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Anonymous
Guest
Teudogar and dgar both seem nice because they lack the ironclad structure of games like Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger. They seem to be a proto-Morrowind, allowing characters to do what they would do in the real world and then some. That's the awesome part about Teudogar, it's so much like a second life. Don't get me wrong, i love the classics like FF, Chrono Trigger and Lufia, but I've also always had a soft spot for Earthbound and Harvest Moon.
Awww.... Harvest Moon... I found a power apple!
Awww.... Harvest Moon... I found a power apple!
Anonymous
Guest
Idea for guards/prison
Here's an idea, which requires a few new global variables. First, you take the number of crimes they know you commited, then the following is done.
Lets say I murdered two people and attacked one (he got away). The guard rushes up to me. "Hold! Wilt thou come quietly?"
You have three options:
1 - Yes. Screen fades out and you awaken in a prison
2 - No. You enter battle with the guard(s) and even more crimes are racked up.
3 - Bribe. You get the option to bribe the guard to let you go. The higher your crimes are, the more it costs. Say murder is "100 coins * (# of murders * 1.5)" while assault is 25 coins per. You would have to bribe him 325 coins altogether. Now if you dont have enough money, or he happens to be a more "honorable" guard, this will fail and you'll HAVE to choose yes or no.
Prison:
You awaken in the cell of a run down prison. Your possessions are in the possession of the prison. Across from your cells you can see a torture room and outside your cell you can see the gallows/guillotine. A new mini-world begins here.
Each day, you must get up, go to the mines which are beneath the prison and work there until you have worked off your prison sentence. If you stole, its 2 days for each offence. If you assaulted someone, its 4 days for each offence. If you murdered someone however, then you have 5 days until your execution (and game over).
Your fellow prisoners are generic prisoner NPCs, as well as the guards are generic guard NPCs. Noone special really, just "Faceless prisoners".
You need to find a way to escape. You can either do one of five things.
1 - Actually wait out your sentence (bad idea if you're a murderer, heh)
2 - Start up a prison riot, and help the prisoners kill the guards and escape (note an affect of this is that there are more brigands in the land now, since you helped fuel lawlessness. But a positive side is that the prison records were lost in the riots, and hence you are not wanted.)
3 - kill a guard and sneak out disguised as him. (you will become wanted for murder in a day after your escape is found.)
4 - Find a secret tunnel or such that leads out of the mines and along an underground riverbank. They assume you drown in the river, so you arn't wanted.
5 - Offer a BIG bribe to the warden. Namely 3x what you needed to bribe the guard. But the catch is you dont pay it now. You pay it when you meet him in 2 days. If you dont show, you're wanted again. You pay and you're all set.
Now with options 1, and 5 you WILL get the equipment you had with you when you leave the prison. With 2 and 3, you CAN get it back, but you need to make sure you do it, its not automatically given to you. With 4, you need to make your way back to the prison and get your things back (get caught and you're imprisoned all over again for stealing).
Just some ideas I had. Feel free to use all/some/none of them. I kinda hated how in morrowind, you just basically got a message that you served time in prison and hence lost some stats. Very un-immersive, heh
Wolf Mittag said:
Here's an idea, which requires a few new global variables. First, you take the number of crimes they know you commited, then the following is done.
Lets say I murdered two people and attacked one (he got away). The guard rushes up to me. "Hold! Wilt thou come quietly?"
You have three options:
1 - Yes. Screen fades out and you awaken in a prison
2 - No. You enter battle with the guard(s) and even more crimes are racked up.
3 - Bribe. You get the option to bribe the guard to let you go. The higher your crimes are, the more it costs. Say murder is "100 coins * (# of murders * 1.5)" while assault is 25 coins per. You would have to bribe him 325 coins altogether. Now if you dont have enough money, or he happens to be a more "honorable" guard, this will fail and you'll HAVE to choose yes or no.
Prison:
You awaken in the cell of a run down prison. Your possessions are in the possession of the prison. Across from your cells you can see a torture room and outside your cell you can see the gallows/guillotine. A new mini-world begins here.
Each day, you must get up, go to the mines which are beneath the prison and work there until you have worked off your prison sentence. If you stole, its 2 days for each offence. If you assaulted someone, its 4 days for each offence. If you murdered someone however, then you have 5 days until your execution (and game over).
Your fellow prisoners are generic prisoner NPCs, as well as the guards are generic guard NPCs. Noone special really, just "Faceless prisoners".
You need to find a way to escape. You can either do one of five things.
1 - Actually wait out your sentence (bad idea if you're a murderer, heh)
2 - Start up a prison riot, and help the prisoners kill the guards and escape (note an affect of this is that there are more brigands in the land now, since you helped fuel lawlessness. But a positive side is that the prison records were lost in the riots, and hence you are not wanted.)
3 - kill a guard and sneak out disguised as him. (you will become wanted for murder in a day after your escape is found.)
4 - Find a secret tunnel or such that leads out of the mines and along an underground riverbank. They assume you drown in the river, so you arn't wanted.
5 - Offer a BIG bribe to the warden. Namely 3x what you needed to bribe the guard. But the catch is you dont pay it now. You pay it when you meet him in 2 days. If you dont show, you're wanted again. You pay and you're all set.
Now with options 1, and 5 you WILL get the equipment you had with you when you leave the prison. With 2 and 3, you CAN get it back, but you need to make sure you do it, its not automatically given to you. With 4, you need to make your way back to the prison and get your things back (get caught and you're imprisoned all over again for stealing).
Just some ideas I had. Feel free to use all/some/none of them. I kinda hated how in morrowind, you just basically got a message that you served time in prison and hence lost some stats. Very un-immersive, heh
Adam P
Augur
SNOW-
I dont know if you have paid any attention to how it is usually created.
But in Warcraft III-Frozen Throne the title screen has a background of i guess a "Frozen Throne" anyway it is snowing back there. It has a real good effect but all it is, is white fluffs (of various sizes) falling in a straight direction with only 2 different possible directions down-right and down-left. If you aren't watching the individual flakes closesly it gives a swirling effect, so unless you wanted to add a new tile set for snow, or a more complicated design, it shouldn't take that much work. But then in my programming, I always try to take the easy way out
DEFENCE-
Fantastic job
Historical aspect of Teudogar-
I had/have a hard time relating to that aspect because I have virtually no knowledge of German history, despite the debreifing in the intro. However, terrific game. It is very challenging to offer diverse, tactical gameplay given the constraints of reality. Perhaps one of the reasons it was not accepted as well as you had hoped is that it's one of a kind. At least, I dont know of any other historical rpg's. Therefore just about everyone who has played Teudogar is a fantasy rpger and judges rpg's by those standards. Teudogar demands a different set of standards. And Teudogar does an amazing job at what it was intended to accomplish.
Demons-
Though sharing a unique language do they not speak also the language of man? After all they have been around for awhile...
And I have a question-
What was the most code intensive(difficult) part of Teudogar/DARGHUL's game engine. I have always found a lot of difficulty with the scrolling tiled gameworld, and therefore, sadly never gotten past that part.
Sorry for any spelling and grammatical errors as i am a bit behind on sleep, Thanks for your time in reading and responding to my posts.
I dont know if you have paid any attention to how it is usually created.
