I was watching a cool roman movie, when I thought "Boy, I''d be cool to have ''real'' swordfights in a game..".. wouldn''t that be sweet? Your answer is ''Yes, Phil, you''re so smart!'', right? Let''s pretend it is.. but there are some minor .. *problemos* 1. Control- how the h*ll do you control yourself and up to two swords at the same time? Wouldn''t it be cool to have 2 joysticks, and each one represents a sword/shield? That would ROCK! This causes more problems.. Realistic sound, REALLY smart AI to counter your attacks, etc. If you could ever have 2 joysticks, you could probably move around with the arrow keys and use the joysticks for your weapons/sheilds. When you need to fight, take out your sword by hitting the trigger, and swing like a madman! Any ideas? And can you use 2 joysticks at the same time? Thanks! But still, it''s a dream, right?

Err....the closest thing i can relate to that is Thief: The Dark Project.

You could have SwordFights in that.

Chimera

The problem with sword fighting in games is that they invariably turn into "who can get behind who''s back the fastest". I think Jedi Knight did an admirable job, but that still wasn''t enough. The problem with any type of fighting is the subtle intricacy of movement inherent therein. The best we''ve come up with so far is having certain buttons punch/swing high, low, down, across etc.

Another thing is that in real sword fighting, instincts will kick in. You see a sword coming at your face, you''ll attempt to parry it without scarcly thinking about it. In a game, that impulse is lost due to using buttons to manipulate arms, so you have to slow the sword play down so that the player has a chance to decide how to react, or you have to make blocking easier, but this removes the precision of your swordplay.

My best guess would be to have a fighter like control system where certain key combinations triggered certain moves. Then certain button presses would be needed to counter/parry those moves. Something like the grappling system in Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Just my $0.02
Ut

something like that was done in the game "Die by the Sword" or something like that, you''d use the num pad to move the sword where each number on the pad represented a place for the swors (ie 9 = up and to the right, 1 = down and to the left, etc.)

i think you can use two joysticks, but how would you move during a fight? foot pedals? (i think that would be cool, only coodrinated people could play the game, and with myself being a drummer... hehe)

anyway, i''m done.

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Don't take life too seriously, you''ll never get out of it alive. -Bugs Bunny

You could also use the mouse in Die by the Sword. It was great, complete and total control of the sword, while using the keyboard for movement/ducking/jumping and so on. That is the only game in which I have seen sword fighting done truly well. If you set the AI to hardest and went 3 vs 1, the game was nearly impossible.

PreManDrake

Argh.. Above was me...

PreManDrake

When I first bought Die By The Sword, I thought that system they used (they called it VSIM) was pretty cool, but IMO they made it too complicated. As you advanced through the dungeon the enemies became faster with their attacks and harder to hit. Take, for example, the giant locusts. Just using the numpad to manipulate the sword was not enough. If you wanted to beat them, you had to become proficient with combos and do all of the crazy jumping/flipping stuff. I was paying more attention to the keyboard than I was to the actual game. Ruined the game for me.

If someone could strike a perfect balance between realism and the number of controls needed to acheive it, it would be wonderful. But if I have to use ten fingers and 5 toes, I''ll opt for less realism.

I thought of an interesting control style using only the mouse and the keyboard:

Attacks (mouse):
left single click - attack 1
left double click - attack 2
left hold button down - attack 3
left hold while right single click - attack 4
left hold while right double click - attack 5
right single click - attack 6
right double click - attack 7
right hold down - attack 8
right hold while left single click - attack 9
right hold while left double click - attack 10

keyboard:
w - forward
a - strafe left
d - strafe right
s - step back (while in fighting mode, backwards otherwise)
q - high block
e - low block
x - hit using shield (to knock opponent back


Now with 2 swords, that could get harry. So what do you think?

You need two 6DoF (6 degrees of freedom) controlers, x,y,z position and rx,ry,rz orientation (rotation). They do make them - they aint cheap.

And props.

If you want realistic sword fights, you may not have predefined moves. How you move the mouse should control how the sword moves, like in Silver (okay it wasn''t ego-perspective)
Of course you can''t control two swords with one mouse. And this wouldn''t be too realistic, too, as you don''t get feedback if something in the way, unless you have a force-feedback mouse.

Coder10000