No, not a totally different game entirely, in fact, I love the idea, but maybe I put too much emphasis on midgar. Imagine Naboo. the Architecture is more of an ancient not so gothic, not so dark. You see, this city is the glorious mother to "Neo-Toshi" the industrial Midgar-like part of the city at the base of the column.

The overall style of the city is a polished copper, with a lot of greens and such. The spires, towers and buildings do tower high above the cities, and I am definately adopting the idea of an overlook out over the cityscape, credited to you SpittingTrashCan..heh heh. For example, places that lead you up to grand vistas not just out over the side of the column, but out over the city. I definately want to give the impression that the city is immense, and complex.

Ok, we are completely rendering the city, or at least large parts of it in 3d, then making those scenes the 2d
pre-rendered backgrounds. So an overlook will be one large background that is scrollable, almost a panorama.

Now, I dont think every building should be completely accessable. Even in a real city, you simple cannot go into every building. Houses besides the ones that belong to your friends cannot be accessed, but are they not still there? Of course. You can just waltz into the some parts ofthe white house or any other large governmental building right? So the mayor''s house or the Council''s buildings cannot simple be trampled all over and looted. There will be boundries, but logical boundries.

All roads are going to be accessable. If you see a road, it can be walked on. Concerning your idea on going really fast:

hell yeah. that would be so cool, but looking at it from a different point of view, not all of it would be feasable in some of the areas.

Something that just occured to me. Having screen after screen of city might be a little tiring. In the beginning game you do have to get from your workplace (still not telling) to your
home, but what if the player gets to one side of the city, and our little map tells them that your house is on the opposite side. I wouldn''t want to walk all the way back over there again, so I need a method of transportation.

Thanks for all these great ideas. This is great fodder for anyone who likes the idea. Wohoo!

the transportation system has already been developed. both on the ground, under the ground and in the air.....

anyone want to hear about it. oh and that anon poster is the artist, gelcoat6.

gelcoat has completly developed the transportation system. Not only will be be on the ground and fast, some vehicles will be in the air as well. Just imagine luge, except really fast.

no one seems to really understand collision detection with vector based geometry as the boundries for wlaking, so for now im in a stuck spot on getting the pre-rendered backgrounds working, but when I do, it will be rollin.

as for other locales, i like to see things that are interactive. Things that will give me something to do. Like a scope that can look out over the ocean, or a complete library with the history of the world.

Legion:Tale of Deception

I dont know what other gamers want to find in cities where they are given the oppertunity to roam around in, I just wanted to see, and I have gotten some great insight.




Edited by - Ferinorius on January 22, 2002 6:26:03 PM

The Arena would be good as long as you aren''t getting exp from it, just testing stategies.

test

Of course. I dont think it would be fair to have people level up before getting to the first or second boss. Just a thought.

So far, I think I have decided something else. The city will be somewhat multileveld, but I definately want to give the player a feeling of being dwarfed by thier surroundings. Even though the architecture is primarilly made of stone, coppers and other things that are natural, these buildings tower extremely high into the air, not only that, these buildings are already hundreds of feet above sea level on this column.

NPC interaction is something I am very interested in.
How about an area kind of like the slums in Midgar? Of course they will be brighter and a little bit more wealthier than the slums, but there are still places hidden in the alleys and nooks of all big cities where vagabonds live.

Should crimes be scripted? And the player is able to stop these crimes?

Should animals be loose in the city, and the player might have to capture one Zelda: Ocarina of Time style to get a special item?

Should there be a whole lot of hidden things all over that, if the player is thorough enough, they can find things in the most unlikeliest places?

Building on that last one, should powerful items such as items that can destroy entires monster parties in one shot or more powerful weapons be hidden throughout the more harder to reach areas?

Speaking of harder to reach areas, should players think on how to get to certain areas?

Keep in mind that the city will be fully rendered to start, and then once the needed scenes are described, they will be turned into 2d images and touched up in photoshop, so the camera positions are only limited by imagination.

I love our city!