But in Warcraft III-Frozen Throne the title screen has a background of i guess a "Frozen Throne" anyway it is snowing back there. It has a real good effect but all it is, is white fluffs (of various sizes) falling in a straight direction with only 2 different possible directions down-right and down-left. If you aren't watching the individual flakes closesly it gives a swirling effect, so unless you wanted to add a new tile set for snow, or a more complicated design, it shouldn't take that much work. But then in my programming, I always try to take the easy way out
DEFENCE-
Fantastic job
Historical aspect of Teudogar-
I had/have a hard time relating to that aspect because I have virtually no knowledge of German history, despite the debreifing in the intro. However, terrific game. It is very challenging to offer diverse, tactical gameplay given the constraints of reality. Perhaps one of the reasons it was not accepted as well as you had hoped is that it's one of a kind. At least, I dont know of any other historical rpg's. Therefore just about everyone who has played Teudogar is a fantasy rpger and judges rpg's by those standards. Teudogar demands a different set of standards. And Teudogar does an amazing job at what it was intended to accomplish.
Demons-
Though sharing a unique language do they not speak also the language of man? After all they have been around for awhile...
And I have a question-
What was the most code intensive(difficult) part of Teudogar/DARGHUL's game engine. I have always found a lot of difficulty with the scrolling tiled gameworld, and therefore, sadly never gotten past that part.
Sorry for any spelling and grammatical errors as i am a bit behind on sleep, Thanks for your time in reading and responding to my posts.
Anonymous
Guest
Hi Wolf,
I think your new combat system is very promising!
I can't think of a way to improve it in a simple, turn-based way.
Re. parrying:
I am just a beginning student of Historical European Martial Arts, so I can only offer thoughts on my level, but parrying with the sword does not seem right to me even in those circumstances. But most of the material (fechtbücher) show duelling situations, and attacks from the right side are extremely unlikely in these situations.
The book to get on the subject is:
Wagner, Paul & Hand, Stephen, 2003, Medieval Sword and Shield: The Combat System of Royal Armouries MS I.33. Chivalry Bookshelf, Union City, California
Stephen Hand and Paul Wagner also regularly post here:
http://forums.swordforum.com/forumdispl ... forumid=15
I am also a member, and I would like to invite you to ask questions you may have there.
I think your new combat system is very promising!
I can't think of a way to improve it in a simple, turn-based way.
Re. parrying:
Wolf Mittag said:
I am just a beginning student of Historical European Martial Arts, so I can only offer thoughts on my level, but parrying with the sword does not seem right to me even in those circumstances. But most of the material (fechtbücher) show duelling situations, and attacks from the right side are extremely unlikely in these situations.
The book to get on the subject is:
Wagner, Paul & Hand, Stephen, 2003, Medieval Sword and Shield: The Combat System of Royal Armouries MS I.33. Chivalry Bookshelf, Union City, California
Stephen Hand and Paul Wagner also regularly post here:
http://forums.swordforum.com/forumdispl ... forumid=15
I am also a member, and I would like to invite you to ask questions you may have there.
Wolf Mittag
Wolf Mittag Software Development
Thanks to all of you for helping me with your comments and suggestions!
getting jailed:
Thank you for this, Vistaer! I especially like the idea of your being forced to work in a mine, because just sitting there in your cell (the current outcome) really isn't all that exciting, and that mine thing turns this into a real subplot. Bribing guards is a nice touch as well. I'll add some of this in some of the cities.
In order to implement variable sentencing, I need to add regional crime-counters, and, while I'm at this, I'll add regional reputations for you as well. I.e., your reputation in a place would depend on how you behave there, plus what people may have heard about you from other places.
snow:
Of course, that's just how I programmed rain. Snowflakes could be the same, just a bit slower. The problem I have is with how to display the accumulated snow on the ground. (Of course we could assume it's above 0°C and therefore, all snowflakes melt when touching the ground, but then snow would be kind of pointless.)
most code-intensive part of engine:
The NPC system (including artificial intelligence, daily schedules, finding their way around, behaviours in different situations, NPCs interacting with gameworld, etc) (750k .CPP file). #2 in terms of size is the game world editor (including game world generator) with about 700k, #3 the main loop and the player's interaction with game world (650k), and #4 user interface (600k). Most other modules (.CPP files) such as dialogs, output, basic technical functions, combat etc are each below 250k in size.
most difficult part of engine
was data organization for the game world (especially arranging ground and object tile data in such a way that you can move smoothly from one game world chunk to another without even noticing), and getting NPCs to recognize and understand their surroundings and find their way around the game world. Getting the basic conception for these two systems right took some real effort; however, once they were in place, everything else was more or less organic growth, i.e. adding layer by layer of game world sub-systems / rules for all possible gaming situations / rules for all sorts of challenges an NPC might face and so on.
parry:
Thanks for this great link, Paul! I'm already halfway through most of the postings in this forum, and it really makes a difference if one gets one's information mainly from archeologists and military historians (as I did with Teudogar) or from people who are actually familiar with using the weapons in questions. I'll do some more research on this, and perhaps read a fechtbuch or two: That should put my decisions about additional arms/armor and each piece of equipment's influence on fighting style (parry/shield, chance of hitting/getting hit, likely target areas etc) on a much firmer basis.
Thank you for all your suggestions so far! If anyone would like to add anything else, especially requests for minor, easy to implement features, please post...
getting jailed:
Thank you for this, Vistaer! I especially like the idea of your being forced to work in a mine, because just sitting there in your cell (the current outcome) really isn't all that exciting, and that mine thing turns this into a real subplot. Bribing guards is a nice touch as well. I'll add some of this in some of the cities.
In order to implement variable sentencing, I need to add regional crime-counters, and, while I'm at this, I'll add regional reputations for you as well. I.e., your reputation in a place would depend on how you behave there, plus what people may have heard about you from other places.
snow:
Of course, that's just how I programmed rain. Snowflakes could be the same, just a bit slower. The problem I have is with how to display the accumulated snow on the ground. (Of course we could assume it's above 0°C and therefore, all snowflakes melt when touching the ground, but then snow would be kind of pointless.)
most code-intensive part of engine:
The NPC system (including artificial intelligence, daily schedules, finding their way around, behaviours in different situations, NPCs interacting with gameworld, etc) (750k .CPP file). #2 in terms of size is the game world editor (including game world generator) with about 700k, #3 the main loop and the player's interaction with game world (650k), and #4 user interface (600k). Most other modules (.CPP files) such as dialogs, output, basic technical functions, combat etc are each below 250k in size.
most difficult part of engine
was data organization for the game world (especially arranging ground and object tile data in such a way that you can move smoothly from one game world chunk to another without even noticing), and getting NPCs to recognize and understand their surroundings and find their way around the game world. Getting the basic conception for these two systems right took some real effort; however, once they were in place, everything else was more or less organic growth, i.e. adding layer by layer of game world sub-systems / rules for all possible gaming situations / rules for all sorts of challenges an NPC might face and so on.
parry:
Thanks for this great link, Paul! I'm already halfway through most of the postings in this forum, and it really makes a difference if one gets one's information mainly from archeologists and military historians (as I did with Teudogar) or from people who are actually familiar with using the weapons in questions. I'll do some more research on this, and perhaps read a fechtbuch or two: That should put my decisions about additional arms/armor and each piece of equipment's influence on fighting style (parry/shield, chance of hitting/getting hit, likely target areas etc) on a much firmer basis.
Thank you for all your suggestions so far! If anyone would like to add anything else, especially requests for minor, easy to implement features, please post...
Adam P
Augur
Thank u for your time and energy in responding to my questions and comments
Sloshing through the mud all day at the job site...
made me think...
Does your rain build up?
Sloshing through the mud all day at the job site...
made me think...
Does your rain build up?
