quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
"With a computerized version, you either remove the DM, or it takes longer for the DM to prepare stuff."

huh?

You are obviously young and never played D&D. DM = Dungeon Master

quote: "And if the player does something unexpected in the computer version, there will be some kinda barrier to him, "

like what? the levels will be pretty expansive and there are plenty of options for dealing with the edges of maps (portals being a good one)

Those aren''t the only kinds of barriers. Using an object in a way it wasn''t planned for - but is certainly a logical use for it is a good example. In a developed game, you can account for many of these (but not all). In a "do it on the fly" or "do it just ahead of time" style of game you won''t have the option of fleshing out the world as much. Granted, I am not familiar with whatever game you are talking about here... but the realities are similar.

"the whole point is, the players schedule a game, the ref has the adventure ready, and you get a storyline that unfolds over one or more sessions (who wants to play more than six hours straight anyway?) you dont wander around with nothing to do, ever. the refs job is to keep you busy (which is fun in and of itself btw)"

You have also obviously never tried to set up multi-player sessions with specific people at specific times! One of the major benefits of a 24x7 persistant world is that there is no social pre-interaction necessary. You can say "it''s 20 minutes until dinner... I''m going to log on for a bit". The idea is feasible... but it won''t hit mass market appeal to those that would like to game whenever they want.

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

"you are obviously young "

youre right, im 29

"and never played D&D."

wrong there, picked it up when i was eleven or twelve, knew the original PHB by heart

"DM = Dungeon Master"

the term DM was not my source of confusion (if it was, my post would''ve read:

"DM" huh?

"You have also obviously never tried to set up multi-player sessions with specific people at specific times!"

wrong again. have you ever tried getting 4-6 players physically into a room to play D&D for six hours? hardly logistical nirvana. yet play they do, for some decades now, and Wizards of the Coast aint complaining. TRUE rpging has never been an instant gratification kind of affair.

"One of the major benefits of a 24x7 persistant"

-quick note, i plan on persistant worlds being easy to set up on the clients own computer so he can host his own world-

"world is that there is no social pre-interaction necessary. You can say "it''s 20 minutes until dinner... I''m going to log on for a bit". The idea is feasible... but it won''t hit mass market appeal to those that would like to game whenever they want. "

i agree totally, and im more than willing to exchange mass appeal for a loyal, hardcore customer base who come back and buy expansion packs


ps. what IS obvious is that you tend to assume too much

Well, I''m glad to see that this conversation is getting somewhere now.

First off, a couple of thoughts I''ve had.
1: Skills/Levels. What bothers me about so many RPGs (most notably MMORPGs) is that I have to suck at the game for such a long period of time. This is especially true in MMORPGs where I only join because a friend''s playing. Nothing worse than joining to play with your friends and being too low level/combat skill to actually play with them.

2: Characters who have/show emotions. Um, I guess it''s not a bad idea. How about a game where I can set my emotional state? Most games won''t even let me look scared if I wanted to be. I''d be much happer if I could control those sorts of things. Like, make a character with an expression of wide eyed wonder. Perhaps make another who looks at people suspiciously.
Though if you added things like limping when a character takes leg damage it would not only add interesting looking variations to a player''s charadter, it''d be easy to automatically handle.

oh yeah, and I WAS the DM in the old days, not likely to forget the term . I don''t use it in my game because its the wrong flavor, and its some other games term, not mine.

The realistic thing is to work hard at, say, casting a good fireball, practicing on wooden targets, until you''re finally able to cast one in the midst of battle.

But obviously that is not the fun thing to do, at least certainly not in a video game. It''s an interesting idea, but I don''t think it''ll work well if applied to specific skills. If you never use Tornado because there''s no good reason to for a while, it will remain low-level. Then you encounter a high-level monster where you wish you had it, but it''s too low-level to do much good. That''s really annoying.

In my opinion, it''s better to apply practice-based skills to general fields like spellcasting, fighting, lockpicking, etc. So maybe as you go through the game casting spells, the casting delay decreases as you get more experience casting spells. Or your weapon swing speed increases. Or time required to pick locks decreases.

Or, you can apply the practice system to specific skills, such as Fireball or Short Sword Proficiency, but it will affect relatively minor aspects of the skill, with traditional "Experience Points" altering the main stats. So, practice can decrease the casting delay for your Fireball spell, so you can fire them at a faster rate as you get lots of practice casting it, but main stats such as damage are affected by your level or by how many skill points you put in Fireball.

Another idea is a hybrid between experience points and practice. Instead of increasing practice points just by using a spell, you increase them only when the person gains experience points through the use of that skill. So let''s say you cast a few fireballs at a creature, dealing 90 points of damage, and you swing your sword at it, dealing 45 points of damage. It dies, giving you 600 experience points. Because 2/3 of damage dealt came from your fireball spell, your fireball practice points increase by 2/3 of 600 which is 400 points, and your Short Sword Proficiency (or whatever) increases by 200 practice points.

So merely casting a spell at nothing does not increase your skill at it, nor does casting it at really easy monsters forever (because they don''t give much experience).

You know, I really like that last idea. That seems the most promising.

~CGameProgrammer( );

thought bubble

1. any game that would put a new player in this position has not done its job, simply put. in the game im designing, referee has the power to change anything in the game, including starting a new player out with enough ''survivability'' to play at the standard level the party plays at.

