Quote:

Original post by tentoid You better also have good coding skills in the language you're using. Perhaps you could do your game as ASCII, so you can easily get away with the gfx problem?

Im using GML, the scripting language for GameMaker. Its not too difficult and most of the functions are built into drag and drop icons anyway. And Im not worried about the graphics, Im a pixel guy by trade. I usually do a low res/low quality graphic until Ive tested a function, then pull out the shiny graphics after. :D

Quote:

Original post by frostburn For now, not being able to move a ladder or chop down a tree isn't the end of the world. I don't doubt that all players would enjoy being able to do anything, but they will still play games that are limited.

Im actually hoping that having an interactive environment will make my RPG stand out from the herd. It may not be everyones cup of tea, but those bored of the same old hack and slash may find it a nice break. ;)

Quote:

Original post by frostburn As a "bonus" there's only so many ways of greeting someone, and so many curse-words, so even in Real LifeTM people will repeat themselves, or someone else will say the same thing as some others. Encounter nr 2 and 3 in my example could be one, but with a choice of sentences to say. The curse words and curse-sentences are lists of all the curses and combinations you can think of. They're randomly selected for each encounter.

True. Perhaps making it so that NPCs never repeat is a little overboard. I mean, its really not that much of a bother if an NPC always ask 'How are you?' when you approach them to talk. But I can come up with enough sayings for the rest of the conversation, including the ability to add random words, and groups of words based on the reputation of the player.

Thanks for replying! :D

Why not try using vectorial 2D graphic? i donnot mean at the flash level, but i know gml have drawing function, it would be more nice for diversity and useability. And since it's a prototype the look isn't that much important until it's readable. Also take a look to the latest harvest moon (friend of mineral town on GBA, and a wonderful life on GC), theu may fall oustside your fantasy realm, but still have some good grasp to take, for example you can get married, you can have a child and raise him, the way you raise him would define what job it would have when grown up.

Another important note is that make it small to make it dense, actually RPG games rely on scale to create the complexity they don't have, every NPC you don't have is actually more complexity for the remaining one, i would prefer to play a small interesting world than a big dull world (myself would have restrain the world to four village of 10 people each approximatively)

look at princess maker 2, beside the immersion, it provide a good structure to get interactive world without losing drama on the side (but it's still weak in princess maker because it was not exactly intend too).

the other things i can see is that you'd better create the world while asking yourself, why i would do that, it would be only cosmetic if the tree fall and break a house if it's pointless. That's why it's better to ask you WHAT IS THE GAME ABOUT, what is the main experiance, and build these feature around this (it would give purpose to do the interaction)

I will definitely check out doing a vectorial 2D graphic. Ill ask a friend I have who is very good with GML and helps me out from time to time. Hes had some experience with GMLs drawing function. Thanks for the advice!

I will be starting very small for the game and only make it as big as it is needed based on popularity. So if it never gets popular, or no one asks for it, it will never be bigger than a few towns. :D

The game will be your typical RPG storyline, nothing too far out of the box. The reason Im doing this is because I want the focus to be on how the game is played. The story will progress mainly by giving the character a goal to shoot for to get to the next part of the story. Like, 'You need 2000 silver to buy a passage on this ship.', then let the player decide how to go about reaching that goal. This is still pretty standard as far as the current market goes. But with an interactable environment, I hope to add some variety and fun, where previously none was available. So, having falling trees and burnable houses and the like is the main focus of this game, and so far is only the start of what I want to accomplish.

I will be purchasing a GDNet+ account to start a journal so that I can get comments along the way, so that Im not wasting time, and to get realtime feedback. Thanks for replying! :D

Interactivity is at its best when it really adds something to the game and changes the way people play the game.

For an example in many of the earlier Ultima games it was possible to go fishing. It was uncommon but sometimes it could be necessary to get some extra nutrition while you were starving and thus the ability to fish was a worthy addition. It added credibility to the world and avoided a possible frustrating situation where the player starves to death by a river holding a fishing rod beating the water furiously with it.

In U6 You could also milk a cow and make butter out of the milk and god knows what you could do from butter. This was a nice detail, but not releveant to the game imo as eating butter wasn't different from eating anything else. Generally speaking food didn't seem important in that particular game, and I don't think anyone would be too disappointed if you can not make butter in the game.

Also, I remember that in Ultima VII you could work as a baker for some extra money. Once again nice detail, but the wage was so low that it became an almost useless feature. I think you really need to take players impatience and greed into account while judging these things. I believe had baking bread been more profitable, it could have been an excellent feature as the player would have had a genuine choice whether to go kill things or bake bread for money, but instead the developers kind of decided for him. I guess baking bread would be boring in the long run but I'm sure you can come up with more interesting activities.

Great advice, thank you!

I have given much more thought to the impact of having trees that could be chopped down. A player could potentially level a good portion of forest and would drastically change the look of the environment. I wonder if would be possible to implement some sort of random tree creation? Yeah... I think I could work that... just put a cap on the amount of trees within each map...