Anonymous
Guest
For snow, it would be following the normal to just turn the ground white. Going back up to Harvest Moon (Heard of it, anyone?) they had effective snow just by having a generic snow game world and footprints (those are the finishing touch on any snow effect, leaving little footprints that may/may not go away) so you could run it that snow only accumulates when you're inside, and don't worry about active, real time snowbanks.
Ever heard of the ROM system? ZSNES etc.?
Ever heard of the ROM system? ZSNES etc.?
Anonymous
Guest
Darghul endings
When it comes to the ending of Darghul, I was wondering what your plan will be. Bear in mind I have no idea what the story is, so I'll give some vague examples =)
1. Will you be able to continue playing the game AFTER the ending? I loved games like Morrowind and Fallout 2 for doing this. In morrowind's case even, the expansions became more for your character to do after he finished the main game.
2. Will there be multiple endings? Say I needed to collect all my gear to destroy the wizard and some magical object that is granting him is power. After I defeat the wizard, he lays at my feet, begging for his life. At this stage I would see many endings come into play... I can kill him on the spot, I can spare him and bring him to justice, or I can force him into being a slave under me, or if I dont even care about him and just the object that gave him power, I can simply tell him to run away. As for his magical object... I can destroy it, I can give it to my king/emperor/etc., or I can take it for myself, giving myself great power.
The downside of both of these (especially if BOTH are done) is of course, at the very least, more dialogue. If you have multiple endings AND post-game gameplay, people talking about your enemy's death/imprisonment/enslavement and your destruction/turning-in/possession of the magical object means you need to add more to the dialogue of some people (at the very least plot critical NPCs).
I kinda hate suggesting stuff like this because while I love mentioning my favorite aspect of many RPGs, I fear for how much longer Darghul will be in production since its one of the few games this year I really wanna play
When it comes to the ending of Darghul, I was wondering what your plan will be. Bear in mind I have no idea what the story is, so I'll give some vague examples =)
1. Will you be able to continue playing the game AFTER the ending? I loved games like Morrowind and Fallout 2 for doing this. In morrowind's case even, the expansions became more for your character to do after he finished the main game.
2. Will there be multiple endings? Say I needed to collect all my gear to destroy the wizard and some magical object that is granting him is power. After I defeat the wizard, he lays at my feet, begging for his life. At this stage I would see many endings come into play... I can kill him on the spot, I can spare him and bring him to justice, or I can force him into being a slave under me, or if I dont even care about him and just the object that gave him power, I can simply tell him to run away. As for his magical object... I can destroy it, I can give it to my king/emperor/etc., or I can take it for myself, giving myself great power.
The downside of both of these (especially if BOTH are done) is of course, at the very least, more dialogue. If you have multiple endings AND post-game gameplay, people talking about your enemy's death/imprisonment/enslavement and your destruction/turning-in/possession of the magical object means you need to add more to the dialogue of some people (at the very least plot critical NPCs).
I kinda hate suggesting stuff like this because while I love mentioning my favorite aspect of many RPGs, I fear for how much longer Darghul will be in production since its one of the few games this year I really wanna play
kris
Arcane
My suggestion would be to have a system with serious injuries. IMO the most important part if you want a realistic fighting system. In most games this have been ignored and is the same boring and unrealistic "hit the health bar" system. Someone who suffers an injury will have to take the consequences of it. Maybe drop the weapon since the arm was hit or maybe can't run at you since you threw a axe in his leg.
Anonymous
Guest
kris said:
The best computer game I ever played for realistic damage was Operation Flashpoint. If you got hit in the leg, you fell to the ground and had to crawl. If you got shot in the head, it was game over.
As for a system which an RPG would integrate. Personally, I'd have head, each arm, each leg, and torso each as their own area. Get hit in the left arm (that weild's your shield) and your blocking ability diminishes. Get hit in your sword arm and you'll not be able to hit as accurately or powerfully. Get hit hard enough in either and you'll drop your weapon/shield.
Get hit in the head hard enough and everything around you will get foggy since you probably have a concussion. (an actual effect the player would have, with less field of visibility around his character)
Hit in the torso hard enough and you'll probably get the wind knocked out of you, making your next turn half as effective as usual.
Get hit in the leg hard enough and you'll be limping along and only be able to move once every two moves. Get hit in both legs hard enough and you'll not be able to move more than once every three or four moves.
On the plus side, if you get good enough at skills like swordsmanship or whatever the melee combat skills are, then you could forseeably make many of these "Critical blows" and wear down your enemies fast
Vistaer
Novice
Bah! That was me that posted that. *made his own account so Guest never happens to him again*
kris
Arcane
Something like that would be a great improvement in any RPG. Also, if someone is down to less than 50% health then they should fight at a disadvantage as injuries hamper fighting effectiveness.
Anonymous
Guest
Damage was done fine in Teudogar. If you had full health or very slight cuts and bruises you'd fight well, but one significant hit meant that you were pretty much out of the fight. I expect that as Darghul is more fantasy hack and slash that there'll be health potions and that a bit of damage won't slow you down too much.
Unless it's made easier to pick up shields and weapons from the ground then I'm not sure that I'd like losing my shield or weapon if I can't pick it up again. Perhaps if you could hold Alt while clicking on a pile of items then you could select which item you want to pick up? If it's deeper in a pile or larger then it could take longer?
Unless it's made easier to pick up shields and weapons from the ground then I'm not sure that I'd like losing my shield or weapon if I can't pick it up again. Perhaps if you could hold Alt while clicking on a pile of items then you could select which item you want to pick up? If it's deeper in a pile or larger then it could take longer?
Wolf Mittag
Wolf Mittag Software Development
Thanks to all of you for your ideas & suggestions!
> rain
Yes, starts gradually, gets more intense, and finally fades out. Different intensity showers of rain, too.
> snow
Footprints would be no problem (and a nice touch, too). And simply replacing green/brown color shades with white/gray shades would yield acceptable snow landscape tiles without any manual work. (Thanks for reminding me of this.) So I'd keep this extra snow tiles set in memory in addition to the regular set, and then output either the regular or the snow version depending on whether the tile in question is in a house or outdoors, or if it's a vertical wall, or open water, or a roof/riverbank or an object like e.g. a sword. This would require a non-snow-to-snow tile conversion table (or huge snow spritesets arranged exactly like the non-snow ones). The creation and maintaining of such a non-snow-to-snow conversion table would be a bit cumbersome due to its size, and there would be some extra graphics data management. All of that can be done and isn't really difficult but it is still a good deal of work (possibly a bit out of proportion to the extra gaming fun it would bring); so I'll put this off for the time being; but I will return to this later.
> continue playing the game AFTER the ending
You can do that, at least with the main plot's main endings. A lot of people had requested this for Teudogar, so I implemented this in DARGHUL. It's actually fun to visit the scenes of old battles, and to witness people's reactions (especially your former enemies') to what you've accomplished or to the changes you brought about in the game's world.
> multiple endings
There are, similar to Teudogar; but different from Teudogar, there aren't multiple fundamentally different main story lines, but just a single main plot line that you can (but needn't) follow, plus numerous independent sub-plots.
After Teudogar, I had the impression that one extra-long main plot might actually be better than several alternative shorter ones, because these would require you to start a new game for each different plot line, i.e., to do away with the character you had invested so much time and effort in, and you'd usually not want to put up all that effort once again, i.e., your new character would be weaker and you'd identify less with him, thus making each new plot a good deal less fun and immersive. A one-main-plot game that lets you keep your character throughout all available plot lines avoids this problem.
