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First ZRPG screenshot

Joined
Aug 25, 2009
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Barad-dûr
Is it actually that they don't want/need barriers (the game is combat light, or the player will never be put into 'siege' situations - fair enough), or that DB do not think they are capable of implementing them? If the latter, they must have thought of ways of implementing them, and the problems preventing it, in which case what exactly is the obstacle?
 

Jasede

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Patron
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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Not every little criticism has to be interpreted as some personal assault of honor that requires a stalwart and noble defense.

In fact, it should be seen as the only kind of feedback a man of your caliber should want: the honest kind. If people call it this and that, that's to be expected and just an honest expression of their... impression.
 

Naked Ninja

Arbiter
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Oct 31, 2006
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Location
South Africa
Just to put in here : No, setting up real physics based barricades is not trivial. The idea is trivial, but as in most things it is dealing with the little quirks that becomes an issue. Physics implementations aren't perfect, there would probably be a ton of weird cases where things get blocked when they shouldn't, or pathing gets fucked, or two physics objects interact in a funny way.

Doing it in another way, without a physics simulator, is a lot of work. I'd make it a scripted thing for your shelter. But doing it generically, for every room you can enter and across all objects? Ouch.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Hobbit Lord of Mordor said:
Is it actually that they don't want/need barriers (the game is combat light, or the player will never be put into 'siege' situations - fair enough), or that DB do not think they are capable of implementing them? If the latter, they must have thought of ways of implementing them, and the problems preventing it, in which case what exactly is the obstacle?
It's not about who's capable of what. It's about the simple fact that properly done barricades are an insanely massive project that any indie team should stay the fuck away from. So far even a much simpler feat like destructible environments is far from being a norm and no matter how much we want it, it would be awhile until fully interactive environments become a standard feature.

Even if Brian told me that he really wants this feature, I would have done my best to talk him out of it because such an overly ambitious feature can easily kill an indie project.
 

Annie Mitsoda

Digimancy Entertainment
Developer
Joined
Aug 27, 2008
Messages
573
Don't worry, people - it's not like we're going to implement it so zombies have to ask nicely if they want to enter a room. You just don't block stuff in real time - it would be silly for you to spend all your AP to drag a table around, while zombies and humans alike will just spend 1 more AP point to GO AROUND IT ANYWAY. You can lock doors behind you in the game - it won't fool humans, but it'll slow down zombies. If you're facing zombies, ideally it's cause you're out scrounging for food or supplies - in which case you want to get in & get out as soon as possible.

Also, really, the ZRPG isn't Pipe Dream or some kind of tower defense game - you're not in the middle of a maze of desks and boxes like COME GET ME YOU MONSTERS I HAVE FUCKLOADS OF AMMO! The biggest threat here is humans, too - humans who have things like GUNS. And can make shit explode. Just putting that out there.

Ans so you know, barricades DO exist in the game, but act as an UPGRADE to the shelter - they're just not something where you have to go "pick up box a - walk to barricade - drop box a on box b - repeat." It's not SimZombieApocalypse.

Also, we're set when society is BEGINNING to fall apart, not POST-apocalypse. Also I've never been a fan of representing post-apocalypse - artistically - as "everything's got a lot of dirt on it." It's just - been done. A lot. EVERYWHERE. If you look at pictures of a place that's REALLY apocalyptic, look at shots of Chernobyl. Things are just... empty, or left open, lying around. That's way more eerie to me than things that are entirely trashed. ...Yeah, you'll see the "trashed" aspect come into play, indeed, but this is one of the unhurt areas.

And my god. TEASER SCREENSHOT. The game is going to be bigger than that one room. I PROMISE.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
28,024
Jasede said:
Not every little criticism has to be interpreted as some personal assault of honor that requires a stalwart and noble defense.

In fact, it should be seen as the only kind of feedback a man of your caliber should want: the honest kind. If people call it this and that, that's to be expected and just an honest expression of their... impression.
Should their errors not be explained? Or, if the opposite is true, should they not be given an opportunity to convince the, uh, opposition that their viewpoint is correct and valid in a preferably mutually respective discussion?
 
