Re: [Adonthell-devel] Characters

[David White]

On Mon, 2003-01-06 at 08:11, Alexandre Courbot wrote:
> > > All characters will be able to fight, so all of them need at least
> > > those attributes required by the combat system.
> > 
> > Aren't there many NPCs who will never get the opportunity to fight,
> > and thus don't need to be able to fight? What about NPCs in peaceful
> > areas of the game like towns? Why would they ever fight?
> 
> If they are attacked by the player, I guess they need an opportunity to
> defend themselves. That gives a bog freedom to the player, but it's all
> relative: as killing key characters would ruin the story, I imagine we
> can put sort of a milicia system in every town that the player can't
> defeat - that is, if you break the story, you die! ;) But in some
> places, killing non-important characters could just ruin your
> reputation.

I'm a little dubious about this concept. Do we *really* want the player
to be able to go around attacking anyone they choose to? E.g. in Wastes
Edge, would we want the player to be able to just start attacking
Silverhair, his mistress, immediately upon meeting her? Then some guards
come in and kill him?

I think it's reasonable to not let the player do anything that is far
out of character like that. There's little point in giving the player
the appearance of freedom by letting them attack everyone, but then
making it that if they do they will have to face an unbeatable foe. It
seems far too contrived in my humble opinion: I think it would be better
to simply prevent fighting peaceful/friendly characters; at least
important ones.

Also, do we want to allow NPCs/monsters to fight against each other? For
instance, I think it would be pretty cool if the character could be
wandering through a forest, fighting monsters, and run into some other
NPCs who are doing the same thing.

-David.