Re: [Adonthell-general] Fw: Ideas, review of rules... WARNING does not contain any Yeti

[Kai Sterker]

On Tue, 9 Jul 2002 08:47:48 +0200 Nils Fohrbeck wrote:

> Although these are a lot of ideas at once (and some are a little far
> fetched) most of them are actually not as absurd as they may sound. A
> progression system where the character improves his skills by using
> them is actually not that hard to implement (Dungeon Siege, Morrowind)
> it is more a question of personal taste if we go for a points system

That'll work fairly well with skills, I guess, as it's pretty much clear
when a skill gets used or not. But the attributes are much more
abstract. Besides, I think it's cool how you have to chose whether you
want to spent points for your skills or the rather expensive attributes.
Plus Andrew's points.


> As far as the different graphics are concerned this was something Ben
> and I talked about before and we figured that it might actually a good
> idea to chance the character's appearance as soon as he reaches level
> 7 (and once again at 15) for example. Something like this would not
> even be that hard to implement. 

Hm, that might actually be a nice idea.



> > Please excuse my skepticism about criticism coming to us
> > out of the wild. I suppose I should be open-minded, but I'm still
> > skeptical. Has this fellow joined the project, or is he just waiting
> > for things to happen?

Well, we asked for comments (see the News page), so it's only fair. Of
course we aren't forced to do anything in that direction. But it's
certainly interesting to hear what other people think. 


> > > As for experience per level, I've would have use something
> > > more like exponential, because when you are good in something,
> > > and want to surpass your self, you have to work a lot harder than
> > > if you where realy bad.
> > > Also, it would be cool if it would be transparent to the user.
> > > I prefer when they are no big numbers, because I never found the
> > > label where it was writen my experience, could it be written on my
> > > back ??
> > 
> > More nonsense. Did he miss the part about there being no leveling
> > system in Waste's Edge? Game engines already implement the catch-up
> > effect through ever-rising leveling thresholds, don't they?

Refers to the rules draft, where the formula for experience points isn't
exponential. I'm still thinking it might have to be. As for accumulated
experience being transparent to the player: I think there has to be a
way to see how long it takes to reach the next level. But that needs not
be the raw experience points.


> > > personal note:
> > > it would be cool to have some hidden features in the game
> > > to speed up the game play. Let say, you have to do a specific
> > > serie of actions and it will alow you to procede to the end of the
> > > game more quickly.
> > 
> > Um...not sure what to do with that. I've read something on Gamespot
> > which suggests giving more than one way to meet any quest, but it
> > sounds like he's asking for a straightest-route, or a walk-through.
> > What's the fun of having to to kill things to jump through hoops if
> > you don't have to jump through the hoops?

There isn't really a way to leave out parts of the main plot line. That
would only break the story we tell. All one can do is miss out on the
numerous side quest. But then he'll miss out on plenty of cool items and
stuff as well.


> > See above in re Evercrack. Just out of curiosity, though, how much
> > of a headache would this be to implement?

We had to collect some statistics during gameplay already. That's
something I'd like to see anyway. To put them online you'd need a cgi
script that can extract the information needed from a savegame for
example, some sort of DB to store the data and another script to display
it again. It'd be doable, but I'm not sure whether it makes much sense
for a single player RPG. 


> > > Something else, self evolving game.
> > > Remember the level generation in Diablo I ?
> > > That was something quite amasing as every level was different.
> > 
> > True, every level was different - different magicks in play,
> > different magicks useful against the monsters, different look and
> > feel (and available quests) but this is more an atmosphere issue
> > than an engine issue, so far as I can tell.
> > 
> > > Now, what about something similar, but in a story plot fassion ?
> > > I will clarify myself.
> > > Suppose you write the end of the story, with multiple ending,
> > > lots of different dialogs...
> > > Now supose I would go and kill a caracter in the game, all that
> > > caracter's intervention in the game will not occure, resulting in
> > > some weirds results. About like a game of chess, or a game of Go.
> > 
> > I wasn't aware that one could kill NPCs. I think he's thinking of
> > CronoTrigger and Magus.

Again, if you want to have a _real_ plot, you need premade locations and
NPCs you can't kill. It'd be okay to kill the less important NPCs, then
you'd only miss out on some side quest or another. 

I'm all for killing every NPC you want: but if you do so, any guard will
go after you, so it's as good as game over. ;)


> > > wow, I can't wait to play the squel in ...3002
> > 
> > 3002? Thank you, Mr. Rioux for that vote of confidence.

Just a quote from the news page. No harm done ;).

Kai