> serious injuries
I had thought quite a bit about this while designing Teudogar's combat system. Basically, when you suffer a hit to your head with an axe, you would in reality not just lose say 30% of your vitality but would most likely be dead immediately. So keeping in line with my goal of realism, I had originally made combat injuries have much more severe consequences than they do now. The problem with this, and the reasion I changed this, was that this made combat too dependent on luck, and quite volatile and unpredictable: When a single hit determines the entire combat's outcome, the differences between your and your opponent's skill levels don't come into play sufficiently, because the superior skill will only dominate _on average_, i.e., over a series of actions; while each single action's outcome is much harder to predict. (E.g. like stock markets making maybe 8% per year on average over 30 years but anything from -20% to +20% in one single given year.) I.e., the fewer actions you rely on to determine combat outcome, the more random it gets.
> differentiating hits, and making these have different consequences
I like that idea very much. Currently, hits are already differentiated between head/torso/legs, so I can easily expand that a bit further. I think I might split the general vitality stat into vitality_head, vitality_torso, vitality_left_arm, right_arm and so on, and then compute overall vitality with different weightings for each component, e.g vit_head counting much more than vit_left_arm etc. That way, the current system could remain mostly in place; just the player info screen would have to output something additional like "right arm lightly/severely wounded", plus the inventory paper doll perhaps displaying some wounds; and (in addition to the general weakening of all skills caused by lower overall vitality, as already implemented now) specific wounds could then affect specific skills as discussed above (attack, shield, dodge etc), plus have potential extra consequences (drop weapon etc, can't run, etc).
> picking up stuff during combat
I've made this easier; clicking on a weapon on the ground will pick this up and place it in your hand (if you had no other weapon) or place it on your belt, from where you can ready it with another click. You can also pick up any other kind of object now; this'll be placed in you belt/pockets or put into your inventory bag. If something is in a pile, you'd have to pick up all the things laying on top first, facing the chance to be attacked at each turn, which I think is realistic.
(In general, I thought I'd leave the combat system relatively benevolent - you won't lose a hand or an arm; so let's say when you get severely wounded in your right arm, you drop your weapon; but you can then pick it up again and try to continue fighting (though with much diminished attack/parry/etc skill).)
Thank you for all your suggestions so far! If anyone would like to add anything else, especially requests for minor, easy to implement features, please post...
> rain
Yes, starts gradually, gets more intense, and finally fades out. Different intensity showers of rain, too.
> snow
Footprints would be no problem (and a nice touch, too). And simply replacing green/brown color shades with white/gray shades would yield acceptable snow landscape tiles without any manual work. (Thanks for reminding me of this.) So I'd keep this extra snow tiles set in memory in addition to the regular set, and then output either the regular or the snow version depending on whether the tile in question is in a house or outdoors, or if it's a vertical wall, or open water, or a roof/riverbank or an object like e.g. a sword. This would require a non-snow-to-snow tile conversion table (or huge snow spritesets arranged exactly like the non-snow ones). The creation and maintaining of such a non-snow-to-snow conversion table would be a bit cumbersome due to its size, and there would be some extra graphics data management. All of that can be done and isn't really difficult but it is still a good deal of work (possibly a bit out of proportion to the extra gaming fun it would bring); so I'll put this off for the time being; but I will return to this later.
> continue playing the game AFTER the ending
You can do that, at least with the main plot's main endings. A lot of people had requested this for Teudogar, so I implemented this in DARGHUL. It's actually fun to visit the scenes of old battles, and to witness people's reactions (especially your former enemies') to what you've accomplished or to the changes you brought about in the game's world.
> multiple endings
There are, similar to Teudogar; but different from Teudogar, there aren't multiple fundamentally different main story lines, but just a single main plot line that you can (but needn't) follow, plus numerous independent sub-plots.
After Teudogar, I had the impression that one extra-long main plot might actually be better than several alternative shorter ones, because these would require you to start a new game for each different plot line, i.e., to do away with the character you had invested so much time and effort in, and you'd usually not want to put up all that effort once again, i.e., your new character would be weaker and you'd identify less with him, thus making each new plot a good deal less fun and immersive. A one-main-plot game that lets you keep your character throughout all available plot lines avoids this problem.
> serious injuries
I had thought quite a bit about this while designing Teudogar's combat system. Basically, when you suffer a hit to your head with an axe, you would in reality not just lose say 30% of your vitality but would most likely be dead immediately. So keeping in line with my goal of realism, I had originally made combat injuries have much more severe consequences than they do now. The problem with this, and the reasion I changed this, was that this made combat too dependent on luck, and quite volatile and unpredictable: When a single hit determines the entire combat's outcome, the differences between your and your opponent's skill levels don't come into play sufficiently, because the superior skill will only dominate _on average_, i.e., over a series of actions; while each single action's outcome is much harder to predict. (E.g. like stock markets making maybe 8% per year on average over 30 years but anything from -20% to +20% in one single given year.) I.e., the fewer actions you rely on to determine combat outcome, the more random it gets.
> differentiating hits, and making these have different consequences
I like that idea very much. Currently, hits are already differentiated between head/torso/legs, so I can easily expand that a bit further. I think I might split the general vitality stat into vitality_head, vitality_torso, vitality_left_arm, right_arm and so on, and then compute overall vitality with different weightings for each component, e.g vit_head counting much more than vit_left_arm etc. That way, the current system could remain mostly in place; just the player info screen would have to output something additional like "right arm lightly/severely wounded", plus the inventory paper doll perhaps displaying some wounds; and (in addition to the general weakening of all skills caused by lower overall vitality, as already implemented now) specific wounds could then affect specific skills as discussed above (attack, shield, dodge etc), plus have potential extra consequences (drop weapon etc, can't run, etc).
> picking up stuff during combat
I've made this easier; clicking on a weapon on the ground will pick this up and place it in your hand (if you had no other weapon) or place it on your belt, from where you can ready it with another click. You can also pick up any other kind of object now; this'll be placed in you belt/pockets or put into your inventory bag. If something is in a pile, you'd have to pick up all the things laying on top first, facing the chance to be attacked at each turn, which I think is realistic.
(In general, I thought I'd leave the combat system relatively benevolent - you won't lose a hand or an arm; so let's say when you get severely wounded in your right arm, you drop your weapon; but you can then pick it up again and try to continue fighting (though with much diminished attack/parry/etc skill).)
Thank you for all your suggestions so far! If anyone would like to add anything else, especially requests for minor, easy to implement features, please post...
Anonymous
Guest
Ha! Sorry I ever posted this thread; you're being hit with another 50-100 hours of programming! I think most people here would be into the game you invisioned, then expansion packs/patches - or not. I don't speak for everyone.
How about some halo-glow thing for special items. I always lost my neck-thing of magic because it looks the same as all the other ones. I'd like some sort of visual cue that it's special, maybe if you just replaced the number with a * ?
Item 14
Item *
Item 14
Item *
Anonymous
Guest
Darklands. Although that game is somewhat dated it is still, in my opion, one of the best historical/fantasy rpg games of all time. The character/party creation is the best I have ever seen, the story was interseting, and the gameplay pretty good. I would love to see Darghul mix it's great interactivity with something like Darklands. Darklands was a big world to play in with dozens and dozens of towns, villages, etc. It also used a local/regional reputation system in where each town or region gave you a different reputation depending on if you were good or bad. If you have not played it before try searching for a copy and seeing just what I mean. If you could mix the historical aspects of Teudogar in with the fantasy of Darghul then the game should be great beyond a doubt.
