Ok, this is pretty much a poll on different tastes of the gamer. In my game, we have a very, very large city. Imagine Midgar, but bigger, brighter and, well no details. We have this idea to make the first city completely free-roaming. Every location accessible from the get go. Cool? Various locales are of course the typical shops for items, weapons, and what nots. There is a place of central political power, and there is a place where you go to work(that sounds weird, but I am holding a whole hell of a lot of details back). There is also an Arena entitled "Arena of the Sky" that is kind of up in the air (literally) where the player is able to fight monsters that he/she has encountered throughout the game. There is also residential areas, and the industrial part of the city is not easily accessable but can still be reached to some extent. Well, after the game''s introduction, and the beginning story segments, then the player is now able to roam the city. There will be a map so that the player doesn''t get lost, or course, but I want no limitations. What do you think?

Ferinorius,

I''m quite interested. I''m so interested in fact, that what you describe sounds almost exactly like the setting for my current quixotic Project (details on my page, link in sig). I always liked the Midgar section the best in Final Fantasy 7, and was sorely disappointed when I found out the whole game didn''t take place within it! Mmm... gritty urban roleplaying... I can already smell the exhaust fumes. Or is my window open again?

Anyhoo, in order to keep the game interesting the city would most likely have to be VERY LARGE. You can increase the "size" of the city by for instance creating a sewer system which descends deep into the earth for some weird reason... this sewer could have levels randomly generated, instead of being prewritten maps... Or you could just make the place really big. The problem is that if absolutely everywhere is accessible from the get-go, then the only limit on the player''s exploration is his character''s walking speed. Perhaps some areas should have mysterious abandoned buildings - boarded up so that the player will have to find a crowbar or something and come back; or locked up so tight that the player will have to wheedle the key out of the former proprietor. What I''m saying is that further exploration could be the reward for solving puzzles etcetera.

To really enhance the game, consider hapaboy''s suggestion of a "living city" where everyone has their own business with each other, not just with the PC. A game where it''s fun just to people-watch... that would be pretty darn cool.

And just for fun - Ever seen Jet Grind Radio? Cool, lively urban setting in which you rollerbladed around for fun and honor (tagging buildings with your signs) while avoiding cops. I''d sure love to play Jet Grind Midgar...

But in summary, I''m totally into your ideas so far... When can I buy it?

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-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

If this is to work well I think you need to have some rules for players. For example if the player does open and abandoned building with a crowbar some security guards show up. Also the player should not be able to wander into people''s homes and start looting.

Instead of sewers underground - though have some - how about the city being built over the ruins of an earlier city. Some parts of the old city are still accessible underground .....

First off, they probably wont be breaking into old abandoned buildings, simply because the city is a high-tech meets fantasy head on kind of place and the leaders of the city are trying to keep the place top 'o the line. No abandoned buildings, but no castles.

Imagine it, medievil times smashes head-on into Midgar. Yet the end product is a mix between hmm..Well Zanarkand and Luca in Final Fantasy X and Balamb from Final Fantasy VIII. It's a real regal city, with even some splashes of Naboo as well! To give one last detail, it is atop this column that rises hundreds feet above the ocean floor. The rest...is for your imagination.

Secondly the game cannot fit into even a large city (which this is) it just has too large of a scope, to much world disaster, too much deception, too much....

buuuut...I do like the ruins idea. And the laws idea. How can that be exploited, and secondly:

What kinds of things do you want to see in a city that would be fun to explore?



Edited by - Ferinorius on January 21, 2002 2:42:28 PM

How about being able to have your own house/apartment, I think this sorta things been implemented into a current MMORPG...not sure which. On a practical level your home could be used for storing objects and valubles found while exploring the ruins. Perhaps the ability to break into other people''s apartments and steal their stuff could be implemented?

Or being able to go into a shop and buy stuff, new weapons and items are the most obvious, but what about new clothes (customize your character), new decorations for your house/apartment, or just pointless little collectables (like in Shen Mue).

- DarkIce

That''s a good idea, and im sure every developer wants to do it, but reality is, its not going to happen, your talking about a HUGE city, full accessible, fully movable, and everything, the only game i have EVER seen do something near this is midtown madness, and it is only a map, im sure your game will include more than one city. you are talking about something that will take years to accomplish, litterally, unless, of course you decided to make every building look the same... our game is placed in a big city, however, we are making the sections unnnecessary for development "blocked off" such as things like a car parked in the street, or a clipping plane on a street, the game Omikron tried to achieve what you described, and all they got was being laughed on for getting david bowie to make their music. It''s a good idea, im sure every developer wants to do it, but reality is, its not going to happen soon, and it definetly won''t happen over a virtual office.

quote: Original post by Peeves
<A bunch of reasons why it''s not going to happen>

I have to agree with Peeves that it''s unlikely to work out with a virtual/internet team (but I never said "never"!)

However, I''ll throw in some ideas. Grand Theft Auto gave you a fairly large city, and you could go to any portion of it at any time; you could hit anybody on the street, and you could drive any of the vehicles (squad cars, ambulances, school buses and limousines were my favorites). What Ferinorius describes is only orders of magnitude/detail above that. In other words, it is conceivably possible.

