Tags: Grimoire
<p>The much anticipated vaporware cRPG of 1998 - 2011 Grimoire <a href="http://grimoiresystems.com.au/goldenera/">has a few updates</a>:</p>
<p> </p>
<blockquote>
<p> Bloodshot eyeballs bulging out from fatigue, item editing myself into institution, drooling down chin, slack-jawed Lovecraftian style Innsmouth look of editing madness …</p>
<p>… and still the item editing goes on.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>943 items. I’ve got utilities now that give me charts by class and type showing me cost in gold pieces, comparisons of armor and spells, bonus modifiers. Checking and double checking and checking again, worked my way from one end to the other making sure the data is set correctly for each and every one.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Biggest things to emerge from the walkthrough is how many items were incomplete/blank/incorrectly set, causing crashes or other errant behaviours. There were items in there that had their class set back in 1998 and had not been touched since.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then testing items in game. In combat. In quest mode. Designing merge tables for thaumaturges, implementing new workbench features and testing them against targets, checking prices to see if they were coming up right with NPCs, bartering, etc.</p>
<p>Etc. etc. etc. Nightmarish. Moving lego blocks in hell. Repetitive. Boring. Editing some more items. Then testing and checking. Editing more. Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Every day I wake up and that song by Sonny and Cher is playing and it’s back to editing the items. Editing. Then testing. Testing as monster weapons. Testing as player weapons. Editing some more.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>No wonder I’ve been procrastinating this chore for so long. It was mindnumbingly dull back in 1997. Nobody works on an RPG this long. It’s insane. Tomorrow will be the same as today. More item editing. Testing. Editing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I got you babe. I got you babe.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As I am finally getting the items into shape, placing them in the right places and tweaking the combat to make them behave correctly. I feel that level scaling may not be needed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Things are working correctly at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the game. Combat difficulty feels about right and the balance seems to exist. If there is an imbalance introduced by players advancing more rapidly than expected or getting certain powerful items early on, I don’t think it should be addressed by fudging the stats to scale the difficulty level dynamically. In fact, it’s too popamole. That’s what another game designer might do. I was thinking before I got a lot of this stuff tweaked that it would be necessary but now I don’t believe I will be doing it. Besides, it took a lot of tweaking to get it this balanced and putting in scaling introduces a whole new round of playtesting and rebalancing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I think I’ll leave it alone and continue on from here. Stuff seems to be much improved since the walkthrough and there is a lot more that just feels right.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My wife gave me some more help reviewing things the other night, she had some great perspective on a quite a few things. I felt more confident after we looked over the remaining bugs I can actually finish this monster before this year is over.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Before this year is over? I want to believe a baby can fly.....</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=17214">RPGWatch</a></p>
<p>The much anticipated vaporware cRPG of 1998 - 2011 Grimoire <a href="http://grimoiresystems.com.au/goldenera/">has a few updates</a>:</p>
<p> </p>
<blockquote>
<p> Bloodshot eyeballs bulging out from fatigue, item editing myself into institution, drooling down chin, slack-jawed Lovecraftian style Innsmouth look of editing madness …</p>
<p>… and still the item editing goes on.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>943 items. I’ve got utilities now that give me charts by class and type showing me cost in gold pieces, comparisons of armor and spells, bonus modifiers. Checking and double checking and checking again, worked my way from one end to the other making sure the data is set correctly for each and every one.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Biggest things to emerge from the walkthrough is how many items were incomplete/blank/incorrectly set, causing crashes or other errant behaviours. There were items in there that had their class set back in 1998 and had not been touched since.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then testing items in game. In combat. In quest mode. Designing merge tables for thaumaturges, implementing new workbench features and testing them against targets, checking prices to see if they were coming up right with NPCs, bartering, etc.</p>
<p>Etc. etc. etc. Nightmarish. Moving lego blocks in hell. Repetitive. Boring. Editing some more items. Then testing and checking. Editing more. Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Every day I wake up and that song by Sonny and Cher is playing and it’s back to editing the items. Editing. Then testing. Testing as monster weapons. Testing as player weapons. Editing some more.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>No wonder I’ve been procrastinating this chore for so long. It was mindnumbingly dull back in 1997. Nobody works on an RPG this long. It’s insane. Tomorrow will be the same as today. More item editing. Testing. Editing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I got you babe. I got you babe.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As I am finally getting the items into shape, placing them in the right places and tweaking the combat to make them behave correctly. I feel that level scaling may not be needed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Things are working correctly at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the game. Combat difficulty feels about right and the balance seems to exist. If there is an imbalance introduced by players advancing more rapidly than expected or getting certain powerful items early on, I don’t think it should be addressed by fudging the stats to scale the difficulty level dynamically. In fact, it’s too popamole. That’s what another game designer might do. I was thinking before I got a lot of this stuff tweaked that it would be necessary but now I don’t believe I will be doing it. Besides, it took a lot of tweaking to get it this balanced and putting in scaling introduces a whole new round of playtesting and rebalancing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I think I’ll leave it alone and continue on from here. Stuff seems to be much improved since the walkthrough and there is a lot more that just feels right.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My wife gave me some more help reviewing things the other night, she had some great perspective on a quite a few things. I felt more confident after we looked over the remaining bugs I can actually finish this monster before this year is over.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Before this year is over? I want to believe a baby can fly.....</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=17214">RPGWatch</a></p>
