Re: [crossfire] Platform statement
Happy new year everyone! Actually, I think I'm over-reaching here. All considerations of *how* to deal with gameplay, especially game mechanics, are just IMHO and suggestions. I'll say what I think, reply on threads when asked, but in the end, go with whatever the coders decide :-) No. It's not up to coders/developers to decide. It's up to the gameplay leader to decide game mechanisms. And no gameplay leader is why no one decides anything on the type of game we have, why so many questions aren't replied to, so many things are left as an exercice to the first one to actually move (meaning no coherence yet again). Remember: technical stuff is there FOR THE PURPOSE OF GAMEPLAY AND CONTENTS. Not the other way around. Content and gameplay should state requirements (features, ...) and have a feedback from the technical part about feasability/delays. So to sum up: - content leader = handles the story part of the game, maps that are ok or not story wise, and such - gameplay leader = handles combat mechanisms, has a say on quest rewards and such, works on non combat stuff, ... - technical leader = ensures needs of content/gameplay leaders are met, and maybe planifies development and such (of course it's not a total division, everyone can make suggestions - but at the end of the day the leaders ACTUALLY DECIDE on their domain) And we could obviously add interface/client leader, too. Nicolas PS: to reply to someone's mail, no, I don't want to be technical leader as long as we don't have a gameplay leader - and even so, I'm not sure I'd accept. -- http://nicolas.weeger.org [Petit site d'images, de textes, de code, bref de l'aléatoire !] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Platform statement
quoth Nicolas Weeger as of Sat, 27 Dec 2008 23:27:58 +0100: And I for one would go for adjusting existing lore rather than throwing perfectly good stories that aren't integrated ingame like they should. Also I'd rather try to match Yann's story level than reduce the level and be content with something common. The existing lore doesn't work for me. So if it's me doing the work, I have to start over, in order to get something usable out of it. If something else were to do it, then that person would do it the way it works for them... the way it works for me is building a new story from the ground up. Recycling elements yes; many names, places, and even entire tales will be there. But the existing lore, especially the world history and mythology, is not something I'm able to work with. best, Lalo Martins -- So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. - http://lalomartins.info/ GNU: never give up freedom http://www.gnu.org/ ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Platform statement
I'd strongly suggest a decimal system be used (10:1 or 100:1 ratios). I really don't want to have to be doing 64:1 multiplication to try and figure out values of different items. I'd also suggest that names of currencies by intuitive. I don't think anyone would know valuy of cleekins to aytbits... Well... I strongly disagree. But since this seems to be a matter of opinion, I don't know that anything can be done about it. So I propose I do it my way, and we see how it looks, and in say, a year from now, we evaluate how much it sucks. If it doesn't work or makes the game too hard, it's a simple matter to edit only the coin archetype files. For one thing, I think it's clear to me from the last few emails that the whole way you use money in the game would be different; and at that point, I'd rather make the money more, hmm, I know there's a word for what I'm thinking but it refuses to come to my mind... fitting the theme, mood-building, more part of the story than the game system, rather than less. I don't know. If I'm leaving the game to find out how much a cleekin is relative to a silver piece (going to the docs, using a calculator, whatever), I'd think that also ruins the mood quite a bit. I find most games that make up new terms for money or other game aspects instead of using already well known words just annoying, and not really in any way more immersive than those that do use the standard words. After all, everything else in the game is in English (or local language of your choice), and to just take out certain terms almost seems more noticable than not. I have to say that while conceptually the idea of realistic money types is nice, during play, it is not. Even with the current silver/gold/platinum, I always have to figure out how much of one is worth one of another. I end up just dropping all the money and letting the computer figure it out. That makes the money types being realistic causing gameplay to be less realistic or immersive. Who ever thows down the contents of their whole purse and tells the storekeeper to only take what is needed? Aren't they prone to be cheats, anyway? All these fancy names being proposed sound nice, but express no relative value to the player. I'd have to think long and hard to come up with any (other) game I have played that had anything other than a single monetary type. ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Platform statement
