quote: Original post by dwarfsoft
*applaudes InnocuousFox*

*gracious bow*

quote: but as with all hopefuls, theorists and theologists - eventually everyone learns the truth (which is out there btw) its really f***ing hard to do it right.

Brilliant! That kinda sums it up, doesn't it? Are you going to the GDC, Dwarf? I need to buy you a beer!

quote:
...and the sacrifices I have to make in order to get it functional.

Yeah... DrGod needs to read a post-mortem or 3.

quote: ...you might learn to appreciate what some game-developers have been able to achieve.

There needs to be a bit more of that in our industry anyway.

quote: First learn to Tolerate that which is greater than you or what you could achieve (in this case, the games that are so intollerable in your eyes), Respect that which is beyond you (in that the developers of these games have had to sacrifice high ideals to create something that is usable and is functional) and Learn from what good things these games can teach us and how we may grow from the experience of them.

Have I told you lately that I loved you? This should be a mantra for a lot of facets of society. You now deserve two beers!

quote:
Only once you have the power to create such a game are you worthy to criticise that which is beyond your current scope of expertise. This has been something I have slowly had to come to terms with. I used the term "Suck" many times a year and a half ago when I first came here. I haven't proven to be able to meet my own demands and therefore have not proven that the games suck, but instead that I suck in comparison to those who make the games.

*Insert animated beer counter here*
Dwarf... you are a man worthy of great respect. I hope that your message resounds in the pubescent head of DrCocky and he feeds on its wisdom and goes on to do great things.

Dave Mark
Intrinsic Algorithm Development
"Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

Edited by - InnocuousFox on March 1, 2002 11:24:32 AM

God knows I''m the last person to start an unneccessarry battle.. (please dont check any references on that one) But you two have read WAY to much into a simple sentance. I know very well how difficult design is. And yes, I do believe I could be the .. what was it, "Great White Hope"? Simply because if you believe anything less then your shooting for second best. When we say the majority of games suck.. well I''m not sure where you have been buts its true. They might as well put a generic game building machine together for all the creativity that goes into the games. Reviewers of all genres agree with that statement. I''ll admit there have been some greats, and I''m happy to have played them. And there are some AMAZING upcomming hopefulls that I can''t wait to get. I have a high respect for the people who worked on all of the games, good or bad, if only for taking an idea all the way to its completion. (and whatever you say there were a few this year that deserve nothing more than mild respect at best).

Now, I don''t see why you feel its neccessarry to join in a topic and start posting pointless rantings that further no one but you. As it appears your egos are inflated enough. Unless of course your being paid to shoot off your mouth. In that case carry on and let me know where to drop off a resume.

Yours, truly. The god of entertainment and everything evil.

quote: Original post by astrum
But you two have read WAY to much into a simple sentance.

I didn't. I infered an attitude from an opening post and a series of haughty replies. None of which were yours.

quote: I know very well how difficult design is. And yes, I do believe I could be the .. what was it, "Great White Hope"?

Fantastic... but I was speaking to DrPunk.

quote: Simply because if you believe anything less then your shooting for second best.

And if you believe that all is possible by simply claiming you know better, then you are delusional.

quote: When we say the majority of games suck.. well I'm not sure where you have been buts its true.

I never claimed that they didn't suck. I only pointed out that perhaps there is a reason that they suck other than some vast conspiracy with a 2nd game designer on the grassy knoll.

quote: They might as well put a generic game building machine together for all the creativity that goes into the games. Reviewers of all genres agree with that statement.

As do I. And I have never disputed that in these threads. I DID however dispute the erroneous claim that DrPhallus had invented something new and as of yet untried with his allegedly novel concept of a large and involved skill tree. I also disputed his quixotic attitude that he is ultimately capable of leading the charge into the fray when it is obvious he is misinformed on some of the basic tenets of the game industry.

quote: (and whatever you say there were a few this year that deserve nothing more than mild respect at best).