COMBAT
For combat I would like to see something that the Fallout game used. It was turnbased and the combat was great in it. The ability to target specific body parts and depending on how much damage you caused to a certain part then your enemy gets handicapped. Hit him in the eyes good enough and they become blind. Hit the in the back of the legs and cripple that leg, making them slower. Break their arm and they cant use two handed weapons... etc.
MAGIC
While magic in games is not bad (though I don't really care for it
) I tend to discover that if you are able to teleport or something in that manner then you almost always end up teleporting everywhere and then don't really get to explore all the game world if you were just walking. Then again, once you explored almost everything it would be nice to just fast travel.
TRAVELING
While Im on it. How about add in some type of transportation or something besides teleportation? Or better yet, take out teleportation and add in a 'quick travel' system like in Daggerfall? Of course this would only apply to cities and such that you have already visited.
DIFFERENT STARTING SCENARIOS
I would like to be able to sort of choose a starting scenario in which you kind of dictate how you came to end up where you are. For instance Scenario #1 has you starting the game near a burned down house or something and the player can make up his/her own mind - Someone killed my parents and burned down the house. Or you were traveling and came across this burned house (was it bandits, a accident, etc) Scenario two might start you at a inn at some small town, etc. (Back from a bad adventure, etc?) Just throw in a variety of starting scenarios, each would maybe give you varying starting equipment (though nothing too fancy) And sort of personalize each characters new game. Each scenario would of course tie into the main game but sort of give a multipath starting quest (depending on which scenario you choose) or something. Sorry if it does not make more sense.
TATICAL BATTLES
On combat again, It would be nice to have some sort of turn based tatical battles. Say for instance you scouted out the land and seen a caravan or something coming your way. You could order your followers to get into certain posistions and wait for the caravan. Then on your command you all would ambush the caravan as it passes giving you a tactical advantage over them even if the guards were better armed and such. Things like that would add depth to the gameplay.
PERKS/TRAITS
Aside from attributes and skills how about add in perks or traits that you can get depending on your actions, etc. Sort of like in Fallout series. Certain perks/traits would add positives and others negatives and some a little of both. Something like that.
SLAVES/SERVANTS
Aside from followers that you pay for or something how about give the player the ability to command/order slaves/servants not only to do stuff but also to follow you on your adventures (serve as a bodygaurd or pack mule). You would of course have to equip them, etc. Just a thought.
Wow, I could just keep on rambling on and on but I guess I've embarrased myself enough (esp with my gramma errors!) and I'll just stop right there though many more ideas fill my head. Anyway, keep up the good work!
CWalker
Georgia, Usa.
COMBAT
For combat I would like to see something that the Fallout game used. It was turnbased and the combat was great in it. The ability to target specific body parts and depending on how much damage you caused to a certain part then your enemy gets handicapped. Hit him in the eyes good enough and they become blind. Hit the in the back of the legs and cripple that leg, making them slower. Break their arm and they cant use two handed weapons... etc.
MAGIC
While magic in games is not bad (though I don't really care for it
) I tend to discover that if you are able to teleport or something in that manner then you almost always end up teleporting everywhere and then don't really get to explore all the game world if you were just walking. Then again, once you explored almost everything it would be nice to just fast travel.TRAVELING
While Im on it. How about add in some type of transportation or something besides teleportation? Or better yet, take out teleportation and add in a 'quick travel' system like in Daggerfall? Of course this would only apply to cities and such that you have already visited.
DIFFERENT STARTING SCENARIOS
I would like to be able to sort of choose a starting scenario in which you kind of dictate how you came to end up where you are. For instance Scenario #1 has you starting the game near a burned down house or something and the player can make up his/her own mind - Someone killed my parents and burned down the house. Or you were traveling and came across this burned house (was it bandits, a accident, etc) Scenario two might start you at a inn at some small town, etc. (Back from a bad adventure, etc?) Just throw in a variety of starting scenarios, each would maybe give you varying starting equipment (though nothing too fancy) And sort of personalize each characters new game. Each scenario would of course tie into the main game but sort of give a multipath starting quest (depending on which scenario you choose) or something. Sorry if it does not make more sense.
TATICAL BATTLES
On combat again, It would be nice to have some sort of turn based tatical battles. Say for instance you scouted out the land and seen a caravan or something coming your way. You could order your followers to get into certain posistions and wait for the caravan. Then on your command you all would ambush the caravan as it passes giving you a tactical advantage over them even if the guards were better armed and such. Things like that would add depth to the gameplay.
PERKS/TRAITS
Aside from attributes and skills how about add in perks or traits that you can get depending on your actions, etc. Sort of like in Fallout series. Certain perks/traits would add positives and others negatives and some a little of both. Something like that.
SLAVES/SERVANTS
Aside from followers that you pay for or something how about give the player the ability to command/order slaves/servants not only to do stuff but also to follow you on your adventures (serve as a bodygaurd or pack mule). You would of course have to equip them, etc. Just a thought.
Wow, I could just keep on rambling on and on but I guess I've embarrased myself enough (esp with my gramma errors!) and I'll just stop right there though many more ideas fill my head. Anyway, keep up the good work!
CWalker
Georgia, Usa.
Wolf Mittag
Wolf Mittag Software Development
Hi CWalker and TheDuke, thank you for these suggestions!
> special items, some sort of visual cue that it's special
right. I'll add some sort of glow, and add something to the price description in the bartering screen (i.e., "MAGICAL neck ring, 1000 silv." instead of just "neck ring").
> target specific body parts
I implemented this, via a smal target selection window that pops up over your enemy when you move your mouse cursor over him. However, I'm unsure about how far to differentiate (currently, it's just stab/slash + head/torso/legs): specifics like right arm, or even, left eye? With that many details, positioning your mouse cursor over that small range at exactly the right spot becomes pretty difficult. So I'd have to offer a larger target selection window, which would require more extra mouse movements and clicks, thus slowing down combat. Perhaps I could pop up an additional sub-menu, where you could select specific targets like eyes, neck, throat, right/left arm etc, depending on your position/equipment; e.g., when you've managed to sneak up behind someone's back, and are carrying a cutting sort of weapon, attack/throat might be immediately lethal if successful, and would be a superior choice than plain slash/head or stab/torso (the most sensible choices you currently have). I'll experiment a bit with how to conveniently offer such a sub menu, and set up a set of choices/rules.
> enemy gets handicapped
I've added this to my todo list (e.g. lameness, or drops weapon, or disoriented), as discussed further above. Blindness is a nice idea, too (after stab/head).
> end up teleporting everywhere and then don't really get to explore
I agree. I tried to circumvent this in DARGHUL by making teleportation available only at a comparatively late stage of the game's plot, i.e., after you've explored most of the game world on foot.
Also, you can only teleport yourself to places you already know, or that you have had described to you by someone, which usually costs money; so unless you're rich, you won't have a choice but to explore on foot at first.
Another aspect is that there's not just 3 cities that you'd teleport yourself to and fro between, but rather dozens of locations you need to visit over the course of the plot. I think that even if you get to every one of these via teleportation, most people will find it irresistable to explore the surrounding area (I reward this with lots of random generated treasures and caves, plus ruins, temples, caves etc), and that can of course only be done by walking.
On the whole, I think I found a reasonable balance there. But I'll keep an eye on this during final playtesting; if I find it's really too much, I'll restrict it a bit by e.g. requiring the use of some (costly) magical reagents for every act of teleportation.