Joined
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Barad-dûr
Honestly I'm not a big fan of building barricades manually block-by-block. I would be fine with some scripted event that transforms the room into a preset fortified bunker, if there was a 'siege' situation, though I also don't see how the bunker/siege stereotype is so fun. In an action game that would be the meat and bones, in an RPG I would prefer to be solving puzzles, moving about and doing things, occasionally blowing up a zombie if they're in the way of where I want to get to.
 

denizsi

Arcane
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Messages
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bosphorus
Vault Dweller said:
denizsi said:
Done menstruating?
Compelling argument. Epic win. I must flee in shame. Oh, talk about inability to handle sarcasm.
Sarcasm? You call typing butthurt 3 times in a row sarcasm?

Sorry I don't adhere to your understanding of sarcasm. People perceive things differently, who would've thought? Also sorry that I simply don't call you bullshit every time I notice that we perceive things differently. Honestly, I find little value in calling bullshit over stuff like that just because I can, but to each his own, I guess.

I just did name one RPG which did it unintentionally.
You said it was a board game.

No. Go back. Read again. I named one board game that did it intentionally. Then I named one non-board game that did it unintentionally. Go. Back. Read. Again.

You want names of hundreds of games where you can move objects around the level to block passage to enemies?

Not hundreds. I naively believe that building barricades in an RPG is a pretty innovative feature that hasn't been done before, would require a lot of work and its own interface, and is probably out of scope of a small indie team. It looks like you're shocked and possibly even flabbergasted that this simple must-have feature wasn't done, referring to it "well, it's ex-Obsidian developers, what do you expect?", which implies that pretty much everyone else would have done it. Hence my "name the RPGs" question.

Building barricades is just an improvement of "push boulder to block corridor" mechanic that can be found in so many games. Perhaps you're thinking of too many variables into it to the point of making it a barricading simulation, I don't know. But I don't.

The remark, "it's ex-Obsidian devs" is meant to imply that if anyone was even to try anything new, Obsidian would be the last to do it, which wasn't exactly fair to be honest considering what they did with MOTB, but it was at least a little fair for everything else they so far done (BioWare copy-pasta).

Sure, honey, that is a chair, and yes, that is a door you see there. Aren't you such a smart boy. Good boy, good boy!
...

Be a nice boy and play along. I make the effort to reply to your nonsense with nonsense. Keep the fun, will you?

I beg to differ but talking to you is futile, obviously. Mini games? Its own interface? What the fuck? I pile up boxes in Deus Ex to block passage to enemies. Show me where the mini game with its own interface is.
:facepalm:

Unless you want the gameworld be filled with stackable boxes, conveniently located everywhere, it would require every object to be rotatable, movable, destructible, fit together properly actually forming a barricade, have its own stats, a hell of physics engine, and a proper interface that goes with it. The issue of dragging objects from other places and building a super fucking fortress that zombies can never get through would have to be addressed as well. Besides, once you go this way, every object in the game would have to be movable to avoid questions like why can't I use this heavy metal safe or why can't I remove this metal door and use it. It's a huge fucking project.

Do I really have to explain these rather obvious things to you?

:facepalm³:

You obviously have a problem with thinking simple, because to you, obviously everything is a matter of immense complexion, judging from how anal you're taking that one example.

That example is meant to convey how, in a game where certain things are already in place, certain other things can be done to achieve certain ends despite not being intentional, to emphasize the simplicity involved for the latter once the former is already in place for every other reason.

Additionally, I already said that in a point & click game, such level of physics is irrelevant because, well, answer this: is there a basic physics beyond simple collision, in AoD to determine things as simple as where player can and can not go, where you can click in a level that will register as a move command, whether your character hits, misses or dodges blows or how animation is playbacked? I'm guessing no, because all of these are handled in a simpler system, only filtered through stat calculations, where such physics or anything equally complicated is simply irrelevant, right?