2. emotions are a toughie, but i think good scripting, combined with an extensive emote system could go a long way. not just emotes like clap, wave, etc. but raise brows, or surprise, or frown, etc. if a referee has access to an extensive animation set (via a good controll system), and voice chat, you wouldnt believe how he could make an npc come alive (ditto for players)

i think real AI and AE will come along, but in the meantime i think the non-artificial versions can help.

quote: Original post by ThoughtBubble
2: Characters who have/show emotions. Um, I guess it''s not a bad idea. How about a game where I can set my emotional state? Most games won''t even let me look scared if I wanted to be. I''d be much happer if I could control those sorts of things. Like, make a character with an expression of wide eyed wonder. Perhaps make another who looks at people suspiciously.
Though if you added things like limping when a character takes leg damage it would not only add interesting looking variations to a player''s charadter, it''d be easy to automatically handle.

Yes exactly, something like that! But maybe a with a little bit more complicated AI so that your character automatically does those things, and you dont have to incessantly click on the ''scared'' button.

-=Lohrno

None of you have seen me here before, but I just got to reading this conversation... Very interesting indeed. ^_^

At any rate, I was looking at the topic of character emotions... Well, perhaps you could look at it from a character creation approach... (I''m not going to use an MMORPG for this point as it really doesn''t fit for some of it, but for other parts it kinda does.) Let''s say you begin creating a character ''Mr. X'' you go through all this stuff, then you get to technical stuff, you know stats, beginning skills if you can do that, depends on the game... And perhaps a general personality template... Let me explain.

For this example, we''ll use three different personalities and set them in various situations... I''m coming up with these off the top of my head, so they won''t be award winning or anything...
Hot head (aggressive)
calm (in-between, somewhat)
introverted (passive)

Ok, so, let''s say you''re talking with an uncooperative bartender that has some info but won''t divulge it.
A hot-headed character would probably have the following choices give or take a few... First, there''s the cooercive approach. No success, ok, next is threatening... Still no info? Ok, finally, the hothead would be able to beat it out of the bartender, probably starting a large battle sequence...

A calm person would start off with coersion... try to convince the bartender to give him the information... if that didn''t work, the character could try bribing him, or even threatening him (there''s something scary about somebody threatening you very calmly- especially when they already look somewhat imposing) of course, being the calm type, your character wouldn''t actually beat it out of the bartender...

The introverted person would probably have some sort of way...- obviously not the heroic type of personality, I haven''t quite worked out how you''d succeed with this personality... perhaps you can''t and end up being laughed out of the bar... Who knows? it''s just an example, right?
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Your character is faced with the proverbial "bad guy that destroyed your home got your love hostage" situation... Saying something along the lines of "Back down or she dies!"

Of course, a hothead''s reation would be to dash into battle... Probably, the loved one would be slain and a battle ensues. Possibility of more effective magics and attacks during battle.

A calm character would probably try other actions before combat... Possibly talk the badguy into releasing the hostage and fight the character... Or perhaps, the normally calm character would be so good with words, the bad guy did destroy his home, after all... Perhaps the character would try to strike a deal with the bad guy (it would probably go bad, either the character or the loved one being killed)...

The introverted person, more than likely mentally unstable or just weird, would probably become extremely angry (to use a very bad, but well-fitting example, think young Gohan from DBZ... Can''t believe I used that as an example... ugh... For those who don''t know what I mean, the kid got angry and suddenly got this great rush of energy, so to speak...) Or perhaps, this character would back down... Who knows?
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First ''boss'' battle.

hothead, will of course dash into battle, not really thinking of concequences...

calm character will, more than likely, hold back for a second, think things through, and possibly find a weakness before dashing into battle...

Introverted (passive) character might want to run, making him/her a bit weaker, and slower, possibly, but also probably raising chances of blocking attacks... or something...


I didn''t completely and totally think this through, but it seems decent enough, and could provide for replayability, changing a storyline (which I admit would have to be very well crafted to hold up to this structure and still be entertaining) in little ways each time...

As far as MMORPGs go... I don''t think this would fit in very well, though somebody might find a way to make it fit nicely.
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Now that I''ve blabered on about that small lightbulb, which just burned out, by the way :D, I''d like to address magic systems...

I happen to like gathering quests... At least for one or two spells, I don''t want to have to go around the world to find one spell, then turn around and have to do it again for the next, really, I think it should be a mix of learning on your own, discovering stuff, having somebody teach them to you, and any other neat ways you might want...

Learning on your own: Basically, casting a spell more efficiently... I don''t care if you''re a master wizard, if you''ve never cast that firestorm spell before, odds are you''re not going to know the best way to control it or figure out how to gather strength for it or something along those lines- really, it''s almost like treating a spell like a skill...

Discovering stuff: IE, reading some ancient parchment about how to cast the legendary Lightning smite spell... (hehe)

having it taught: We all know what this is, perhaps a quest for something or providing a service, or perhaps even just being taught because somebody was kind enough to do so...

My explanation involves spirits of people and innate magical abilities and whatnot... I don''t really feel like going into it all that much at the moment... unless y''all are all really dieing to hear it...

quote: Original post by CGameProgrammer
Another idea is a hybrid between experience points and practice. Instead of increasing practice points just by using a spell, you increase them only when the person gains experience points through the use of that skill. So let''s say you cast a few fireballs at a creature, dealing 90 points of damage, and you swing your sword at it, dealing 45 points of damage. It dies, giving you 600 experience points. Because 2/3 of damage dealt came from your fireball spell, your fireball practice points increase by 2/3 of 600 which is 400 points, and your Short Sword Proficiency (or whatever) increases by 200 practice points.

So merely casting a spell at nothing does not increase your skill at it, nor does casting it at really easy monsters forever (because they don''t give much experience).

I like the idea, but disagree that it should be only in the case of the amount of damage you would actually do. As most of us know from programming (and life in general), you learn just as much (if not more) from failure as you do from success.

-Chris

rather than real time, why not just make a log of related actions then after you sign off, it gets applied, or saved to apply next time you start? i mean, using resources to track all this is a bit of a waste, isn''t it? who would mind only levelling once a day/session?