> choose a starting scenario
I like this but it's too late by now. (Game world and dialogs are too complete to add that retroactively.) However I'm letting you select not just your sex (m/f) but also a particular strength (Str/Dex/Int/Vit or balanced) and (planned, not yet implemented) sets of skills and equipment (perhaps: adventurer (balanced), squire, student, treasure-hunter, rogue) at the beginning of the game. Of course the game remains open-ended; but starting as a squire you'd already be some way on the road to becoming a knight, or student -> wizard etc.
> tactical battles
This'll go to my long-term todo list for the time being. (First I'd need to program people actually following you around / a party system; at present, DARGHUL is still strictly single-player.)
> people following around
As above; possibly long-term. Lots of work, and I'm not sure if it'd really be superior from a gaming point of view (identification with a single player might be stronger).
As to bodyguards, I've made you able to summon demons (at a late stage of the game). As to making pack mules obsolete, I've added a magic teleportation box: everything you put inside there will end up in a corresponding, 2nd magical box, regardless of where this 2nd box is placed (e.g., place box #2 in your house; carry box #1 with you; and put every piece of booty you come across into this box in order to teleport it to your house). These magical shortcuts should solve these problems, without causing me that much extra work.
> traits depending on actions
Maybe. Partly this is already done via the skill system, e.g., murdering people tends to reduce your charisma. Perhaps I should make obsessive treasure-hunting cause you to become a stingy/greedy character, or some fun attributes like that, based on consistant, repetitive behaviour by you (casting spells all day? exploring all the time? talking to each and every person?). Difficult to diagnose/program, though; and I'm not sure if it'd result in character/skillset outcomes any different from what the present system already does, since presently every single action leads to (tiny) incremental changes of your skills/personality, i.e., repetitive action already causes you to develop specific traits in your personality (only they're not listed as such) via your different level of development of different skills.
> grammar
I'm always amazed at how tolerant people have been about my English so far...
Again, thank you for your suggestions!
> special items, some sort of visual cue that it's special
right. I'll add some sort of glow, and add something to the price description in the bartering screen (i.e., "MAGICAL neck ring, 1000 silv." instead of just "neck ring").
> target specific body parts
I implemented this, via a smal target selection window that pops up over your enemy when you move your mouse cursor over him. However, I'm unsure about how far to differentiate (currently, it's just stab/slash + head/torso/legs): specifics like right arm, or even, left eye? With that many details, positioning your mouse cursor over that small range at exactly the right spot becomes pretty difficult. So I'd have to offer a larger target selection window, which would require more extra mouse movements and clicks, thus slowing down combat. Perhaps I could pop up an additional sub-menu, where you could select specific targets like eyes, neck, throat, right/left arm etc, depending on your position/equipment; e.g., when you've managed to sneak up behind someone's back, and are carrying a cutting sort of weapon, attack/throat might be immediately lethal if successful, and would be a superior choice than plain slash/head or stab/torso (the most sensible choices you currently have). I'll experiment a bit with how to conveniently offer such a sub menu, and set up a set of choices/rules.
> enemy gets handicapped
I've added this to my todo list (e.g. lameness, or drops weapon, or disoriented), as discussed further above. Blindness is a nice idea, too (after stab/head).
> end up teleporting everywhere and then don't really get to explore
I agree. I tried to circumvent this in DARGHUL by making teleportation available only at a comparatively late stage of the game's plot, i.e., after you've explored most of the game world on foot.
Also, you can only teleport yourself to places you already know, or that you have had described to you by someone, which usually costs money; so unless you're rich, you won't have a choice but to explore on foot at first.
Another aspect is that there's not just 3 cities that you'd teleport yourself to and fro between, but rather dozens of locations you need to visit over the course of the plot. I think that even if you get to every one of these via teleportation, most people will find it irresistable to explore the surrounding area (I reward this with lots of random generated treasures and caves, plus ruins, temples, caves etc), and that can of course only be done by walking.
On the whole, I think I found a reasonable balance there. But I'll keep an eye on this during final playtesting; if I find it's really too much, I'll restrict it a bit by e.g. requiring the use of some (costly) magical reagents for every act of teleportation.
> choose a starting scenario
I like this but it's too late by now. (Game world and dialogs are too complete to add that retroactively.) However I'm letting you select not just your sex (m/f) but also a particular strength (Str/Dex/Int/Vit or balanced) and (planned, not yet implemented) sets of skills and equipment (perhaps: adventurer (balanced), squire, student, treasure-hunter, rogue) at the beginning of the game. Of course the game remains open-ended; but starting as a squire you'd already be some way on the road to becoming a knight, or student -> wizard etc.
> tactical battles
This'll go to my long-term todo list for the time being. (First I'd need to program people actually following you around / a party system; at present, DARGHUL is still strictly single-player.)
> people following around
As above; possibly long-term. Lots of work, and I'm not sure if it'd really be superior from a gaming point of view (identification with a single player might be stronger).
As to bodyguards, I've made you able to summon demons (at a late stage of the game). As to making pack mules obsolete, I've added a magic teleportation box: everything you put inside there will end up in a corresponding, 2nd magical box, regardless of where this 2nd box is placed (e.g., place box #2 in your house; carry box #1 with you; and put every piece of booty you come across into this box in order to teleport it to your house). These magical shortcuts should solve these problems, without causing me that much extra work.
> traits depending on actions
Maybe. Partly this is already done via the skill system, e.g., murdering people tends to reduce your charisma. Perhaps I should make obsessive treasure-hunting cause you to become a stingy/greedy character, or some fun attributes like that, based on consistant, repetitive behaviour by you (casting spells all day? exploring all the time? talking to each and every person?). Difficult to diagnose/program, though; and I'm not sure if it'd result in character/skillset outcomes any different from what the present system already does, since presently every single action leads to (tiny) incremental changes of your skills/personality, i.e., repetitive action already causes you to develop specific traits in your personality (only they're not listed as such) via your different level of development of different skills.
> grammar
I'm always amazed at how tolerant people have been about my English so far...
Again, thank you for your suggestions!
Adam P
Augur
Wolf, you have better grammar and spelling than most Americans.
I don't know if that's a compliment or not, take it how you want it.
I don't know if that's a compliment or not, take it how you want it.
CWalker
Novice
More Suggestions
First off, forgive me if I post any suggestions/ideas and whatnot that have already been suggested or implemented but going through every related post and reply can be tendious (correct spelling?).
- I would really like to be able to ride a horse and such in the game. Since the game world is going to be one continious thing riding a horse would make traveling much faster for those who do not want to teleport.
- Carts would be nice. You could buy one and get a horse or bull to pull it for you. This way you can transport much more items and such than you normally would be able to. This would slow down traveling time but it has it's benifits as well as it's negitives. For instance, though you will be able to carry more goods to trade you would also be open to attack by bandits, etc.
- Add in a variety of houses to act as safe points. Maybe in each large town and such add in a house or something you can earn/buy/ or take over. You can use this area to rest in, gather slaves, keep goods, and the like.
- I've read you will be able to choose your sex, race, and a starting strengths/weaknessess, but what about the ability to customize your character a little futher by choosing skin/hair color and the like? Would add a little bit more depth to your character.
- Realistic inventory. Fantasy is fantasy but maybe make the characters inventory a bit more realistic. In Teudogar you just opened it up and there was everything you were carrying. How about go Ultima like and have it where you need a backpack to store stuff in that you'll be carrying or (like my prior suggestion) have it where you need a horse/cart to bring more stuff along?
- Destructive enviorments? This would probably be too much to code in or maybe not and prehapse not really be usefull. But how about adding in destructive environemnts like burning down homes, etc? Nothing quite says 'evil guy' like leaving a trail of dead bodies amid a village in flames... should you choose to play such a character.
