute more due to thought. If you can''t tell, I don''t like being accused of plagiorism, and I have been adding references left right and centre, so if I miss anyone out, I will then link them to here... at least then I can sort out any of these problems.
About a new language: I think it is a great idea. I have already thought about it (I was also thinking of making the player learn to speak to NPCs with a more defined language
) but I think it is a lot of work if you want something nice. And most players won''t bother learning it and would rather another game... these are things that you have to keep in mind.
... But thanx for the thought...
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9) Automating tasks: How players can implement scripting
Nhaa, I don''t think scripting is a good solution to boring tasks as eating and sleeping. If a task is trivial, tedious and boring better leave it out of the game in the first place.
like I said before... the tasks can become INTERESTING in the event that you are say, running out of your food or water. Sleep isn''t a task that I would implement in a game, unless you could dream, or if it was done somewhat like in Might and Magic.
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10) A new combat system: “Come back or I’ll bite your legs off!”:
This could be interesting. But its hard to design an interface that is easy enough to use to allow this (without making it a tedious task). And it would probably require a turn-based battle system (especially if you are controlling a whole party of characters). Fallout allowed you to make "standard" attacks or "aimed" attacks. When you made a aimed attack you where given a picture of the body of your enemy and you could select an area to attack. If the aimed attack was sucessfully you could criple your oponent (blind him if it was the eyes you damaged).
If you use a system similar to UFO: Enemy Unknow (turn based) you would be fairly well covered. If you wanted real time though, I think that it would just be your level of expertise in that skill on that monster that are determined by the function. Personally, I would like to see the downfall of click''n''kill, but I so far can not see an easy way around it (like I suggested for magic).
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11) Monster Generator:
It would be interesting to apply this principles to make monsters vary even when they are in the same specie. Some goblins would be a bit taller, some a bit fatter, some maybe a bit more brownish than green in their skin colour. Its quite unrealistic that all goblins are exact copies of each other. But I think this is also something I have read about somewhere in Ernest W. Adam''s articles.
That is a better point. Personally, I don''t want to have endless lines of mindless monsters coming at me though. I would prefer if they were all NPC''s or something that had a reasonable AI
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12) Combating PKing. Playing God “…And Justice For All”:
I like the idea of "Karma" and using reincarnation to reward/punish players for their actions. I''m not sure I understands or likes the idea of the virtual “law enforcement agency”. Should they be "all knowing" and just turn upå magically and drag the player away to court without the player having a chance of resisting or escaping? I don''t think that''s such a good idea. I would like some more realism here, so someone have to see what you''re doing (or the dead body left when you killed the other player) and alert the guards. You could be banned an outlaw (free for all) or even get a "dead or alive" reward on you head. Or maybe killing would be more of a religeous matter (along with the reincarnation idea) and you could go to a temple and pray for forgiveness (but the god may get mad an punish you if you do it too oftent).
I loved the Karma idea, but Virtual Law is very limited. I wouldn''t add a virtual law enforcement agency, because I would rather have Karma (because it would fit with the rest of the system) playing on the minions.
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14) My own comments: About Realtime and Gametime.
OK. I will stop reading here and skip the "implementation" and the "learning experience" paragraphs. Maybe I''ll return to at some other time.
Implementation isn''t that interesting, but I like to think that the "Learning Experience" is an interesting read.
(Shameless plug)
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Instead I will add a subject (or rather a question) of my own. Gametime vs. Realtime. You have discussed time at some places in the text but never how it should be implemented. Should it be realtime or turnbased? Should there be different time systems when exploring and when battling (only turn-based in battles)? What about multiplayer games or even online games. They can''t be turn-based can they?
I discussed somewhere on Gamasutra that you can simulate turn based by asking for a response within a given timeframe (ie, 1/x of a second
). If they haven''t made a choice, then you just skip to the next and say that they waited their turn. I have not really gone into this discussion because I think that you can have Realtime or Turn based games and they can still be good in their implementation. I might add it though, if you can provide me with any improvements or problems with these systems, then I will surely include them
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What about performing mundane tasks such as sleeping, traveling or training (even with a teacher)? In a single player game you would most likely just accelerate time during these tasks but you can''t really do that without getting "out of sync" in a multiplayer game. So how would you solve this?
I would definitely like to add in NPC''s that follow you around and they could help you out in certain times. I would really like to see someone that is accompanying you run away at the sight of a battle, then you have to fight the battle and go off and find where they went
.
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15) My own comments 2: Nice work!
It is really late and I have to stop now. But I have enjoyed reading the document. It sums up most of the things that have been talked about in the Game Design forum here at GameDev. And it was written in a nice easy-to-follow language. Good work!
Regards
nicba
Thanx nicba. Your response has been the most critical and in depth yet. I will check out Gamasutra for that article, and will add in the reference as you suggested. I am intereted on seeing what this guy has said
must have some thought patterns the same as me
.
The updated doc will be up sometime on the weekend... Cya fer now
-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)
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