Development Info Christmas is a time for Mirth

[JRitter]

This would be a preference that we could add to the game. In the months of testing, no one brought it up. I personally wouldn't use such an option. It wouldn't be the default because many people would toggle the mouse off and get totally confused where the mouse pointer disappeared to!

I will add it to my list to add a preference.

-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games, Inc

 

[Rune_74]

heh cool

Thats pretty cool josh....fixed because someone didn't like it...heh...nifty


Rune

 

[Jason]

Ghan, there was no "bitching bandwagon" around me when I played Gothic. Actually, everything I had read before had been very positive. So I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the developers were incapable or unwilling to implement decent controls that already existed in dozens or hundreds of other games.

Josh, sorry to keep straying in your topic. I'm still iffy about MoM, but your attitude bodes well for it down the line. Good luck.

 

[Shock]

Okay. I installed the demo, tried it for about 3 minutes, searched the Prairie official forums, found out there is no lock for mouse-look, and uninstalled the game. It is too fucking annoying for a 1st Person/3rd Person game to have to hold down a key to use mouse look. Perhaps when this is fixed, I'll try again.

Did you try holding the right mouse key and look around? It's setup like Everquest.

 

[Shock]

The mouse is the primary input device for looking and for interacting with the game's GUI. You hold down the right mouse button to mouse look.

The mouse look key you mention is primarily for OSX users who have one mouse button.

-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games, Inc

See? I told you these people are morons. When you write the manual, make sure it is at a 4 year old reading level so they won't have a crisis with the mouse look.

 

[Shagnak]

A 1st/3rd person game should use one key for movement (i.e. W, A, S, or D) with mouselook locked in. The toggle key should bring the mouse back in focus for the menus ... just like MW. Having to hold another key or mouse button to move around is silly in a 1st/3rd person.

The movement mode is AFAIR the same as some other "blob with arms and legs" games like Wizardry 8 and Wizards and Warriors (?).
It fits this type of game perfectly.

Don't forget that in Morrowind you only had to deal with one character, so non-cursor-mode mouse clicking would fire off whatever weapon/magic/item was currently selected for the character. In party-based FP games like MoM/Wiz8/W&W there is much more interaction with the interface due to the fact that you are managing up to six characters. Also, attacking someone involves selecting them (as per many other "blobs with arms and legs" games) rather than facing towards them as in standard FP games.

What this means is that the cursor-mode is more often in use in "action parts" than in games like MW.

Also, having a modal toggled system like in MW meant that no movement was possible while in cursor-mode (I think the world was "frozen"?). Of course if Josh were to implement the option of always-on mouse-look with toggled cursor then he could have it so that, while in cursor-mode, holding rmb would make mouse-look function just like it does now - and thereby have the best of both worlds

And as for the current system not being standard in FP games, it certainly has a precedent in FP party-based games. I don't see any problem with it myself.

Edit:
Oh, and as for Gothic 1, I thought the control was poo. Perhaps I'm just uncoordinated
Still a great game though.

 

[Claw]

Gothic2 allows the players to use the old scheme or a new one. I opted to play using Gothic controls, and I would have used Gothic's inventory too.

I don't get why people can't tell bad design and sloppy implementation apart. Gothic had a good control scheme and terrible implementation thereof.

 

[Shagnak]

I don't get why people can't tell bad design and sloppy implementation apart. Gothic had a good control scheme and terrible implementation thereof.

The implementation is what people see. It is what they end up using.
If they don't like the implementation, then of course they are going to complain about the control system. The design does not matter at that point if the implementation does not match it.

I am certain people have no problems at all telling bad design and sloppy implementation apart. If the implementation does not not match the promised design then that is sloppy implementation. What is hard about that?

Are you saying that Gothic had a good design for the control scheme, but a bad implementation of that design, so therefore people should be happy about it?
I really don't get what you're getting at

 

[Claw]

Obviously, the distinction matters. I am saying complaining about the design (as people did) may not lead developers to improve implementation, as Gothic is demonstrating nicely by "improving" design more than craftsmanship in the first two games, and continuing to improve design in their plants for the next game; we'll see about the craftsmanship later.

 

[Shagnak]

Oh, okay, but I don't know how I could get that from the original statement.
Nevermind.
Have you tried MoM yet?

 

[Shock]

Oh, okay, but I don't know how I could get that from the original statement.
Nevermind.
Have you tried MoM yet?

Ok, that's just sick but it explains a lot about you.

 

[theverybigslayer]

Have you tried MoM yet?

Yes, I had tried. But that was the beta demo. How much does this version differ? From a single-player view-point. I don't play mmorpgs.

 

[HardCode]

This would be a preference that we could add to the game. In the months of testing, no one brought it up. I personally wouldn't use such an option. It wouldn't be the default because many people would toggle the mouse off and get totally confused where the mouse pointer disappeared to!

I will add it to my list to add a preference.

-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games, Inc

Hey. That's pretty cool. If you add that in, I promise to buy the game after Christmas, regardless. And feel free to add in the changelog:

* Added to Preferences the option to lock mouse-look, due to HardCode's incessant bitching.

:D

 

[crpgnut]

I'm not sure if Josh is still reading these threads. I think the vileness might have scared him off. We got into a discussion about the codex over on global chat and I was a little surprised about how universally hated this site is. I guess I've just gotten used to it over the years

 

[Zomg]

I think it's a bit of a waste to try engaging the Codex towards a game that conciously tries to mimic MMORPG interface, style, etc. Few here have any evident passion about the genre, and aside from indie courtesy interest is minimal. He's better served getting the word out elsewhere.

 

[crpgnut]

agreed Zomg, I registered though, so it wasn't a complete loss I'm a sucker for indie games though. It's not great, but there are some fun moments in the game. I have nothing else to play so I'll give him $25 just to have something new to mess around with.

 

[bryce777]

Obviously, the distinction matters. I am saying complaining about the design (as people did) may not lead developers to improve implementation, as Gothic is demonstrating nicely by "improving" design more than craftsmanship in the first two games, and continuing to improve design in their plants for the next game; we'll see about the craftsmanship later.

Anything that is not a bug is presumably part of the design. the idea behind it may be good, but the way it is done (which is by design) really sucks and is stupid.