- Terrain on your side. Add in realistic type factors with fighting on/in certain types of enviroments. On a hill then your arrow will fly farther and do more damage or be at an advantage while fighting someone at a lower position on the hill... fatigue would drain more, etc. Enemies in the woods then use fire to drive them out or kill em. Something like this would add some extra tactical edge to the game.
- Weahter affects your fighting ability as well as your physical state. Wearing warm clothing would drain your fatigue faster if it is clear and hot outside and vis versa or somethign. Hm... don't really know about this idea...
Well that's about it for right now though I'm sure more lame brained ideas will fill my head later and compele me to plaster them on the fourm... :D But until that time comes, you are all safe... for now.
CWalker
Georgia, USA
First off, forgive me if I post any suggestions/ideas and whatnot that have already been suggested or implemented but going through every related post and reply can be tendious (correct spelling?).
- I would really like to be able to ride a horse and such in the game. Since the game world is going to be one continious thing riding a horse would make traveling much faster for those who do not want to teleport.
- Carts would be nice. You could buy one and get a horse or bull to pull it for you. This way you can transport much more items and such than you normally would be able to. This would slow down traveling time but it has it's benifits as well as it's negitives. For instance, though you will be able to carry more goods to trade you would also be open to attack by bandits, etc.
- Add in a variety of houses to act as safe points. Maybe in each large town and such add in a house or something you can earn/buy/ or take over. You can use this area to rest in, gather slaves, keep goods, and the like.
- I've read you will be able to choose your sex, race, and a starting strengths/weaknessess, but what about the ability to customize your character a little futher by choosing skin/hair color and the like? Would add a little bit more depth to your character.
- Realistic inventory. Fantasy is fantasy but maybe make the characters inventory a bit more realistic. In Teudogar you just opened it up and there was everything you were carrying. How about go Ultima like and have it where you need a backpack to store stuff in that you'll be carrying or (like my prior suggestion) have it where you need a horse/cart to bring more stuff along?
- Destructive enviorments? This would probably be too much to code in or maybe not and prehapse not really be usefull. But how about adding in destructive environemnts like burning down homes, etc? Nothing quite says 'evil guy' like leaving a trail of dead bodies amid a village in flames... should you choose to play such a character.
- Terrain on your side. Add in realistic type factors with fighting on/in certain types of enviroments. On a hill then your arrow will fly farther and do more damage or be at an advantage while fighting someone at a lower position on the hill... fatigue would drain more, etc. Enemies in the woods then use fire to drive them out or kill em. Something like this would add some extra tactical edge to the game.
- Weahter affects your fighting ability as well as your physical state. Wearing warm clothing would drain your fatigue faster if it is clear and hot outside and vis versa or somethign. Hm... don't really know about this idea...
Well that's about it for right now though I'm sure more lame brained ideas will fill my head later and compele me to plaster them on the fourm... :D But until that time comes, you are all safe... for now.
CWalker
Georgia, USA
Adam P
Augur
I'm no expert but currently have far more free time than Wolf, but from what he has said so far, at least what i remember of it...
-horses- I dont recall anything said of this.
-carts- He mentioned the summoned minions or demons can be used as pack mules I believe.
-Safepoints- If it's like Teudogar, and I think this aspect is, you can take over virtually any non-plot-essential homestead. When doing so you gain the owner's slaves as your own. These slaves will produce you goods. And again if it's like Teudogar, and this aspect probably is, if you leave your items in someone's house, you can always come back and get them without stealing... er... I think...
-customisable colors- on your characters, usually this is only an option in mmorpgs, in single player crpgs you can simply change settings on your moniter to change the colors of your character (I don't recall mention of selecting race, but there was some mention of vocation i believe, let me look back at this.)
-Inventory- I think in Darghul you have a permanent bag, and you may pick-up other bags also...
He speaks more detailed about this here- http://www.darghul.com/newe.htm
http://www.darghul.com/darg14.gif
The inventory system seems to be highly influenced by Ultima Online's, I really like this inventory system, far better than any single-player rpgs i know of.
-destructive environments- I think the challenge here wouldnt be so much the coding as the new tiles and animations, another problem that would be posed is if you can burn down a village someone can burn down your village, and you would have to have a way of re-building, which would be even more work to implement. Or even the npc's rebuilding. Some villages come pre-destroyed for your exploring pleasure
http://www.darghul.com/darg05.gif
-Terrain-
http://www.darghul.com/darg08.gif
Although, there are hills in Darghul, I doubt the game knows it, this is probably an illusion the tiles create. Fire wouldn't be easy to program or draw, also using fire tactically wouldn't be easy. If you were in a field and the enemy in a forest, setting a tree on fire would sooner burn down the field than the forest, also you would have to be verrrrrry careful with your magic if fire spread. lol
-weather- Currently, from my understanding, weather is... Clear and Sunny, or, Raining.(sorry had to use bad grammar,'not that i havent throughout the rest of my post') There has been talk of Snow but currently no intention of implementation.(errrrrrr, I think) these being the 2 weather conditions, you would have to assume it's always warm outside.
Well, I tried to restrain my sarcasm and negativism, but apparently I didn't do a very good job. Maybe when Wolf gets a chance he will give you a real answer, but until then maybe this can make you think, whether or not it does any good.
I'm going to browze through his old posts and see if i cant find some references.
-well, i tried to make a list of citings twice and i keep getting power surges, reseting my computer, just browze through here. http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/search.php?search_author=Wolf+Mittag
-horses- I dont recall anything said of this.
-carts- He mentioned the summoned minions or demons can be used as pack mules I believe.
-Safepoints- If it's like Teudogar, and I think this aspect is, you can take over virtually any non-plot-essential homestead. When doing so you gain the owner's slaves as your own. These slaves will produce you goods. And again if it's like Teudogar, and this aspect probably is, if you leave your items in someone's house, you can always come back and get them without stealing... er... I think...
-customisable colors- on your characters, usually this is only an option in mmorpgs, in single player crpgs you can simply change settings on your moniter to change the colors of your character
(I don't recall mention of selecting race, but there was some mention of vocation i believe, let me look back at this.)-Inventory- I think in Darghul you have a permanent bag, and you may pick-up other bags also...
He speaks more detailed about this here- http://www.darghul.com/newe.htm
http://www.darghul.com/darg14.gif
The inventory system seems to be highly influenced by Ultima Online's, I really like this inventory system, far better than any single-player rpgs i know of.
-destructive environments- I think the challenge here wouldnt be so much the coding as the new tiles and animations, another problem that would be posed is if you can burn down a village someone can burn down your village, and you would have to have a way of re-building, which would be even more work to implement. Or even the npc's rebuilding. Some villages come pre-destroyed for your exploring pleasure
http://www.darghul.com/darg05.gif
-Terrain-
http://www.darghul.com/darg08.gif
Although, there are hills in Darghul, I doubt the game knows it, this is probably an illusion the tiles create. Fire wouldn't be easy to program or draw, also using fire tactically wouldn't be easy. If you were in a field and the enemy in a forest, setting a tree on fire would sooner burn down the field than the forest, also you would have to be verrrrrry careful with your magic if fire spread. lol
-weather- Currently, from my understanding, weather is... Clear and Sunny, or, Raining.(sorry had to use bad grammar,'not that i havent throughout the rest of my post') There has been talk of Snow but currently no intention of implementation.(errrrrrr, I think) these being the 2 weather conditions, you would have to assume it's always warm outside.