Adventure games have plenty of similar examples too. It's all illusion.

Yes, and that reason is either being unimaginative, being a lazy bum or I-don't-give-a-fuck-ness.
Because everything is so easy. All you have to do is wish really hard, eh?

Because everything is so impossible. You simply couldn't possibly do it ever, no matter what, eh?

Learn to read. He said that it would have been a priority if they were making a different game, but he sees no reason to do it in a TB game, especially since the design isn't focused on building fucking barricades.

I think it's pretty much established that you're the one with reading & comprehension disability (please see the second reply in this post). He said:

"If we were making a real-time action game, that might have been a priority"

How many ways can you read that? He did mention the scope of the game, so I have no problem with that. If they wanted to have barricades, they'd have begin the whole design from the very start with that in mind. But he also said that line, making a very particular association between a "real-time action game" and barricading, which is very much WTF material. Obviously, I lack the ability to twist and bend that line out of recognition like you've mastered to do.

Honestly, go find that game I mentioned, Zombie Night, and play it. It is, the underlying mechanics, are ridiculously simple, so much so that you can apply the same logic to even Morrowind, Oblivion or Fallout 3 with some creative scripting. It has nothing to do with physics. It has nothing to do with a shitload of stats or whatever. It has nothing to do with a special minigame with its own interface. And I'm surprised by how much more work you attribute to the idea than it requires. Ultima 6-7 did shitload of stuff with relatively "primitive" technology, as most people would call it today, and all of it in-game without any special minigames. Yet, if you pitch the idea around for modern games today, most people will think of minigames like you're doing it here for absolutely no legitimate reason.

Finally, I don't even know why it came to here at all. I'm not trying to pass the idea on everyone that Zombie setting without barricading is a no go, though it certainly is disappointing. I simply made a mocking observation and suddenly I'm lynched for being a "barricade lover" and for pointing out some nonsensical stuff Brian has said.
 

denizsi

Arcane
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Messages
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Location
bosphorus
thesheeep said:
I do get the impression that you are serious abou that barricades thing.

Wtf?
How lame would it be, if you would run around in turn-based or real-time combat, shifting chairs and desks to make the enemies walk another route. That would end up being either boring, a built-in-cheat or just unintentionally funny.

In some situations, yea, why not, but having all those objects movable by default... Dear god, no!

Barricades can eventually break, you know. More zombies, faster it breaks. Also, it doesn't mean you have to move hundreds of stuff around. Anyway, this is possibly a wasted effort as we seem to have different understandings of barricading.

Annie Carlson said:
You just don't block stuff in real time - it would be silly for you to spend all your AP to drag a table around, while zombies and humans alike will just spend 1 more AP point to GO AROUND IT ANYWAY.

Which is why you don't do it in the heat of an encounter.

When this game was first announced, I, for some reason, imagined a Fallout-like game, sandbox, lots of travelling, finding places to camp, settling for a while, in a town for instance so you can scavenge through the area, discover some stuff, some back plot etc., before going back on track. A general struggle to survive, with the focus on survival and things you do in preparation before the shit hits the fan. My bad, obviously, for being exposed to zombie settings. Anyway, all those stuff; that's where barricading in my mind mostly belongs to. Somehow, people seem to think it's something to do by taking your time in the heat of an encounter, with 5 armed psychos on your tails and x100 zombies approaching. So most probably, we have difference of conception to begin with.

By now, I'm wishing Corpse Crew was real. Fuck you, Cleve :(
 

Murk

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2008
Messages
13,459
Great another 20 pages of someone having to bark at VD all day. Usually the same people too, eh?

The hell did you guys expect a 3 minute theatrical trailer complete with a Manson track? You act like this lone shot is somehow justification to mouth off to someone that's at least fucking working on an indie project with a rather unique setting.

I was expecting pages and pages of concept art with screenshots that don't quite match it, that shot -- assuming its' even 80% like what it would be in game looks great. Reminds me of the graphics that Temple of Elemental Evil had - a great compliment in my mind.