Lalo Martins wrote: quoth Mark Wedel as of Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:40:25 -0800: I find most games that make up new terms for money or other game aspects instead of using already well known words just annoying, and not really in any way more immersive than those that do use the standard words. After all, everything else in the game is in English (or local language of your choice), and to just take out certain terms almost seems more noticable than not. I still don't agree with this... but in a way, I think we're both right on different aspects. Maybe the right solution is to call the coins something other than gold and silver, and still keep them in your inventory, BUT also keep a total account as you suggested, display that directly in the client, and work with that for most sales. In fact -- and this is coding, not content, so read it as a low-priority suggestion rather than a plan -- I think it would be best if buying and selling had a separate user interface. I do tend to agree on that buying/selling - I think I mentioned that in another e-mail. But this is more an interface refinement than a content change (that said, one can relate to another). As I said in my other message, the idea of getting a list of all items in the shop you can scroll through, see the price, and click on it to buy would make shopping easier. But it also changes the way shops can be done - now you don't need a bunch of spaces to spread stuff out - it can all be held in one space (or even inventory of the shop type object). For selling, I've often thought that an inventory window for the client could be useful - the current listing in the client is a pretty basic listing. Bring up a new window (I'm thinking on how it would be done in the gtk2 client - java client would be different) - that inventory window would contain detail information for all objects - name, weight, where it goes on the body, and value (not probably 2 values are needed - what player thinks it is worth, and what shop is willing to pay). The later case would only show up if in a shop, and player could click on something to sell that item. I'd also have this window be able to set up different favorite lists for the client (instead of the entire locked/unlocked thing, should be able to set things up like 'this is list 1, list 2, etc' But that is really programming/client, not content again. That said, it is beyond just client, because server would have to communicate these values to the client also (but that isn't hard to do). (discussion on tall faces) I'll leave that one for the coders, although I need a decision before I start actually making arches and maps. Once all decided, probably good to figure out priorities/what order the work will be done in. That lets better planning be done - is the answer needed in 2 months or 12 months for example. Now from my thinking, going one way or the other shouldn't be too hard - its a matter of adding/removing the more links in the archetypes and merging images. However, I'll repeat what I said before: I believe tall faces are already implemented, at least partially, and that would make that, by definition, a simpler solution than any alternative :-) (If I'm wrong, then ok... but either way it's not up to me. I'll just make arches and maps using any system the coding people tell me to.) I believe it is true that tall faces will work right now without any real changes. However, if you divide what is currently a 1 part object into a 4 part object, there are different ramifications. Number of objects. Effectively reduced viewable area. Another one I also thought of is it changes balance with respect to damage and area of effect spells (a creature (including player) takes damage for each part of the creature in the spell IIRC. So if a player is now a 4 part creature, I believe it would now take 4 times as much damage from a fireball). None of these are insurmountable, but can extend the scope of the project. It just something one has to be aware of and plan accordingly. That part is simple enough to understand. But how the player gets from scorn village is now the question - is the player effectively just playing on the zoomed out map? What about monsters, etc? And does he move faster? He would not move faster, that's why I wanted movement to slow down proportionally. Or then again he could move *a little* faster but not too much; so if zoom out is 10x and you move the same apparent speed, then you're really moving 10x faster, and I think that's unfair. But maybe you could move 2x faster (5x slower apparently), on the excuse that you're paying less attention to your surroundings. Combine that with a transport (horse) that moves 3x faster, and you're moving 6x faster. Monsters is a good point, I suppose at some point there should be objects (ground?) that force a zoom out. One has
Re: [crossfire] Platform statement
