[Adonthell-general] "Vacation" on Dere

[Kai Sterker]

Just thought I'd give you a little update on my current schedule,
which hasn't much room left for Adonthell at the moment. Main culprit
is Drakensang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drakensang:_The_Dark_Eye),
the first RPG in a long time that I actually enjoy playing a lot.

So please bear with me while I take a little vacation and collect some
new inspiration and ideas for Adonthell.

Actually, after roughly a week of playing, I mostly found things that
we can do better, but also a few nice things worth considering. I'll
give some thoughts below, so if you intend to play Drakensang, you
probably shouldn't read further for now ...


* XP for solving quests, not for slaughtering monsters

One of the positive aspects appears to be that monsters give fairly
little XP, while progressing in quests gives quite a bit more. I guess
"boss" monsters give more XP than regular ones and clearing a monster
infested dungeon the sheer number of kills also adds up to a decent
number of points. But I think it's something to keep in mind for
Adonthell: reward solving quests, not the mindless killing of
creatures.

* Realtime turn based combat

On the outside, combat is realtime, but internally it is divided into
rounds. It's possibly to pause and give new orders to characters
(multiple orders can also be queued). That way it doesn't break the
flow of the game more than necessary and doesn't require frantic
mouse-clicking.

Another thing they have is quite similar to our fighting feats.
However, their use is limited by a characters stamina, while we
haven't any limiting factor. Guess it's a balancing issue that we
might have to consider.

A negative thing is that it's basically impossible to use the terrain
to ones advantage during combat. Since there's no collision detection
between characters, its impossibly to block narrow passages with a
strong character and such. Something that we can definitely do better.

* Too linear, no choice in dialogue

Often, there's only one answer available (or a list of questions that
you'll have to ask one after the other). And even though there are
many dialogue-related talents, they hardly seem to play a role. Same
goes for quests, which usually have one way to solve (and the solution
often comes as part of the quest givers dialogue. I don't think we'll
run into this trap with Dun Barethsol, but we really should make sure
that there are not only different paths through the game, but also
that each quest allows different solutions.

I also think that Alignment, Charm and Diplomacy should have real
consequences on the available dialogue options. For example, without a
high rank in Diplomacy, you might get dialogue options that will
certainly annoy the NPC, while those with sufficient rank will not see
those options. Conversely, a high rank in Diplomacy might unlock
options that allow an especially favorable outcome. This would be
transparent to the player, however.

Charm OTOH would allow actions like lying or threatening NPCs to fail
or succeed. Such dialogue options would probably be marked as such and
be available to any character. However, a skill check against Charm
would be made to determine if the NPC will fall for the lie or not.

Finally Alignment should have a general influence on the way NPCs are
treated. Characters that follow the evil path through the game should
get dialogue options that lets them act in a more selfish way, while
characters on the good path would get the chance to help others. Even
if it's just a different text that gets presented to the player ("I
might consider it if the price is right" vs "Please fear no more! I'll
take care of it immediately."), dialogues should reflect the players
alignment and make sure that players will be able to act accordingly.


So much for now. I might go ahead and update the rules section
(http://adonthell.berlios.de/doc/index.php/Rules:Stats#Skills) with
the dialogue stuff, as the description of Charm and Diplomacy seems
pretty vague.


I'll also keep you updated once I get more impressions from playing
and I'm sure I'll be able to get back to Adonthell with renewed
motivation in a couple of weeks :-). In the meantime I'll be around to
answer emails and such, but I doubt I'll get to coding or any other
time consuming activity.

Kai