Where did you get this fantastic notion that I am defending all that is installable in the world? Perhaps YOU are the one misreading things.

quote: Now, I don't see why you feel its neccessarry to join in a topic and start posting pointless rantings that further no one but you.

The same question can be asked about his original post - a pointless rant that furthers no one but himself. His post is of a sort that demeans the industry rather than objectively and constructively addressing things that need to be done to further it. He also came across as the latest newbie punk - which, I admit, is tiring to me and others here.

quote: As it appears your egos are inflated enough.

Curious... you defend believing in yourself and yet you decry the judicious use of pride. Regardless, at what point did my ego spiral out of control in this thread? I fail to remember where I said that I could do anything at all much less claim that I could do it better than anyone else. Smacking down a whinny child is not a sign of ego... it is a sign of frustration.

*Fox tags Dwarfsoft at the turnbuckle* Go get 'em Dwarf!

Dave Mark
Intrinsic Algorithm Development
"Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

Edited by - InnocuousFox on March 1, 2002 2:18:50 PM

You know, I don''t even agree with the "most games suck" assertion. Just because you can think of a way of doing something better, doesn''t mean it sucks overall. And from my gameplaying days in the 80s, I certainly don''t recall games being all-original compared to today. (Seems like most games back then were platformers!)

[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost ]

Back to the original point of this post, I have some ideas I''ve juggled around here in the past (unfortunately, this forum seems to have lost half of my posts from past. Ah, well, so is life).

To fix the problem of the "unrelated skill increase", I plan to implement a system where each skill has its own experience points, which increase after every use of the skill (as most programmers know, you learn even when you fail)... after you get a certain number of skill exp points, your skill level increases. Hence, skills only increase through use.

To fix the related problem of "let me sit here hitting this tree with my sword all day and become an expert swordsman", I intend to have "skill level experience caps" on scenarios. For stationary objects like a tree, the cap would only allow them to get to, say, level 10 of skill, whereas fighting Kong the Konqueror the expert swordsman would let them go all the way to level 100. Instead of having a static cap, I intend to use it as more of a "cap median"... so, if I set the median for a stationary object at level 8, then before level 8, they get quite a few experience points, after level 8, they get less and less for each skill level until they reach a skill level where they don''t get any any more (or only get 1 experience point for every 20th hit on the tree -- even the most dedicated dork would realize that after a certain point, it will take a year or two real time to raise one level of skill)

For ranged attacks, the level caps would have to work a bit differently... the base is based upon the same thing as the melee attacks. However, someone COULD conceivably become an expert archer by shooting at a tree all day, assuming that they move far enough away. How far they are from the target would need to be taken into consideration. The nice thing about this type of system is that it''s largely self-correcting. The maximum range of a weapon helps limit the amount of points they could get from a ranged weapon (you can''t get experience for aiming at a target 500 yards away if your weapon can only go 200).

Anyway, there are a lot of things to be taken into consideration for other skills such as magic, but they should be able to be handled with a few lookup tables. If anyone wants, I''ll take all of my notes, slap them in a doc, and post it somewhere.

-Chris

-PS. About the ongoing argument. Though I didn''t take the same "Great White Hope" stance from the post, who really cares if he thinks he is? If he IS the GWH, good for us! We get amazing games to play. If he isn''t the GWH, good for us! Less competition. Unless it causes you physical pain to see him stroke his ego (which I again didn''t see from his post), let it go.

-C

quote: Original post by DrMol
OOProgrammer, how could being in a library interest a player? I mean, how could spell esearch interest a player? What would the hook be? I personally think it would be cool to browse through stuff and pull out stuff and look at the coold designes, but it would become a risk of being too puzzle oriented. Ill have to think about that...

Alright, I admit that that suggestion is a bit out of tune with most rpg players, even in MUDs. But it all depends on the RPG. What if the story was comedic instead of serious, or the important books triggered a cutscene depicting whatever important battle took place, or where the fearful scribe hid the crown of the last true king after his assasination? That would work very well, I think, so long as players didn''t have to hunt very long to find important books.