As for games with interactivity that lets you build barricades... Divine Divinity did :D
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,158
The only computer game i remember where you could use barricade, was alone in the dark, remmber you had to push a cupboard to block door else you had a fight with some bird monster, it should be easily implemented in a rpg, but int his case the cupboard was convenient and near the door you wanted to block,its as much scripting as Locking the door.We dont want to spend AP on a fight pulling a table all the way acrross the screen, but it could be a good idea to limit the number of zombies in the encounter and prevent random reinforcements.
I cant honestly expect too much of an indie team, if its already half as good than fallout 2 it will be already a feat.

Denizsi You could do that in ultima pull objets and block , yes but its not realistic and was just abuse of the monsters IA, they should have been able to smash the barrels. Also you cant really say ultima was primitive, in my opinion its a work of genius , and from one of the best team ever, ive yet to see other rpgs as interactive.
 

tarkin

Augur
Joined
Apr 27, 2005
Messages
939
Wasteland 2
denizsi is the biggest faggot since Ma ever. HnH forum is so much better off without him (her?).
 

Sovy Kurosei

Erudite
Joined
Dec 29, 2004
Messages
1,535
Vault Dweller said:
Or, if the opposite is true, should they not be given an opportunity to convince the, uh, opposition that their viewpoint is correct and valid in a preferably mutually respective discussion?

When was the last time you saw one of those at the Codex?
 

denizsi

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
9,927
Location
bosphorus
Barking at VD? Sure, whatever.

Anyway, interesting that you mention Divine Divinity. IIRC from a dev blog post on DD, object interaction wasn't even originally planned. During development, one of the programmers "discovered" that they could do it due to a bug I think, and that it was fun, so they decided to fully implement it. Pretty ironic, I think.

Denizsi You could do that in ultima pull objets and block , yes but its not realistic and was just abuse of the monsters IA, they should have been able to smash the barrels.

I guess the developers should've been more careful then and not implement such a thing at all, as I'm sure making monsters smash the barrels would be such an impossibly difficult feat to pull.

Also you cant really say ultima was primitive blah blah

People keep reading stuff with only half their brains and those who use it all, get the blame all the time. Go. Back. Read. Again. Let me make it easier for you:

"relatively "primitive" technology, as most people would call it today"

tarkin said:
denizsi is the biggest faggot since Ma ever. HnH forum is so much better off without

If being the voice of reason in a cave of shouting apes is what it takes to be called a faggot, then a faggot I am. Now go ahead and misquote this post out of context and make it a sig. But first, tell me: have you been ransacked and buttraped by the neo-goons in your new super secret location for the umpteenth time yet?

him (her?).

"him".

Sovy Kurosei said:
Vault Dweller said:
Or, if the opposite is true, should they not be given an opportunity to convince the, uh, opposition that their viewpoint is correct and valid in a preferably mutually respective discussion?

When was the last time you saw one of those at the Codex?

That still happens every now and then when neither parties are thinking that the opposition is a troll or feel the urge to reply with highbrow comebacks to establish superiority.
 

Kaanyrvhok

Arbiter
Joined
May 1, 2008
Messages
1,096
Vince's reaction to barricades typifies an annoying attitude. Its this attitude that TB combat is strategic/cerebral by nature.

I looked up a youtube vid of FF 13’s combat to see if the core gameplay had improved since the SNES days. You couldn’t really tell anything from the vid it was basically 4 characters; 1 PC and one ally fighting two enemies. They were just taking turns attacking. Just like the old days there was no movement. There was no strategy in the vid just one person picks a target and an attack roll. I know sane people avoid utube comments but just for faith in humanity I wanted to scroll through the first page of the comments without reading about how TB combat takes brains yada yada yada yada. I couldn’t even get past the first page without two such comments. There was the predictable rant about how TB combat takes more strategy than ‘brainless shit’ like CoD MW. I’m thinking Jesus save that shit for a video that portrays an iota of TB strategy.

