Colony Ship Update #39 - The third iteration

[Üstad]

Another thing. Back in April you were throwing out estimates about how you could have the armors and animations done within weeks, which clearly turned out to be wildly unrealistic. Given the amount of time you now know this stuff takes, can you calculate a more accurate estimate for the release date of the combat demo? Eg, you said only two-handed weapon and grenade animations are left to finish - how many were there originally?

It's a long story and it's hard for me to go into details right now. The armor and animations would have been ready back in April if Ivan's (our animator) health didn't rapidly deteriorate. Unfortunately, he passed away yesterday. Can't fucking believe it. Nick will post an official announcement later on.

I really liked his work. Rest in peace Ivan

 

[Elhoim]

That's his work, right?

Yeah, all him. It was really a shock.

 

[conan_edw]

This is horrible news, I'm really sorry for your loss guys.

 

[JarlFrank]

Damn, he was way too young to go. Rest in peace, Ivan. Your work on a niche RPG will live on forever.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Damn, he was way too young to go. Rest in peace, Ivan. Your work on one of the best cRPGs in recent memory will live on forever.

Fixed.

 

[CaesarCzech]

Why is it always Russians who gets the short end of the stick ?


Rest In Piece Maestro.

 

[Murk]

RIP Ivan.

This is absolutely tragic.

His work will live on.

 

[bat_boro]

Really sad news, RIP Ivan :/

 

[ScrotumBroth]

Please accept my condolences VD and the team.

 

[Harry Easter]

My condolences.

 

[conan_edw]

We demand updates.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

We demand updates.

Our train is slowly moving forward once again. Our new animator is making good progress so things are looking up.

Also, the dialogue system has gone through another iteration and now your debate partners have stats like Ambition, Greed, Loyalty, Fear, Piety, Suspicious, Duty, Honor, Opportunistic, etc. It's a long list but each person will have 3 stats defining his/her personality and/or state of mind at the moment. Each line, success and failure, would alter these stats and the outcomes would depend on these stats rather than checks themselves.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Vault Dweller, care to elaborate?

 

[conan_edw]

We are getting Colony Elysium it seems.

 

[Vault Dweller]

We are getting Colony Elysium it seems.

I haven't played DE yet (lack of time) so I don't know how dialogues work there.

Vault Dweller, care to elaborate?

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,7567.0.html
^ this was the first step

It works fairly well but I didn't like the single abstract score. So we split it into 3 'stats' making the strategy during a conversation easier to understand. The possibilities are a lot more interesting too and the conversations flow better. So let's say you're a trying to talk some thugs into letting you tamper with a certain object. Their leader's "stats" are Fear (whether he's afraid of you or not), Greed (successful tampering with the object can make him rich), and Doubt (tampering with the object can also get everyone killed). Some lines can affect several stats at the same time, so these branches are interconnected. Then we look not at the last check but the total score. Something like:

[Greed {value}] For a second there, Sharp Face hesitates, his mind conjuring up the riches waiting for him on the other side of that door, but he shuts these thoughts down. Chasing such dreams is the fastest way to die here.

“My place, my rules,” he says, forcing a fake grin on his face. “If you put that plastic into the reader, the cannons will pop out faster than you can blink. You may have a death wish but I don’t.”


vs

[Greed {value}] For a second there, Sharp Face hesitates, his mind conjuring up the riches waiting for him on the other side of that door. He tries to shut these thoughts down, but he can’t. People get rich all the time, why not him? Why not now?

Another character's stats are Piety, Loyalty, and Opportunism (the last two representing inner conflict you can exploit), so the stats are different in each case.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,7567.0.html
^ this was the first step

It works fairly well but I didn't like the single abstract score. So we split it into 3 'stats' making the strategy during a conversation easier to understand. The possibilities are a lot more interesting too and the conversations flow better. So let's say you're a trying to talk some thugs into letting you tamper with a certain object. Their leader's "stats" are Fear (whether he's afraid of you or not), Greed (successful tampering with the object can make him rich), and Doubt (tampering with the object can also get everyone killed). Some lines can affect several stats at the same time, so these branches are interconnected. Then we look not at the last check but the total score. Something like:

[Greed {value}] For a second there, Sharp Face hesitates, his mind conjuring up the riches waiting for him on the other side of that door, but he shuts these thoughts down. Chasing such dreams is the fastest way to die here.