Well, I tried to restrain my sarcasm and negativism, but apparently I didn't do a very good job. Maybe when Wolf gets a chance he will give you a real answer, but until then maybe this can make you think, whether or not it does any good.
I'm going to browze through his old posts and see if i cant find some references.
-well, i tried to make a list of citings twice and i keep getting power surges, reseting my computer, just browze through here. http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/search.php?search_author=Wolf+Mittag
I hate realistic inventory systems. In my opinion, inventory should be as easy to manage as possible and shouldn't detract the player from more important gameplay. Worrying about how much space I have for items and which of my many bags I should store the leather gauntlet in is not fun, especially in games that are mainly about hacking, slashing and looting.
Anonymous
Guest
I find you idear to be served by animals very good especially for the horses
Tame animals wil be also a cool kind of magic in Darghul: If you see a wolf or a beer in a cave, you don't have to berserk and kill them but you tame him and he just follow and protect you for a short time (not until the end of the game because it would be to easy after to defend or atack people and monster). And he escape after a time of service.
It's just an idear like that and I don't know if it's to much work...
And congratulation for your first game!!! super
azertyuiopqs12
Tame animals wil be also a cool kind of magic in Darghul: If you see a wolf or a beer in a cave, you don't have to berserk and kill them but you tame him and he just follow and protect you for a short time (not until the end of the game because it would be to easy after to defend or atack people and monster). And he escape after a time of service.
It's just an idear like that and I don't know if it's to much work...
And congratulation for your first game!!! super
azertyuiopqs12
Wolf Mittag
Wolf Mittag Software Development
Hello CWalker, thank you for these suggestions,
and thank you, AdamP, for already answering much of that for me
(btw, also my thanks again for keeping this forum free from spam and commercials!).
Hi Jora and azertyuiopqs12.
Sincerely, thanks to all of you for your help!
Horses: quite a bit of work to implement (not just the horses themselves (additionally complicated by them being larger than a single tile), but also all the infrastructure - hay, stables, etc that'd have to be available throughout the game world), so I put this off for later.
What I did though was to allow 'running', i.e., walking _very_ fast (the further your mouse cursor from your character, the faster): This doesn't look that great, but it allows very speedy exploration on foot. Of course the game-time passes as fast as always, i.e. moving through an area may take several game-time-days; but at least that way you don't waste any real time waiting for a slow-moving character to finally walk across that damn map in a slow speed that's optimized for animation but not for playing.
Carts: I like this (especially your becoming a sort of caravan that'd have to be defended from robbers) - but can't implement it quickly; too much work.
So I'm again trying to solve the underlying problem in a much more easy-to-implement way: By magic, in this case, a teleportation bag that will automatically teleport everything you put inside to a second bag that may be stored in a different city. (Of course you'll first have to find/acquire these magical bags, of which there won't be more than 2 or 3 in the entire game, and this will be difficult for you. Etc.)
Houses as safe points: I made sure to provide these during game world design. (There's no real market for houses, though, since, according to the plot, all cities suffered a significant loss of population right before the start of the game, i.e., many empty houses everywhere, which you can simply occupy, and then clean up, decorate etc if you care to do so.)
choosing skin/hair color and the like: I like this, and these are flexible anyway (for the small animated characters at least), so I'd only need to find a convenient way to ask the user for what values to use. Probably as part of character generation; perhaps via options menu.
I'll probably restrict skin color to white, though, in order to save much extra work on the paperdoll inventory graphics (you could then choose different shades of white for your small animated chacter, but the inventory paperdoll would always keep the same white skin color).
burning down houses: Thought about this. Maybe via actions menu: If (everybody living there is dead, i.e., no resistance) and (house has no stone walls), then remove roof and replace wall tiles with burnt-down-wall tiles, and place lots of ash everywhere (an algorithm for removing furniture etc already exists). Personally, I love razing conquered places, so I'd like to implement such a feature. (But since this isn't the most essential thing, I'll put this off to the end and will then see if I have time left to do it.)
(There's an older thread somewhere about rebuilding/building houses - that's really difficult to implement, and thus even further into the future, although I think that'd really be a great feature.)
Weather conditions affecting you: already on ToDo-list, i.e., sleeping outside if rain = vitality--; same for wearing no clothes; etc; a couple of rules such as these are very easy to add.
taming animals: again, nice idea. If I set up people/animals following you around, I'll add this. (Currently, neither henchmen nor slaves nor demons nor dogs etc can accompany you, and it's difficult to make them, so I'll put this off to later versions/games.) (You can summon demons in battle; but they won't follow you around.)
Thanks to all of you for your comments and suggestions!
and thank you, AdamP, for already answering much of that for me
(btw, also my thanks again for keeping this forum free from spam and commercials!).
Hi Jora and azertyuiopqs12.
Sincerely, thanks to all of you for your help!
Horses: quite a bit of work to implement (not just the horses themselves (additionally complicated by them being larger than a single tile), but also all the infrastructure - hay, stables, etc that'd have to be available throughout the game world), so I put this off for later.
What I did though was to allow 'running', i.e., walking _very_ fast (the further your mouse cursor from your character, the faster): This doesn't look that great, but it allows very speedy exploration on foot. Of course the game-time passes as fast as always, i.e. moving through an area may take several game-time-days; but at least that way you don't waste any real time waiting for a slow-moving character to finally walk across that damn map in a slow speed that's optimized for animation but not for playing.
Carts: I like this (especially your becoming a sort of caravan that'd have to be defended from robbers) - but can't implement it quickly; too much work.
So I'm again trying to solve the underlying problem in a much more easy-to-implement way: By magic, in this case, a teleportation bag that will automatically teleport everything you put inside to a second bag that may be stored in a different city. (Of course you'll first have to find/acquire these magical bags, of which there won't be more than 2 or 3 in the entire game, and this will be difficult for you. Etc.)
Houses as safe points: I made sure to provide these during game world design. (There's no real market for houses, though, since, according to the plot, all cities suffered a significant loss of population right before the start of the game, i.e., many empty houses everywhere, which you can simply occupy, and then clean up, decorate etc if you care to do so.)
choosing skin/hair color and the like: I like this, and these are flexible anyway (for the small animated characters at least), so I'd only need to find a convenient way to ask the user for what values to use. Probably as part of character generation; perhaps via options menu.
I'll probably restrict skin color to white, though, in order to save much extra work on the paperdoll inventory graphics (you could then choose different shades of white for your small animated chacter, but the inventory paperdoll would always keep the same white skin color).
burning down houses: Thought about this. Maybe via actions menu: If (everybody living there is dead, i.e., no resistance) and (house has no stone walls), then remove roof and replace wall tiles with burnt-down-wall tiles, and place lots of ash everywhere (an algorithm for removing furniture etc already exists). Personally, I love razing conquered places, so I'd like to implement such a feature. (But since this isn't the most essential thing, I'll put this off to the end and will then see if I have time left to do it.)
(There's an older thread somewhere about rebuilding/building houses - that's really difficult to implement, and thus even further into the future, although I think that'd really be a great feature.)
Weather conditions affecting you: already on ToDo-list, i.e., sleeping outside if rain = vitality--; same for wearing no clothes; etc; a couple of rules such as these are very easy to add.
taming animals: again, nice idea. If I set up people/animals following you around, I'll add this. (Currently, neither henchmen nor slaves nor demons nor dogs etc can accompany you, and it's difficult to make them, so I'll put this off to later versions/games.) (You can summon demons in battle; but they won't follow you around.)
Thanks to all of you for your comments and suggestions!
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