quote: Original post by GrimRupert
No, I have not seen a Knight''s Tale and don''t wish to. Most of my Medievil style stuff is influenced by MiddleEarth (where the Lord of the Rings takes place), Dungeons and Dragons and Final Fantasy, as well as my own bits of hocus pocus globbity gloop.

Well i just asked about knights tale,''cause Will (the knight in that tale ) travels through europe in the move to win tournaments. About the world you like to build up ... when you use MiddleEarth, Dungeons and Dragons and Final Fantasy ... there will not be left much for you to fill in your own ideas.

quote: Original post by GrimRupert
On your website, it is pretty good...except...prerendered graphics?! HOW SHAMEFUL!!! MAUGH!!!!!!!!!!! Oh well...it matters none...heh, I could really care less. I just think maybe you should go looking around for a graphics artist.

Prerendered gfx ... what are you talking about? The worldmap will be drawn in 2D and the battlemode will be 3d ... so i don''t understand what you mean.

quote: Original post by GrimRupert
And, what are you using as a level designer? I need one...

I am far away from having a leveldesigner/editor right now ... i am still in design phase - u know?

On the suject of my comments to your site, maybe I was looking at the wrong screenshots. I saw screenshots of a guy wandering around the world which looked as if they were from Super Mario Bros. 3.

But, on the battle system, I am pretty much making an overhead tactical RPG battle system. Basically like the one used in Final Fantasy Tactics. The only difference is that there is no 3-D in this game and it is not a slanted view of the battle field.

The player must rely on their magic powers. For example, since Necromancers, Summoners and Constructors are frail phyisically, they must rely on those that they summon/conjure/construct to fight for them. However, as long as they are on the battlefield, the player can do nothing more than control the beast while their MP widdles away.
The sorceror has a very good phyisical attack. However, in order to do enough damage to injure the enemy badly, the player must use their sorcery to increase the elemental attributes of their weapon, and eventually even their armor.

Since the Battle System relies more on magic than anything else, their will be no weapon or armor stores. However, after each battle the player gains WP (wizardry points, which are used to purchase spell books and enhance their level. The higher the level, the more powerful they are and the more times they can be used.

Which brings me to my next part of the system. The player has Magic Points, but also a limit to how many times a spell can be used. To put this in a more literal manner, MP is basically the Mental Energy a wizard has. When they run out of MP, they become mentally exhausted and can no longer fight (which gives draining spells a double advantage). However, they also can only cast a spell a certain number of times before they forget what it is. Like in Dungeons and Dragons, wizards must constantly read spell books to remember their spells. However, by increasing a spell''s level, it becomes easier to remember.
Also, because of the memory factor, wizards can only memorize five spells per battle (you choose which ones before battle).

There will be more to it eventually, but these are some of the basics of the design.

I''ll tell you more later.

School sucks, people suck, family sucks, life sucks, reality sucks...
When all else fails, Playstation prevails...

quote: Original post by GrimRupert
On the suject of my comments to your site, maybe I was looking at the wrong screenshots. I saw screenshots of a guy wandering around the world which looked as if they were from Super Mario Bros 3.

U mean gfx on the worldmap page? Thats a rip of SM3 and Langrisser. It''s not the gamegfx, its just demo stuff.

Jonus,

As a professional programmer I've seen a lot bad design documentation and I've seen a lot of non-existant design work. I have to commend you on your preparation and the level of sophistication of your design documentation! Your design work is exceptional. I don't think GrimRupert understands that what you were displaying is design documentation, not actual running demo work. Keep up the great work. I wish my design team would work to such high standards.

My one tip for your site would be better organization of the different parts on the webpage. Most of the time I didn't understand what I was being shown until I clicked on the link.

Bravo,
RandomTask : aka "random"

Numia Politico Development Website

Edited by - RandomTask on October 10, 2001 5:14:36 PM

quote: Original post by RandomTask
Jonus,

As a professional programmer I''ve seen a lot bad design documentation and I''ve seen a lot of non-existant design work. I have to commend you on your preparation and the level of sophistication of your design documentation! Your design work is exceptional. I don''t think GrimRupert understands that what you were displaying is design documentation, not actual running demo work. Keep up the great work. I wish my design team would work to such high standards.

My one tip for your site would be better organization of the different parts on the webpage. Most of the time I didn''t understand what I was being shown until I clicked on the link.

What a nice and motivating response to my website, thanks RandomTask! Until now i though everyone consideres it as choatic nonsense (...).

I work hard to improve the gamedesign (and then the site), but there are many problems which need time to think about them. The reaction skills for example will be extremly complicated to describe so that the actual programmer can code it correct. A even more complicated skill type isn''t even there (combination skills, skills which are performend from two or more chars together). A complex strategy game must have a big (and also complex) gamedesigndoc. As i started out a half year ago i had not thought of how much time a good gdd will need to grow. I have learned in the past that to start out programming a game without a nearly completed doc will surely lead to huge problems and much waste of development time later. This is the main reason why i have not started to code a single bit of it.

About your tip ... i work on the organisation of the document, but its time expensive. I still suffer from my writer''s block and because of that i have started to design a 3d dummy char for the battlemode(here''s a image) and a WA3 skin.

Again thanks for the kind words .

ooooh, that is a nice model.
And no, i didn''t realize that was a design doc. Thanks for pointing that out.
I am spending much of my time designing and getting used to my 3-D modeller (check my other message, "Format of my Game" to know why I am using 3-D alluva sudden). I hope my models will be top notch and I can get them done swiftly enough so once we are done designing and are ready to program we can begin writing the game engine, little by little by little until we are able to actually write parts of the game (the testing areas will just be random places to test everything and make sure it works).

Later

School sucks, people suck, family sucks, life sucks, reality sucks...
When all else fails, Playstation prevails...