“My place, my rules,” he says, forcing a fake grin on his face. “If you put that plastic into the reader, the cannons will pop out faster than you can blink. You may have a death wish but I don’t.”


vs

[Greed {value}] For a second there, Sharp Face hesitates, his mind conjuring up the riches waiting for him on the other side of that door. He tries to shut these thoughts down, but he can’t. People get rich all the time, why not him? Why not now?

Another character's stats are Piety, Loyalty, and Opportunism (the last two representing inner conflict you can exploit), so the stats are different in each case.

Thanks, VD. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the answer to simplistic dialogue systems is not more complicated dialogue systems, but dialogue systems supported by traditional gameplay (e.g., exploration, use of items, etc.). If you could invest more on handpicked or rare items that should affect the conversation, that should be great. Another thing is how to bring dialogues to life. One of the things that made the Fallouts so special, is that some of your “options” are swear words and threats that give the player more agency and make dialogues more interesting. It seems to be an underused feature to this day. Yet it is so simple.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Thanks, VD. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the answer to simplistic dialogue systems is not more complicated dialogue systems, but dialogue systems supported by traditional gameplay (e.g., exploration, use of items, etc.). If you could invest more on handpicked or rare items that should affect the conversation, that should be great.

Items won't work in more than a handful of situations so it's not something we can build a system on. Plus, if a game has speech skills, they are supposed to do the heavy lifting in conversations.

 

[Tigranes]

We are getting Colony Elysium it seems.

Heavens, no. Vault Dweller is simply expanding an existing system from a real bona-fide RPG full of combat and stats:

 

[Tigranes]

[Greed {value}] For a second there, Sharp Face hesitates, his mind conjuring up the riches waiting for him on the other side of that door, but he shuts these thoughts down. Chasing such dreams is the fastest way to die here.

“My place, my rules,” he says, forcing a fake grin on his face. “If you put that plastic into the reader, the cannons will pop out faster than you can blink. You may have a death wish but I don’t.”

vs

[Greed {value}] For a second there, Sharp Face hesitates, his mind conjuring up the riches waiting for him on the other side of that door. He tries to shut these thoughts down, but he can’t. People get rich all the time, why not him? Why not now?

Another character's stats are Piety, Loyalty, and Opportunism (the last two representing inner conflict you can exploit), so the stats are different in each case.

So for each dialogue, you would manually determine which stats are relevant, what the threshold should be for an important segment, and what the different responses should be - such that, sometimes, driving Doubt up would get you a favourable result, sometimes it would backfire, etc? How much of the info, if any, would be visible to the player?

First impression is that this would be helpful as a way for the designer to keep consistent track of how the conversation is being designed and looking at the number of different places the player can affect the outcome - whereas for the player side, like AOD's Lorenza conversation, you're still reading the actual lines and not [STAT], trying to understand the NPC as a human being. I would think this works best as a 'hidden counter', and as something on the surface would simply be confusing/frustrating/gamey.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

The last version of the character screen

No more fist weapons and energy cannons!
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,7777.msg156179.html#msg156179

Considering that animations have become our biggest problem, we had to cut fist weapons and energy cannons despite having the weapon models, mechanics, etc. We can bring back the cannons at a later stage, but the skills are gone for good.

 

[Vault Dweller]

So for each dialogue, you would manually determine which stats are relevant, what the threshold should be for an important segment, and what the different responses should be - such that, sometimes, driving Doubt up would get you a favourable result, sometimes it would backfire, etc?

Yes. Essentially, we're evolving the AoD dialogue system. All characters in AoD could be defined in such a way and the dialogue lines were written with these 'stats' in mind.

How much of the info, if any, would be visible to the player?

After each line the player will see the exact effect. For example:

“Hands where I can see ‘em,” says one of the thugs, a skinny man with a sharp face. “Empty your pockets, real slow-like.”