Ferinorius,

I''m sorry... you probably don''t want to hear this. But the instant you said "level up" I had the urge to bang my head against the wall. Now I don''t mind ye olde standard single player CRPG where one spends much time beating monsters until candy comes out, but if you really want to innovate then please, please, PLEASE remove "levels".

When you first described your game I was thinking along the lines of Myst only with a larger setting, more interesting puzzles, and more NPCs (than none). I don''t mind combat in a game, rather like it even... but I am so very tired of leveling up. Instead of just leveling, how about a skill system, or increasingly cool items? Some rational reason for your character''s exponentially increasing prowess? Gameplay based on player skill, not PC stats? Anything but kill-for-exp!

To address your other questions:

Yes, there should be slums. I like my cities gritty.

Sure, you could script crimes and have the player be able to intervene. To make things really interesting, you could have wandering bandit NPCs whose crimes aren''t scripted but rather occur whenever they and another NPC are in an area alone...

What the heck kind of advanced city would allow animals to roam around? It would have to be pretty decrepit before the local wildlife started invading...

"Hidden stuff" I have mixed opinions on. On the one hand, climbing into unusual places and investigating interesting locales could be rewarding. On the other hand, searching high and low for some tiny item that''s absolutely vital will have people reaching for the cheat book... or for another game.

Nifty weapons etcetera could be found... but there should be some reason for them to be rusting in some closet instead of being wielded! Just having cool stuff stashed in weird places raises the question of who would be dumb enough to just leave it there.

As for figuring out how to get somewhere... it might be neat to have certain locations visible from other places, so the player knows they exist and has some clue on how to get there. But ridiculous puzzles with no hint as to how they could be solved will have the player reaching for the cheat book again.

I think I like your city too... but I so loathe leveling up.

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-SpittingTrashcan

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

LOL, you are on fire!

"Leveling Up" you know by now, is a generic term for advancing your character. Of course I dont like killing to get my character strong enough to fight the next monster, of course not! Right now, me and gelcoat are developing a way to get around the regular old way of "Leveling Up"

To continue using that generic term, Final Fantasy VII (greatest game ever, no flames, just an opinion. End it there) had a fun factor to leveling up. Gaining the Limit breaks, getting those Enemy Skills, seeing new magic, those are all incentives to level up. Not just to build skills.

Now we have been throwing around ideas in our collective minds about things that are reminisent of the Sphere Grid of FFX, which is very intuitive. It will eliminate leveling up, but fighting will not be totally dismissed or eliminated. It will, however, not have such a signifigance. Battles shall be more strategy and mind oriented, instead of power oriented.

You are right about dogs roaming the city. Maybe only in the slums or something. I like that crime take on things you said too, only when they are alone. Maybe, if things get cracking on this crazy Pre-Rendered Backgrounds thread, we can work harder on the aspect of a living and dynamic city. Go to the website and then go to the Projects section. All though it is under construction right now, the Legion: Tale of Deception site does have a map. Check it out!

This thread isnt over yet, more to come!

One problem is simply making the city. I doubt that you could effectively model an entire city from scratch.

So here''s my idea.

Make 3d models for different generic buildings. Provide a variety of textures for each of these models. Then run SimCity - that is, use ALife and cellular automata to "grow" your city.

Of course, you''d also want to have unique sections of the city that are important to gameplay. You can hand-place these, and then let the rest of the city "grow" around it.

This would require a greater initial time investment but would in the long run greatly decrease the amount of time needed to create a city. In addition, it would allow for the city to change dynamically.

Ok, let''s take that idea and work with it. We know for a fact that this city has been through a lot in a long while. This city just didn''t appear outta nowwheres! . But I see how Simcity and other sims like that could help us DEVELOP the city.

I like the possibility of being able to go into every nook and cranny of the city from the start. I mean its exploration and non-linearity, correct?

It wont have to be overly complex, but there is a lot of things that I, personally, like to see in cities. Interation is big with me, and I want a lot of it. I like nice scenery. I want to see these locales in full color and full of life. I can see it, and I am excited.

Gosh, I really love this thread. I love it when people tell me what they like or dont like.