@sunandshadow :
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A rigid class system is anathema to roleplay no matter how many class choices you give the player.
I don't get your point. Why is a rigid class system an anathema to roleplay? I don't think a rigid/fixed role/class system would bring any problem. The problem won't rise from the rigidness of the roles, but rather from the unclearness of it. And in this project of mine, I try hard to make the roles as well-defined as possible.
Of course I agree that a more flexible class/role system will be in many ways better than the rigid one, but saying that the rigid system is an anathema to roleplay is quite an overkill, IMO ^^
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A much better idea would be to have no classes, but instead award the player class labels based on how they build their character (either by which abilities they choose/purchase from the master list to build their character, or even better by what abilities they use most in the game (crafting, stealth, shapeshifting, damage blacking, raw firepower, long range, stunning/paralyzing opponents, maybe even building trap...), and give them bonuses which suit their build, quest rewards or unlocking new abilities (as well as customizing appearance lol). Make it free and easy for the player to rebuild their character at any time, or make a max level character able to afford/have all abilities.
Well I think your idea is much closer to "Character Building Game", instead of "Role Playing Game". Providing the player with flexible ways to modify/build his/her character doesn't guarantee him/her to get a good role-playing experience. So in an RPG, it's the role-playing session that matters, not the character building session. And to get a good role-playing session, the "borders" between the classes/roles have to be clear. And the flexibility of the classes/roles doesn't contribute anything to the clearness of the "borders".
Let's consider this example. Suppose there's a boy who wants to be a game programmer. In other words, he wants to role-play as a game programmer. In real life, before he can role-play as a programmer, of course he has to take the sufficient education/schooling first, in order to "build his character". Now, yes the boy has to do "character building", BUT when he's doing it he's not role-playing as a game programmer yet. His role-playing session starts after he finishes his schooling, after he finishes the "character building". So what I'm saying here is the "character building" and the "role-playing" have their own separate sessions. You don't suppose that when I'm in the middle of choosing my character's class and race and such I'm already "role-playing", do you? Just how am I going to role-play when the "role" itself isn't even defined yet?
@Krohm :
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I don't think you can do that in a PC-RPG. A human brain is required to process this kind of complexity.
Err, why is that?
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I don't know why but I find this interesting. Like an evolved MUD. Sounds nice.
Glad you find it interesting, I hope many other people will too ^^
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Uhm, this sounds like lot of work. Implementing this isn't going to be easy, the mechanics are way complex and unless you script everything (implying there would be only pre-defined scenarios) this feature alone would be overkill.
Well until now I don't find it to be that hard to implement. Basically, what I have to do is developing a nice information processing and distribution system. So, for example, suppose that John Doe the Warrior has these informations :
1. Billy is a Healer.
2. Billy lives in New York.
3. A Healer can help recovering Health.
4. When Health is only 10% of Max Health or less, go seek help to recover it.
So, when John Doe finds his Health to be less than 10% of his Max Health, he will check the informations he has to know what he must do, which will lead him to seek Billy in New York. And how would people know that Billy is a Healer? Simple, Billy can just use his TALK action to spread the "Billy is a Healer" information. Or he can use his WRITE action to put the information in some READING-type objects (books, pamphlets, etc), and then spread the objects around so people can use their READ action to get the information. Or some other means.
And that's that, since in my game "informations" will be similar to spells and items (meaning that it can be gathered and lost/given easily), we'll get a real-time information distribution system that supports the role-playing process nicely.
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I understand this is a "design" forum but when you write your ideas, do you take in consideration the work required to implement them in a way emergent complexity is considered "interesting"? It's part of the design as well. Putting togheter all your ideas isn't trivial.
Well yes, I take it into consideration, I really do. FYI, I'm trying to run a low-cost style of game development. Low cost (in this project I even make EVERYTHING myself), fast development time, but fresh/original concept.
@HolyGrail :
My game will not have any animations. If what I'm developing is a Final Fantasy-like one, no doubt there will be horrible slowdowns when 100+ characters act at the same time ^^
And the gameplay is actually simple. The features may be many, but they're not complex (take the action system for example, how would it be complex if ALL the actions will be treated the same no matter what). The only thing that's complex is the concepting process of the gameplay (since I need to find a nice yet simple way to model reality). The implementation of the concept itself isn't going to be complex.
@Kest :
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Code optimization will only help a very little. Most of the dramatic improvements of video game performance is in finding clever ways of reducing the workload. Not code-wise, but logic-wise. For example, a grid that allows objects to only perform expensive AI tests on enemies that are very close will yield huge improvements when there are many enemies, where optimizing the AI tests themselves will barely be noticable.
Yes, that's what I'm trying to do, reducing the workload. I'm thinking about fully processing all characters and creatures in the game, but that if I can find a fast algorithm for it. If I can't find it, then maybe only the characters and creatures in the active room that will be fully processed. All others will be processed but not individually, or individually but in a simpler way (the characters and creatures won't be as smart as they should be).