(If someone should think this message seems clashy or confrontational, bear in mind we're snipping out all points on which we have already agreed, and/or explained what the other wanted to know, which is more than half of them...) quoth Mark Wedel as of Wed, 24 Dec 2008 16:37:08 -0800: I'd be a bit reluctant to start a task that basically requires a rebalance of all monsters/items. Actually, I think I'm over-reaching here. All considerations of *how* to deal with gameplay, especially game mechanics, are just IMHO and suggestions. I'll say what I think, reply on threads when asked, but in the end, go with whatever the coders decide :-) OTOH... I'd much rather rebalance all monsters/items now, while I'm editing everything anyway, than later. A more general question on the platform statement or just in general is how much of existing crossfire are we keeping? In a sense, are we evolving crossfire or writing a new game? This may just help define the scope of the project. A little bit of each. It's a rewrite, Crossfire 2 so to speak, but not completely from scratch; you could say it's like Nicolas wants to do with the C++ server, starting from scratch and copy-pasting chunks of code. I want to design the world from scratch but adapt or adopt maps, arches, images, etc. The reasons for that are many... For one, I don't think the game as it is needs radical changes. It's fun as it is; yes there are a few problems, but fixing those would change the game so much that would probably introduce others. I'd much rather start from scratch, with an eye of those problems, and leave 1.x more or less as it is, so that people have a choice to keep playing it. Second, it's a big and patchy world with a lot of history. It's been in development for way too long. It gets to a point where any encompassing changes will break stuff you don't expect to be affected at all, or that you've never heard of but is someone's favourite map. Also, some problems I've heard complaint of are arguably a matter of choice. CF1 is basically combat, and many people have expressed a desire to be able to do other stuff. Well, just in case we get that wrong, I'd rather still have CF1 around, so that the HS crowd can keep playing it until the heat death of the universe. Same about realism, same about the world and the stories lacking backstory and consistency; I've heard that a lot but I acknowledge that some may prefer it as it is. For hit points, it could be done away with. Why should one necessarily get a big blob of hit points every level, and nothing in between? Historically, this has been because you got a random number of hit points per level. But it would be simple enough to change it to some basis where you get 1 HP and these different points. But see note above about impact of changing HP. Or, again, possibly you gain HP on quests. A long, arduous journey to bathe in the Wellspring of Gaea... I guess that would make HP increases happen less often, but I'm fine with that, since armor will probably be going up faster. (Then of course each such increase needs to store a force so it can't be used twice...) I personally don't have a problem with certain things, like HP, being based on characters level/total exp. I'm not sure how I'd feel with it going up by quests. One question would be how do you deal with death in these cases? Is there still a penalty? Another problem is that I could see players picking the quests that only give these bonuses. IMO, there should be some reward in just adventuring for adventuring sake - right now we have random dungeons, which can be useful places to pick up some experience. If experience doesn't mean much, you now get folks doing quests constantly - maybe not a bad thing, but you have to make sure you have enough quests out there for people to do. You'd still want exp, because that's what makes your skills go up. I believe in the current system, either damage or wc is based on skill, right? (Or both?) For magic-users it's even more obvious... I was sort of thinking the opposite - a problem with money is because even right now, the values of items are huge from low level to high level. One could say that ones level goes by a factor of 100. A normal longsword has a value of 45. A darkblade has a value of 143000 (3000+ times increase). And that probably isn't even the most valuable weapons. I think it's perfectly reasonable that a darkblade costs 3000x more than a normal sword, assuming you can buy it at all. But a slightly better sword shouldn't cost 100x more. What I see is dividing a lot of things, not only weapons and armor, in really two categories; mundane and heroic. Up until a certain point, you'll use mundane items because that's what you can afford. Then you'll buy or find one single heroic item, related to what you're specialized in -- sword or shield for fighter, ring for mage, etc. Then
Re: [crossfire] Platform statement