And as for food, I have a way of making baking a meaningful skill. I will do something similar to Morrowinds food system. Each type of food will have its own enhancing properties... perhaps eating enough meat will make you stronger over time... fruits and vegetables make you more dexterous... fish makes you more intelligent.. and so on. Hmm... I might want to go a little deeper than that. We'll see. :D

It's interesting that people will turn up their noses at The Sims because you can do whatever you want, and then turn around and praise Morrowind as the greatest thing since sliced bread because you can do whatever you want. I've even seen people say that Morrowind could be improved by becoming more of a playground.

Me, I've always been bothered by the fact that, in RPG's, I can just enter anyone's home and take their things and they don't care. It's never bothered me that I can't chop down a tree. I only like meaningful interaction. And, to me, "meaningful interaction" means "interaction important to completing the game's objectives". Chopping down a forest and having the people at the inn complain about the lack of shade isn't meaningful interaction. Chopping down a forest to "help" someone with their owl problem would be a meaningful interaction (assuming the owl problem was part of the story or a sidequest of sorts). The first is "silly AI tricks", the second is letting me think outside the box.

However, even if I couldn't chop down the trees to solve the owl problem, it still wouldn't bother me. I think it's because in real life there'd be more issues that would keep you from cutting down a forest, and there's a sort of mental barrier. Just like it's never bothered me when a game didn't let me open the door to someone's house. First, I have the mental/social barrier saying "You just don't do that". Second, you have the added bonus of not wasting my time with trivial cuteness. If I can only do meaningful things, that means I've never wasted my time by doing something. And I, like most people, don't enjoy wasting my time.

Like you said, not everyone will necessarily like your game. I'm just saying why I prefer limited interactivity. I haven't personally played Morrowind, but I think Fallout found a good balance of interactive to non-interactive objects.

I totally understand where youre coming from. I certainly wouldnt want there to be anything that hinders the game. Thats why in my first post, I had wondered if the reason this sort of thing hadnt been tried out already was because the audience wouldnt respond, and I do have the nagging worry that they wont.

The reason Im going to do it though is because I think that making the game this way adds depth to the game in a way most cookie cutter commercial RPGs do not. For example, to me, a woman who would normally look unkindly toward a stranger rummaging through her possessions being taken out by a dart covered in a sleep-enchanted potion, so that her possessions could be rummaged in peace, sounds pretty friggin cool.

Please trust me when I say that Im not letting players cut down trees just to see them fall, and Im not making NPCs so reactive to be a hinderance. Im doing it to enhance the story, to make the entire game playable, not just the storyline.

Im just not disclosing all of my ideas just yet. ;)

Thanks for the feedback! :D

I don't really see the advantage of cutting down random trees either. If I wanted to chop down a tree, I'd go outside and chop down a real tree. Video games are fun because they let you interact with an enviornment in a meaningful way. Anyone remember Red Faction? That game sounds quite a bit like your RPG idea. You could shoot out the supports of a watch tower, blast through walls, and the like. When you're planning a game, don't think about what technologies haven't been implemented yet, think about what would make it fun. For example, Half-Life beat Red Faction, Unreal, and Quake3 - even though Half-Life was arguably the least technologicly advanced of the 4.

Also, are you planning a single player RPG or a MMO game?

Perhaps you could generalise the objects?

eg. A tree is an object.
When cut, a tree is two objects.
A tree is a plant.
Plants are flamable.
Plants are alive.
Living things need water, and food.

Stuff likie that.

Now, you can laso generalise your phisics. So that things that are off-balance fall, and crush things.

For eg.
Obejct X needs Ykg of force to crush it
Tree Z collides with object X, exerting Akg of force.
When object X is crusted, turn into object B.
So, now the object turns into the crushed object.

From,
Nice coder

Onemind: I see what youre saying about 'chopping down the random tree'. I certainly wouldnt think that would be very useful either. But Im not adding choppable trees simply to have them. More than likely, there wont be any quests that require you to chop trees down. Im having them so that if for any reason, a player can chop down a tree to enhance his/her experience in my game, that option is available. Say that one of your quests is to kill of this evil nobleman, and you get word that he will be arriving in town in a horse and buggy. Most games would have you just run up, target him, and click attack. *Yawn* In my game, you could just as easily start chopping at a tree near the side of the road, placing the final chop when the buggy goes by. Just an example. There will be other uses. ;)

I cant stand seeing objects in game that I cant realistically interact with. I know this isnt everyones cup of tea, but I think it would be awesome and Im just hoping that there are others who feel the same. :D

Oh, and also, I will start this out as a single player RPG. After it is created, and I get a good response, and I can find a good team to help me code it, I will make it MMO.

Nice Coder: I plan on making the interaction very similar, just minus the physics. Tree A is an object. Player A equips Axe. Player A clicks on Tree A, switching Player A graphic to Player A AxeSwinging graphic, start Timer A. After 15 seconds, Timer A goes off, switching Tree A object to Tree A Falling object. If Tree A Falling object collides with Objects A, B, C, or D, switch Objects A, B, C, D to Crushed Objects A, B, C, D.

Is this what youre talking about roughly?

[Edited by - Omegavolt on January 31, 2005 8:49:40 AM]