Imagine combining Diablo 2 with Age of Empires for a sec and think about scale. In an RTS, the scale isn''t realistic. Characters / units are huge compared to buildings, which are tiny. In an RPG, everything''s to scale (mostly) and you can often enter buildings. This seems to me a matter of scale. So if everything was in 3D, you could make buildings scale at a different rate (assuming an isometric or top down view) than characters. You could zoom in or out and not get confused because the RTS view would be just as clear as the RPG view. Does that make sense? -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

you mean changing the sizes of units and buildings in relation to each other? That does not sound workable. What if you have a building that only six units can be along each side. Then you zoom in and you should not be able to fit 24. Are the six you had lined up now spaced? What if new people come and line up, and then you zoom back out.

Also if you want to make a hybrid go for it, but if you just put two games in the box without mixing them you end up with two half games instead of one full game. Successful games tend to attempt one kind of gameplay, there are of course exceptions.

Are you thinking, 2 differents views? ie close up (RPG) and from a distance (RTS) and allow the user to toggle between the 2 depending on the course/action of the game? OR give the user a sorta "free" zoom so they can scale anywhere from close up to far away?

It''s an interesting idea i think in either case, however, i believe it would be MUCH easier (and prettier) to do it the first way i mentioned. Also, IMO, the second way might make the player get "sick"

Thx for the replies, guys... just a clarification:

The main problem is that if you zoom out an RPG & keep the unit / building ratio the same, all of your units will be tiny. You''d have to zoom in just to see which unit is what, which makes for horrible gameplay. Force Commander is a great example of this, where you have these huge AT-ATs and tiny troopers, and you''re zooming in and out all the time.

RTS games make the units giant in comparison to the buildings. So I was thinking that as you zoom out, you maybe zoom the size of the characters themselves, too.

AP has a great point about spacing, though. Not sure how you''d solve that other than to make sure that the spacing wasn''t so different, or to somehow represent a pack of units in a single space...

xtrmntr, thx, I was planning on stepped zoom, btw, not free zoom (that might look too weird )


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Just waiting for the mothership...

Well, what I am thinking is that in some RPGs where buildings are massive sky scrapers, the scale is way out. But in old times RPGs, the scale is about right.

If you were to have an RPG/RTS, then a constant scale is realy a must.

At the moment, I am working on an RPG with a slightly RTS interface. It will use a zooming concept, however, it will not change the scale of anything.

I am thinking that instead of changing the scale, prehaps use some form of highlighting on units/charcters.

Or, you could have the game group units/chars that are close together when the game is zoomed out.

IMO, diffrent scales in an RPG of any kind wouldn''t realy work.

ANDREW RUSSELL STUDIOS
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