Lalo Martins wrote: quoth Mark Wedel as of Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:55:33 -0800: Lalo Martins wrote: (various bits snipped here and there) Gameplay (use attacktypes more, add more attacktypes) Like so many things done in crossfire, the discrete damage changes is something that was never followed up to fruition. (...) I'd make a strong case that every 'attacktype' line get removed and replaced with appropriate discrete damage name. The complication here is that if we do use AND logic, automatic conversion isn't as easy (but for items with only 1 attacktype, still would be). Since I'm proposing going manually through every single arch anyway for other reasons, I don't think adding this to the task list would be a problem. Or here's a crazy one. How about doing away with the percentage-based resistances, and making resistances an absolute value? That would allow items to keep improving more or less indefinitely, and would greatly help making higher-level characters more powerful. (Dragon logic would probably need adjustments, I guess.) To me it makes sense that someone with a super-duper Mostrai armor takes no damage at all from an Orc's club but takes some from a Holy Avenger or whatever. Its an option. Like most of the changes it is a pretty big one - there wouldn't be any clear/simple replace this value with that (a resist_fire 50 doesn't directly correspond into fire_dam_reduction 5 - it really depends on lots of factors, like level of monster (or targetted level of item), etc. In comparison, Ryo's proposed WC/AC change is a fairly straightforward change, and a simple WC X means new_wc Y through some formula could easily be done. I'd be a bit reluctant to start a task that basically requires a rebalance of all monsters/items. It can certainly be done, but since we just finished one up (with the combat rebalance) and I hope soon to finish up spell rebalance (have the next 1.5 weeks off from work, so should get it done then), I'd like to see that get used more before revamping it. A more general question on the platform statement or just in general is how much of existing crossfire are we keeping? In a sense, are we evolving crossfire or writing a new game? This may just help define the scope of the project. For physical, the mix of slashing/blunt/piercing is popular. Yes, I like that idea. Maybe replace physical with these three new types, reusing the physical code for blunt. I'd suggest just do 3 new keeps, and obsolete physical. It makes it easier to see what stuff has been updated and hasn't been. Also, I'd rather see dam_blunt, dam_piercing and dam_slashing vs just having 'dam' mean dam_blunt. An important point that was raised in the list is that when you meet something way above your level, it should hurt you badly but not kill you instantly, so you can run away. Of course if the monster is TOO MUCH above your level (let's say 4x to keep consistent with the definition of extra), then it's reasonable that you die without ever knowing what hit you. That's reasonable. I'd make a strong case that in general, it should be difficult for characters to wander into places in which the enemy is 4x your level (low level dungeons are sort of an exception - if you're level 2, 4x is level 8 - not as unreasonable, as level 10 vs 40) Agreed. Again, since every map will be edited for the reboot, that's not unreasonable to ask. Although I'd argue there are cases where an exception is part of the story look at my Valk temple for a good example :-) (the excessively hard monster is used to mark hey, this is the wrong way, and the seemingly easy path is not the one Valkyrie approves of). But there are better ways to balance that now - give it lots of HP, so it may take a long time to kill, and at the same time, reduce the damage it does to a more reasonable level so most characters will survive a little time. I also think it would be reasonable in many such cases to put a weaker monster (say half as powerful, or maybe only 25% as powerful) before that one a ways - like 'this is your first test'). Really weak characters wouldn't be able to defeat that, but it probably won't kill them right away. Characters that are meant to be able to kill that next monster probably wouldn't have much problem with this first one. And characters that are able to defeat it, but find it challenging (have to use lots of magic, etc), are probably still tough enough not to get killed instantly by the main boss creature. What I think the gameplay lacks most in 1.x is goals. (...) I agree that more goals are needed, and this can also help change the HS focus - some goals may not be kill everything in a dungeon, but rather get some item, transport and item, etc. Yes but that's not what I meant :-) I'm thinking higher level. Why are you doing that dungeon? In Pupland, for every dungeon you finish,
Re: [crossfire] Platform statement
quoth Lalo Martins as of Tue, 23 Dec 2008 09:55:19 +: forks, (c) it's too dark to see (or for or whatever), or (d) the ^^^ fog damn, and I did proofread this thing :-P I blame the cold, my fingers don't want to behave. best, Lalo Martins -- So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. - http://lalomartins.info/ GNU: never give up freedom http://www.gnu.org/ ___ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