To make it happen, though, you have to implement a simulation LOD scheme (ie, anything not within view or close by is not as accurately simulated). On a sufficiently large scale, the user wont notice. I haven''t had the pleasure of playing Grand Theft Auto 3, but I expect it does this to some extent.

A classic example from GTA (the first one) is blowing a car up/causing major pileage and then leaving the scene. Quickly double back and either a) you see the firetruck/ambulance bringing things under control; or b) the scene is cleared. Now, the event was still simulated when the user went off screen, but had you gone far enough away the even would simply have been removed (because the time for you to get back is theoretically enough for emergency services to have cleaned up), making the simulation consistent.

I think the Arena in the Sky is boring. Fighting monsters - *yawn* seen it before... Why not look for really interesting scenarios?

Anyway, good luck.

[ GDNet Start Here | GDNet FAQ | MS RTFM | STL | Google ]
Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!

What I envision is a city that is first designed from the outside, full of buildings that are varied in architectural style like a real city, but that are useless initially. Then, you go around inserting the rooms here and there and giving the buildings purpose. The buildings that have areas you can explore will be clearly marked similarly to how you tell the difference between stores and apartments - the stores have signs and colorful windowfronts, etc. Or, you can remove the fake or textured doors from any dummy buildings. You can put a phonebook in the game that lists any places that can be entered. All windows can show an actual room if you want, by simply making the windows portals to the same couple of rooms, assuming your engine is a portal engine.

~CGameProgrammer( );

Whohhhooa! Scale it down in here a bit! First of all, the city will be completely done in pre-rendered backgrounds, making life a whole lot easier.

Secondly, don't have a virtual office. Not anymore. That was a huge mistake, and never will happen again.

And thirdly, I don't think it is impossible. I mean, it is just a bunch of bitmaps with thier own collision data and such.
On a seriouser note, Free-Roaming means just what it sounds like, no cars blocking off areas, no clipping planes.

Now it doesnt have to be such a complex city as the one in GTA, but I do want it to have some locales to investigate if the player chose to do so.

So the Arena is a bomb? Well, what kind of things are cool!? Just a wondering, all of your ideas have been great. Definatly a feast for the mind! Thanks!




Edited by - Ferinorius on January 21, 2002 10:09:51 PM

Ferinorius,

More ideas you say? You have no idea what you just opened up, do you?

How about...

1. Go with 3d rendering rather than collision-mapped "pages". I think this might in the end be the better choice, given the impression of sheer size one can get when one sees the city stretching off into the distance from the roof of a skyscraper or something...

2. Given the above, I''m dead serious about Jet Grind Midgar. If the game city is to be large, the player will want a fast way to get around, and the mobility to explore even the most unlikely places. It may not be skates, but some form of fast ground movement or high jumping would be a real thrill.

3. Not to be repetitive, but a living city with NPCs doing their
business around you would be really interesting, as you then have not only the geography of the city to explore, but the interrelations of the people as well.

4. Isn''t Midgar already sort of technofantasy, what with the melee weapons and magic and all? Or are you going for more of a feudal government? At any rate, building size really depends quite strongly on construction methods. Some architectural styles to consider:
a. Gothic. Big, huge stone buildings everywhere, with rusted menacing statues, forbidding peaked roofs, giant creaking wood-and-iron doors, and little huts huddled among the great cathedrals.
b. Victorian Iron. Lots of black wrought iron and rivets. Big skyscrapers that look more like fortresses. Ornate decor on the inside, with vaulted ceilings and ornamental carvings.
c. Mago-Medieval. Shining, magical castles. Buildings wrought out of natural stone laid together - think Stonehenge. Perhaps even buildings made from giant seashells or trees.

5. If there are so many places to go, make sure that progress is never bottlenecked on finding one particular place and doing one particular thing. Make sure that the player always has more to try if his current projects aren''t bearing fruit immediately, so that he might stumble on the solution later.

6. Don''t let movement be reduced to endless walking through streets. Keep travel routes varied - leaping from roof to roof, shimmying across laundry lines, delving into the sewers or under-city (but not too long, I''m not a big fan of dank and dim), and generally going where no sane person would. Ever heard of the French acrobatic troupe Yamasaki? They''ve made a sport of follow-the-leader through urban landscape, involving cartwheeling along guardrails and leaping eight-foot fences. Any game that lets me do that gets the thumbs up.

7. Now that the player is used to this mobility, NEVER break the suspension of disbelief by saying "And now here''s a barrier which for some reason you can''t pass even though it looks like you could." If you''re going to allow absolute freedom, make completely and totally sure that it IS absolute freedom.

8. As for combat... you could include it, but try not to make the player have to "stop" for it. If you haven''t gathered yet, I like moving fast. I hate when a game makes me stay still to fight something. Rather than the standard RPG style turn-based static combat field, I''d like to have running battles while both I and my opponent are tearing through the streets at top speed, whether on motorcycles, rollerblades, horses, giant iguanas or whatever... jumping between mounts, off walls, and careening around obstacles... but maybe this isn''t the kind of game you want to make.

Overall, I''d like to see an RPG where speed and mobility replaced endless slogging, and the question is not how long it takes to get there or how many monsters will delay me, but whether I''ll crash into a wall or plummet to my doom while attempting yet another crazy stunt.

Perhaps I''m thinking of a different game entirely...

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-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".