1. Show him the access card.
2. [reputation: combat] “You have five seconds to fuck off…”
3. Kill ‘em all.

/rep: combat
/Fear: low rep 0, mid rep 1, high rep 2; party modifier full party +1; the range is 0-3

/low reputation, full party
“You high or somethin’?” Sharp Face asks, grinning wide. Clearly, he’s a man who appreciates quality entertainment.
Fear 1 (reaction 0, party 1)

/medium reputation
“Big words,” says Sharp Face, licking his lips. “The fuck you want here anyway?” The sudden change of tone indicates that he no longer sees you as an easy mark.
Fear 2 (reaction 1, party 1)

/high reputation
“Easy there, friend,” says Sharp Face, raising his palms to show he comes in peace. “No need to get all worked up over a joke. So, uh, what brings you here?” The forced casualness makes it clear that you’ve been promoted from prey to rival.
Fear 3 (reaction 2, party 1)

 

[MF]

[Greed {value}] [...] so the stats are different in each case.

Cool. I like the fear, greed and doubt angle. How do you determine those stats? I did something similar to greed for TO, but added an 'integrity' value underneath, which has hidden modifiers like the amount of money the conversant currently has. If you hack a character's wallet and steal their money, for example, they'll be short on cash afterwards and more open to bribes.

Do only player stats like combat reputation and party size determine fear, or do you also use modifiers determined by the NPC's condition? What I'm asking is, can you do prep work for checks like these besides killing people and levelling up?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Cool. I like the fear, greed and doubt angle. How do you determine those stats?

The stats and the values are determined by each situation. In this particular case it doesn't matter if the thug leader is loyal, pious, ambitious, dutiful, etc. He did let someone else try to open the door which didn't work so his Doubt is higher than Greed and the initial Fear is determined by your rep and your party.

“Maybe?” laughs Sharp Face. “A few weeks ago some other fool talked me into letting him tamper with the lock. Had it all figured out, even brought some kinda jammer to keep the auto-cannons down long enough to give him a chance to hack the lock. And that jammer worked too … for about thirty seconds. Then the cannons came back online and blasted the fool and two of my men in the bargain. So from now on nobody fucks with that door.”

I did something similar to greed for TO, but added an 'integrity' value underneath, which has hidden modifiers like the amount of money the conversant currently has. If you hack a character's wallet and steal their money, for example, they'll be short on cash afterwards and more open to bribes.

Very elegant.

Do only player stats like combat reputation and party size determine fear...

Speech skills too. For example after the combat rep. reaction I posted above your choices are:

1. “Your five seconds are up. What’s it gonna be?”
2. [streetwise] “I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you. My employer insists on secrecy.”
3. [impersonate] “Looking for vermin. Seen any?” Show him the Regulator badge.
4. Show him the access card.

Option 1 will be sufficient for high combat rep characters, options 2 and 3 will increase Fear further if successful (or lower it if you fail). High Fear will force the thugs to leave, medium Fear will reduce the number of combatants:

[Fear {value}] For a second there, Sharp Face hesitates but he’s more afraid to lose face in front of his men than to face you. He might get lucky in a fight but he won’t get lucky with his men.

His comrades, on the other hand, aren’t burdened by the same considerations. Two men standing further away slip off into the darkness without so much as a goodbye.

...or do you also use modifiers determined by the NPC's condition? What I'm asking is, can you do prep work for checks like these besides killing people and levelling up?

No prep work at the moment.

 

[MF]

The stats and the values are determined by each situation.

Check. So you set them up manually for each encounter.

Very elegant.

Thanks.

Speech skills too.

Yeah, I meant stats and skills. It's great that Streetwise and Impersonation are back. Really liked that about AoD.

Two men standing further away slip off into the darkness without so much as a goodbye.

Non-binary outcomes always +1.

No prep work at the moment.

OK. Probably a good call in terms of development time. You can always script it for some quest, like I'm guessing here is what the access card line is about.

 

[Shadenuat]

remove blue photoshop > layer options > edge rgb blue already
at least replace it with darkish grey slightly brighter than the main underlay color, items would still stand out but won't look like photoshop ez work.