Why can't you "graduate" from having 10 decked out/maxed out cavepeople to being able to eventually manage 10 GROUPS of cavepeople (or more)? In other words, why can't you go from first person caveman back to RTS caveman? Where you're more focused on the general concepts of maintaining tribes instead of the minutia of finding the next berry bush to pick.

this is the direction i'm sort of heading, but once again, i think i may be limited by the setting combined with the emphasis on realism. there simply weren't that many of us back then. perhaps 1 million worldwide at the start of the era, and maybe 5 million at the end. so while nation building sounds great, you're still talking about dealing with widely scattered very small groups of individuals. 5 guys in loincloths in this cave, 3 in that hut, and another 8 in the rockshelter to the south does not exactly a nation-state make.

"nation building" would probably be more properly on the scale of "neighborhood building".

I believe you stated/hinted a couple of times that the original incarnation of this game was like that? Think of it! You will have come full circle, grasshopper!

it had a god mode interface like the sims, then switched to FPS mode for combat, cavern exploration, and settlement adventure.

so it was a hybrid first person shooter and 3rd person "person simulator".

now its more of a fps/rpg with a very interactive environment like the sims.

Thanks for the reply. Originally I was thinking that if the skills makes a difference then you are putting a player into biggest problems at the begging, but yes spring is friendly.
My proposal about starting location was something like a lean six sigma- give a value on demand. For example if someone in the starting question form says he wants to be a great warrior- then he wants to be challenged on fighting, not gathering food and thus his location on the start is friendly on food sources but has more hostiles. And it makes sense not only from what player wants to do point of view but also survival point of view. Skills as a tool of adaptation to given conditions.

Regarding what to do in realistically bounded game once you are really skilled. Maybe first part should be running before cruelties(animals, weather conditions etc.) and gathering skills and reputation. Second part could be to settle with some tribe and become their "teacher" (before character dies)to ensure they are going to survive and yet to leave some own signature within tribe by doing heroic things, making great stone shrines etc. And when the character dies if he succeded great with both survivalability and left a great signature within his tribe then there could be animation showing current New York for example with imaginary building represeting his most famous deed :-)

this is the method used in the game, so there's no limit to the exp or bonus for a skill in the game. IE you can basically "level up" forever. but exponentially increasing "level up" costs guarantees that bonuses/levels won't get too big and ruin game balance.

That's awesome if I'm understanding correctly. So I can basically train up a given skill forever, getting better and better but taking more and more time to do so?

>so you go running up to the berry bush, select it with the spacebar, and click on "pick berries" from the popup menu.

"Need more plantlore!" is the message you get back.

This kind've bugs me. Its sort've like the invisible walls used by some games to keep you corralled into "playable" game space. If I want to pick some round red things hanging off a bush, let me pick some round red things hanging off a bush!

In all seriousness though, this doesn't seem to jive for a game that you've stated is grounded/constrained by realism to a large degree.

I would've thought you'd do it something like this:

Player goes running up to a berry bush selecting it with the spacebar and clicking on "pick berries".

*game determines (either now, or when sector was created but no reason it couldn't be on the fly) if the berries are harmful, helpful or neutral (no effect)*

*game checks player's Plant Lore skill versus this type of berry bush and finds either: player has no clue, player has some idea, player knows this bush*

*game informs player either: You are certain these berries are edible, you are uncertain if these are edible, you have no idea if these are edible.*

Player then makes decision to eat the berries based on degree of knowledge of berry bush versus degree of hunger (i.e., I'm starving so it's worth the risk of getting sick).

If the player dumps the berries because he feels it's not worth the risk (i.e., his Plant Lore wasn't high enough to get "certain" feedback) then his Plant Lore can still go up minutely.

If the player however EATS the berries, either way his Plant Lore is going to go up a lot more. Especially for THAT type of bush! He's either going to get sick or he's not.

I dunno'. Just seems a rather contrived way to do things. And again, especially in a game that's striving for realism.

when you attempt an action, it tells you if you don't have something you need (such as a tool, or more plantlore experience). since you start with zero skills, this means that most new actions require research first. with armor making and jewelry making being some of the most skill intensive actions in the game.

I get the lack of tool notification. You want to get some stone or ore? Well it's not happening with your bare hands. You want to shape some ingots after heating them up in a forge/furnace? Ditto the bare hands thing. BUT! Again with the research. I really think you're putting the cart before the horse here. You should probably separate research from ability. It seems like you're confusing them conceptually. Bear with me...

If I want to pick berries to eat I don't need to know how to do it. I go up to the berry bush, I pull the berries off, and I eat them. Action Complete.