---------------------------------
"It''s groin-grabbingly transcendent!" - Mr. Gamble, my teacher, speaking of his C++ AP class

IFox:

Obviously you had to know that posting something, insulting me:
"DrGod"
"the pubescent head of DrCocky"
"DrPhallus" -that is very uncalled for and can be construed as a direct attack. Before responding to anything else, please tell me why you have just gone so low on an intellectual thread and perfectly legitimate question.

like that would p1$$ me off, so exactly why did you do it?


As for the "- is your insistance that you are the Great White Hope (or the great pasty-white programmer) that has come to save us all. "

I shoot for the top. If you want to be second best, then you will be second best. Sounds stupid? Dreamy like? Great. Then let me dream and think up new stuff while you download the newest 3d engine release and try to figure out ways to reverse-decompile other peoples software. And besides, what the hell is so tough about making a use based system? Is that beyond the pale of what the average programmer can do?

As for other games sucking:
Most games that I have played haven''t. Modern games. Other people have been very helpful in posting games that have that very system.
It is my opinion. Do you watch sports? Do you like, oh, say, football? Do you say "Oh so and so s**ks, this coach b**ws, blah blah." Are you better than the coach or player? Do you say "Hey this car sux," when it wont pickup? Or "you are an a$$h0le" when someone cuts you off? Can you build a car, and you never cut anyone off? You seem to go around in this world making sure to never cast blame or insult (except in my case) if you know for sure that you cannot do better. Admirable as this may be, then no offense, but you are one boring person ideed, though later on we may admire your full head of hair without any greys at all.

This real world that you seem so fond of requires people to build better mousetraps or else we''d still be sitting around the campfire roasting bunny rabbits on spears.

Finally, this is the GAME DESIGN forum, not the PROGRAMMING forum. I considered this reply a skull session in order to throw out ideas. Do you know how I come up with an idea to implement? I think up something really great. Then I fit it to what first what I am capable of doing, and then what the PC can do. And astrum said he liked my IDEAS, nothing about their possibility or not. That didn''t enter into the conversation. I enjoy toying with ideas. If my thinking up new stuff or even rehashing old stuff "grates" on your, then DONT READ MY POSTS. There is a place at the top of the posts that contains the POSTER''S ID. For future reference, if it says "DrMol" DO NOT read it, and by doing so, spare yourself a stroke and ulcer.

DrPhallus, PASTY WHITE PROGRAMMER....Very mature, too bad your 18 year old pubescent 14 year old is not going to call you any thing that the above comment warrented. Does my handle offend you? Do you know what it means? No, so shut up.

I am talking to astrum, now please go away little man. I am busy.

Astrum, thanks bro. Send me an email and lets continue discussing stuff away from the higher mental powers, or maybe since there are other excellent people on this thread, lets just ignore him unless he starts to really get down to specifics on what is allowed and what isn''t in the real world.

dwarfsoft I am going to ignore you as well.


BTW PEOPLE, most games suck is MHO. And maybe i should have been more specific and said FEATURES OF GAMES SUCK. AND MOST IS NOT ALL!

OOProgrammer,
maybe the PC could go research himself, using whatever can be thought up...that is the tough part...but can hire assistants and then sort of peruse them, and their experiments. And experiments going worng. A la Dungeon Keeper 2''s cutscreens. ButI want to stay away from cutscreens personally. It is too limiting and eventually the player will have seem them all and turn em off. Maybe it would just take spectacular writing on the part of the researching. Hmm, anyone want to voluenteer what they think they would spell researching would be like if they were doing it? Not should be like or what is implementable (IFox). But what it would be like in your head.
If you wanna, anyways.
DM

Some people just don''t get it.

Dave Mark
Intrinsic Algorithm Development
"Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

I GET IT! I GET IT!! HORRAY!!
I get that you annoy me. Go away.