Re: [crossfire] Platform statement
First and foremost, the platform sounds great. Not having put as much thought into it, I can't say I fully grasp the finer points. snip Gameplay snip As I read Gameplay, it all sounds good. If there was one game that I was impressed with (but abandoned when it went non-free) it was Dransik. I think it is now called Ashen Empires. All the positive things about that game seem already on the table. I don't know... strongly tempted to kill overall level entirely. What is it really good for anyway? I like the concept of item power, but I'd replace it with something you get from quests. I admit that it felt as if the overall level and item_power paragraph did not have the same appeal as what was present in the rest of this section. I'd definitely suggest more confidence before tossing these aspects of the game. I am pretty sure I recall the instantiation of item_power, and I do not (yet?) see what the problem with an overall level and the balancing aspects of item_power are. It is, granted something I am not that familiar with (never having leveled very high), but I have definitely had to better plan out my game play since it came around, and that, I think, is a sign it is not something to be lightly tossed. Loot and money -- snip The whole loot/money discussion seems well thought out and good. I am not sure I see how this all fixes the current situations, but as aspects of the money problem concerning low and high characters is mentioned, that helps the faith aspect of what might occur so long as it remains under consideration. Setting === snip This is section also seems well thought, though I distinctly feel that the rebooted from scratch is rather a good way to ensure that trunk is not reasonably playable for a very long time... Maybe it is just not clear what a reboot will look like. Perhaps it would be good to describe what a reboot means before we go off disagreeing about whether or not to do one. The concept of a reboot is not really unreasonable, but if done without addressing the logistics and details of how, it seems hard to accept carte blanche. I find myself assuming that what is meant is a mass delete of substandard maps, and this begs the question about whether anyone has really considered the cost and what it means considering the (lack of?) resources that are presently on project. If there is one thing that seems odd, it is to have someone not presently very active in development of this or that (content), to be so quick to say this and that (content) are being thown out (no matter what). Some of us do not care to play on a dead branch, but to develop on a reasonable, if unpolished, trunk, since there is a sense that this group is made up of player/developers. Perhaps one suggestion is to not forget that it is not given that a reboot implies a reformat of the disk. Did pupland branch ever get merged back? If not, what's to stop a reboot from falling to the same fate? The point is not to bash the idea of a reboot, but to challenge more communication and thought about how to pull it off without sacrificing the ability save in the event that available people are not able to keep up with the vision. Visual == snip WRT how to do it, I like the tallworld idea: don't increase the face size to 64, rather make the objects use more cells, which would reduce the klunky feel of the gameplay. I'd even go so far as reducing the cells to 16 or 8 pixels. And, for the record, I like the tallworld idea myself. I believe it was recently construed that I did not (and also FTR, I do not deny a client-breaker comment made on IRC might have led to that thought). This does not mean I do not have serious concerns about the impact to the client I happen to be very strongly attached to. As long as the tallworld proponents do not embark on callous client- bashing, which tends to quickly demoralize development and participation, it is likely things will work out somehow, and I would rather be stretched than to insist that nothing must change just because it is difficult - though it would be nice to see some support in at least keeping the GTK-V2 usable. aside FTR, if there is any question about client flexibility here, note that the move to GTK-V2 was not easy. As a die-hard GTK-V1 user who felt forced to move to GTK-V2 because of ongoing threats to discontinue V1, recent attitudes toward non-jxclients were pretty tough to take on a regular basis when they came from the people assuming the responsibility of designing things that would break these clients. With no GTK experience, I took on the GTK-V2 client to address its shortcomings and make it more likely to be adaptable to different player preferences. This experience is helping me learn how Crossfire works, so in retrospect it was a good thing, And I can see doing the same with jxclient someday, but not today. The reasons for such are not relevant to this thread. /aside snip So