If I want to forge a sword...now THERE'S something I can't simply walk up and do. I wouldn't even know what a sword WAS, let alone how to forge one.

Likewise if I want to gather nuts why should I have to have some kind of skill? I see some local fauna with bushy tails nibbling on some nuts and I get the idea that they're edible. So I grab some off the ground and try it. Action Complete!

Likewise killing animals for food. Sure my chances are going to SUCK MAMMOTH PRIVIES until/unless I've developed some kind of trapping or combat skills, but why would I not even be able to attempt it? Which you haven't come right out and said, but you've implied it.

Again with the I dunno'. Perhaps you can go into more detail about how you're breaking down Skills, Research, ability, etc. I can understand completely how one might need to RESEARCH something before you can even attempt it. Like a Tech Tree or something. But I'm at odds with your example of berry picking for starters as far as requiring any kind of research. Berry Picking SKILL, by all means, which could affect what % of edible berries you gather per unit time or something.

And maybe you just casually lumped everything into the paradigm of Research+Action=Finished without thinking some of them through. If that's the case I suggest rethinking some of the more basic actions and making them more of a Action+Finished=Skill Increase paradigm. Like gathering, or basic combat.

Do you have a "Tech Tree"?

Please don't take all of the above the wrong way. I've been reading through most/all of your threads on this game and I'm super impressed/excited. I'd love to see more screenshots and/or movies of stuff in action. Sounds like a really awesome job so far and I wish you all the best. So yeah I mean all of the above in the greatest spirit of constructive criticism possible.

Take care.

Well, it took a few days, but its done. 4 days according to the todo list, but i also wrote some high level components for my game engine library (objects database, movement and collision engine, AI components, object drawing engine, and ground drawing engine) when i was on code change 17 of 22 action handlers and 23 of 29 action triggers, and needed a break from working on Caveman.

you can now proceed with any action in the game, even if you don't have the minimum skills.

this required adding a check to proceed without skills in 29 places in the code where actions get triggered (usually by a menu pick like "gather wood").

it also required modifying 22 action handler routines to nuke your chances of success without skills.

if you proceed without skills, your chance of success is reduced by 90% with a lower limit of 0.01% chance of success.

so now when you go to pick berries it says:

"Need more plantlore skills!"

"Proceed anyway!"

"Ok, nevermind!"

i tried it with nuts, it works. took me most of the day to find 37 nuts. usually you can find 100 an hour or something like that.

For example if someone in the starting question form says he wants to be a great warrior

from the Caveman todo list:

" band members should have "talents" that make them gain exp faster & / or start w/ more exp in specific skills. sort of like a "class" in D&D. possible talents: hand weapon, missile weapon, arts, crafts, etc. "

the player would choose a talent or two when they start a new game. the way they already choose 3 interests at new game start.

Regarding what to do in realistically bounded game once you are really skilled. Maybe first part should be running before cruelties(animals, weather conditions etc.) and gathering skills and reputation. Second part could be to settle with some tribe and become their "teacher" (before character dies)to ensure they are going to survive and yet to leave some own signature within tribe by doing heroic things, making great stone shrines etc. And when the character dies if he succeded great with both survivalability and left a great signature within his tribe then there could be animation showing current New York for example with imaginary building represeting his most famous deed :-)

at first, its all about running away and just getting out of encounters alive. As you become high level, you turn from hunted into hunter. I still have to make npc's use weapons in their inventory. when i do, i want to edit up a band of 10 band members with spears and javelins and such, then trigger a Mammoth encounter and see how well we do.

the game doesn't end when your original caveman dies. it continues until all band members die. since you can always recruit new band members, you can theoretically play forever. individual band members (IE cavemen, PCs) may come and go, but as long as the band lives on, you continue playing (like a household in The SIMs). If you die in the game, it automatically tabs to the next live band member.

its sort of like playing The SIMs, in first person view, where the emphasis is on realism, and its set in the time period between 200,000 BC and 10,000 BC, with it being most representative of the period around 45,000 BC (before we killed off everything).

the "stone age" lifestyle happened / happens (some people still live that way) at different times in different places. so it encompasses a wide variety of environments, locations, flora, fauna, and time periods. its difficult to pick one date in history and place on the planet and say "this is representative of what the entire stone age was like and when it occurred". so the game includes things from all parts of the stone age. so there are extinct megafauna from eurasia, africa, australia, madagascar, new guinea, the americas, etc. and technologies from both the earlier and later paleolithic. while it includes animals from all over, you still only encounter them in appropriate terrain types.