Its not TB that gives a game strategy its depth. It’s a lot easier to include depth with a slower pace and nothing is slower than frozen time. You don’t gain strategy from making a game TB you lose it and the only way to make it up is to include depth. Building barricades is depth. Vince dismissed it as something that would have been a priority if it was a RT action game. It’s the same attitude as FF fan.
 

Elhoim

Iron Tower Studio
Developer
Joined
Oct 27, 2006
Messages
2,878
Location
San Isidro, Argentina
Mikayel said:
I was expecting pages and pages of concept art with screenshots that don't quite match it, that shot -- assuming its' even 80% like what it would be in game looks great.

Here is the same model in the engine using T3D lighting. I used the T3D FPS demo, that's why the FOV is different.

 

DreadMessiah

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 2, 2009
Messages
1,217
racofer said:
2cgbjav.jpg


It looks very well detailed. Good job.
That little bear gets around. Reminds me of family guy with stewie. Did that one. Did her. Yep her too. What a slut not gonna do her. :lol:
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,158
[

Denizsi You could do that in ultima pull objets and block , yes but its not realistic and was just abuse of the monsters IA, they should have been able to smash the barrels.

I guess the developers should've been more careful then and not implement such a thing at all, as I'm sure making monsters smash the barrels would be such an impossibly difficult feat to pull.

Also you cant really say ultima was primitive blah blah

People keep reading stuff with only half their brains and those who use it all, get the blame all the time. Go. Back. Read. Again. Let me make it easier for you:

"relatively "primitive" technology, as most people would call it today"

Last thread ive seen is someone asking about might and magic and another thread s about a full gold box run.
I dont think anyone here would call the technology primitive no, we got faster cpus since the 386/ 486,and the graphic cards show more polygons, but no one here is fooled, the core game and scripting have not evolved, oblivion still not have better npc schedules than ultimas nor the same level of interaction, thats why i said you cant call ultima as primitive, i should have said technology ah well bash the old french guy...

However since it seems easy for you to script and makes IA with good pathing able to choose either bash or not barricades( accounting material resistances and weapons penetrations off course) i look forward to your own computer rpg.Seeing how vocal you are, you have some project to show us soon right ?
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Kaanyrvhok said:
You don’t gain strategy from making a game TB you lose it ...
Lose it? Would it be too much to ask for an explanation?

Also, may I recommend this thread?

Building barricades is depth.
Did you miss the part where I explained why it's a massive project that's almost a game in itself?

Vince dismissed it as something that would have been a priority if it was a RT action game.
Brian said it. Not me.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
denizsi said:
If being the voice of reason...
Yeah, that's what you are. The voice of reason.

denizsi said:
So perhaps the real matter is, why you are being so much butthurt about it. Is it? You tell me.
denizsi said:
As for the shot, it merely shows the level of details and what to expect graphically.
Cry some more. Some people called it sterile: is it not? Some called it a render: is it not? Yes and yes. So what is the problem? Butthurt much?
denizsi said:
So with all these things in consideration, perhaps the real question is, why are you being so much butthurt about it?

Sovy Kurosei said:
Vault Dweller said:
Or, if the opposite is true, should they not be given an opportunity to convince the, uh, opposition that their viewpoint is correct and valid in a preferably mutually respective discussion?

When was the last time you saw one of those at the Codex?

That still happens every now and then when neither parties are thinking that the opposition is a troll or feel the urge to reply with highbrow comebacks to establish superiority.
I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but the discussion was civil until you showed up and posted what I quoted above.
 

Phelot

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2009
Messages
17,908
There is something in common in all of these pictures. Can you guess what it is? Look carefully!

ENV_Recycled_Barricades1.jpg


256.jpg


ork-barricades.jpg


2567960718_b6ddc7bc60.jpg


journee-des-barricades737px.jpg


barbed-wire-barricade-taipei.jpg


police_barricade.jpg


Bermuda%20Estates%20barricades.jpg


1968barricade.jpg


21838-steel-barricades-saftey-barriers-traffic-fence-1.jpg
 

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