I don't know if this has been done before, or if this is what dwarfsoft was talking about in the Doc... What do you think about a 2d game where the player when you hit the left arrow the player rotates counter-clockwise and when you hit the right arrow he rotates clockwise and up and down move forward and backward. The tiles on the screen are displayed according to line of site within a certain field of view. So, doors and walls would obstruct your view. It wouldn't be like a fog of war where it shows only where you've been before, but it would be according to line of sight. "NPC's are people too!" --dwarfsoft "Nazrix is cool." --Nazrix first, then Darkmage Edited by - Nazrix on 9/2/00 11:22:40 AM

Master of Magic used this. I think its a good idea but to an extent. You have to remember that when you are bringing in that fog you are actually limiting the players view more than what they could see in real life because in real life the character could see off the screen in front of them. I''m supposing the idea that this *should* be somehow balanced. One way would be to give them a broader view to compensate for this loss. Or maybe another way. But it is a good idea either way if done properly i think

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I might be missing what you''re saying, but in any 2d game, the player is limited by not seeing off the screen. This would just limit their view on the behind them and there could be an angle that would let them see some of the sides of them to display peripheral vision. Is that what you meant by ''broader vision''?




"NPC's are people too!" --dwarfsoft

"Nazrix is cool." --Nazrix first, then Darkmage

I once saw a demo of something like this. One thing to keep in mind: There''s going to be an awful lot of screen changes as the player walks around. Imagine you turning amidst a bunch of columns:


* * *
* * * *

---->YOU *
* *
* * *
* * *

The screen is going to be flickering quite a bit as you turn and move. This may look bad and be distracting, so you may need some graphical pizzaz to make this work.

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Very good point. The screen could get pretty annoying. I could compromise and make it so the player won't see other NPCs & items unless facing them. The NPCs & items could be obstructed by walls and doors, but everything else (like the ground, water, and walls) would be always visible.

How's that sound? I'm afraid it may seem inconsistant but maybe a good compromise?




"NPC's are people too!" --dwarfsoft

"Nazrix is cool." --Nazrix first, then Darkmage

Edited by - Nazrix on September 2, 2000 4:51:21 PM

I''m afraid the players would hate it.

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You are probably right, rune. Hmmm....

How ''bout if it shows all walls & land, but NPC''s & objects only if they''re not obscured by anything. There could be a line of site going in all directions from the player. I guess that''s kinda what Diablo does if I remember right.




"NPC's are people too!" --dwarfsoft

"Nazrix is cool." --Nazrix first, then Darkmage

Basically what you wanna do is Quakelike controls with a top down view.
you forget one thing, in a Quakelike, you can HEAR around you, plus your line of sight is VERY long.
In a top down view, you can see all around you, but not very far.

the top down view compensate the loss from the First Person view (depth of vision, and sound).

On the other hand I want to implement such a system of controls, because I want to try some new ideas for a combat engine.
I mean, if you look at the rogue-like games (Diablo II being the latest example), for games that focus on the combats, I dunno you, but "clickclickclickclickCLICKCLICK DIE! YOu EVIL GOBLiN CLICKCLICKCLICK ! aaaaaah dead... NEXT !" sounds kind of very similar to what existed on Rogue, a text based roguelike (guess where ROGUElike comes from ), and that was ... uh, more than ten years ago ?

anyway, it''s time to make some changes isn''t it. But I am not sure you are on the best path for this.

One idea I had was to make a radar kind of thing. Enemies in your back that make noises would be represented by a BLIP thingie, unless you have seen them, in which case they would be FogOfWar-ed, unless they stop making noise, in which case they dissapear again. I didn''t try this method, but I would love to, it would make a nice implementation of a field of view, which would give one of the thing you lose from a first person view.

youpla :-P

I think you should make each player's guy a light source (for that player only), leaving everything outside his line-of-sight in shadow -- it would look kinda natural then. I'm talking about genuine, per-pixel lighting (that fades over distance, too). For multiplayer team matches (like Quake), all your teammates could be light sources as well. So you'd generally have good visibility in your own base (with all your teammates around), allowing you to ambush lone attackers who would only see their own line-of-sight.

Nazrix, I agree, there should be "ambient light" that lets you see terrain/walls at all times.

ahw, you made a point about Quake's "3D" sound, which supplements your vision... definitely Nazrix would need to do the same thing (DirectSound3D makes positioning/dopplar effect/etc. very easy, though ya might be better off faking 3D with regular DirectSound).

Also, I think you should use the mouse for turning/aiming, using a crosshair cursor. Aiming using left/right keys would be impossible.

Edited by - Eric on September 2, 2000 9:07:58 PM

quote: Original post by Nazrix

I might be missing what you''re saying, but in any 2d game, the player is limited by not seeing off the screen. This would just limit their view on the behind them and there could be an angle that would let them see some of the sides of them to display peripheral vision. Is that what you meant by ''broader vision''?

I don''t really know what i was saying. I''ll have to think a bit more about this. Is there a reason why you would want this in a game though?


I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!