Game News Dragon Age and day-n-night cycle

[Rosh]

Agreed. For my mind they're not worth the extra effort for the minimal return you get for them. I much prefer the idea of Gaider to have NPCs appear to be doing something other than standing around like zombies waiting for the PCs to arrive than implementing an uneccesary D/N cycle...although this isn't too new, since more than a couple of games have features a blacksmith hammering away at an anvil (or even Elmo stumbling around drunk), for instance, it has never been extended to a whole village/city to my knowledge.

Your ability to understand context is slipping again.

It isn't about a specific point of requiring day and night cycles, it's that yet again BioWare is doing minimal work and trying to cash in, while at the same time dumb down the market into believing that they are innovating anything at all instead of dumbing it down, making the press sound even more stupid than usual when they attribute something erroneously to BioWare, but they do get confused because BioWare does this enough themselves. It is also about them making really comical excuses, especially the one developer that said it took exponentially more work for multiple paths, and now for having to make another whole map because BioWare has no fucking clue how to script or use a 3d engine.

It isn't so much about day/night having to be in a game to be an RPG, and I don't know where some people got that idea. It is merely one of the things that help add to the environment, which aside from magic items by beggars and lifeless bitmaps, BioWare might not even bother with trying to use an argument for 3d in that it allows for better representation of environment interaction. We've seen BioWare try this before in Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2, with night and day having the same effect as other roleplaying aspects in much of BioWare's work - LITTLE TO NOTHING. But Baldur's Gate is forgivable, since they needed the time to figure out that speech tree thingy. So, instead of expanding upon that possible source of depth or atmosphere, BioWare would instead remove that and possibly add in some other "feature" and crow about it...I spoke too late.

For one, having a day/night cycle doesn't imply that an NPC would go to a whole different area. There might just be night-time activities. Some instances are logical, like in Ultima 7, Britain, when people talk about The Fellowship meetings that happen at a certain time in the world, every day. Without a cheesy cut-scene or half-ass scripting, the community is represented by having a time when at least part of them come into a congregation and say something other than the usual half-ass speech line, and they go from their daytime place to there. It adds depth, and it helped make the world come alive through design rather than trying to do so through quirky written NPCs. Oh, and BioWare did not do THAT first, either, as they have been attribited with. Again, check Ultima 7. Or earlier.

Hell, it might even make it EASIER for the typical demographic of BioWare gamers to find NPCs if everyone goes to the tavern at night. Of course with BioWare doing this, this would mean that you would solve an entire area's worth of Fed-Ex within five minutes.

I might be harsh at BioWare because they are usually pretentous twits that come up with something that was done far better years ago and try to call it innovation, when in fact they take a license, make it into something more like Diablo than a CRPG, and then get money by the Lowest Common Denominator. Lowest Common Denominator and Innovation do not belong in the same design document together. Sure, you can try to raise the bar for Lowest Common Denominator, but that is hardly innovation by any stretch of the definition.

Plus it could be a few other things, such as calling their games "blockbuster" before they are even released. Of course, I know I pointed these out before, so I'm guessing you had your mind and mouth occupied elsewhere.

Why would they lie? RPGs is about playing your character, and being able to make meaninful choices that effect the game world and characetrs in said game world. In BIO games, you most certainly can do that. To think otherwise is to flat out be stupid. Period.

So far, those "meaningful choice" would be limited towards the end-game (KOTOR), or do you mean on the character creation screen where 99% of "role-playing" occurs in most BioWare games, because the rest is usually linear and about the same every time you play? Oh, silly me. I forgot that picking character classes was role-playing!

EvoG, branch your routines with a time manager to run through scripts separately based upon certain conditions, and you'll find that the scripts become less heavy and the idea behind night/day cycles becomes very clear how to implement simply. From a programming standpoint, all you need to do is give a visual impression and if you program right, the cycle change is relatively painless and goes neatly into the night-time script with little problem, and with a pretty little sunset. Gothic's developers managed to add in day/night cycles that matter, and it helps the world design come alive with the other things they developed into the game. I don't consider a few oddball party characters to really give the setting and game depth when the rest usually falls flat.

With the resources that BioWare has, they can put more of their bloated dev teams to work. But what do I know, I only saw one of the best implementations of many things that now prove to be a challenge for BioWare, years ago...ON A 486!

Speaking of 486s...

I'm quite sure now - you don't fucking know ANYTHING about development. Especially, in regards to more or less modern 3d stuff, loaded up to the neck with animations and timings. Check out this faq to see what kind of problems will a mud server have with a lot of moving chars and objects.

I'm very familiar withhow MUDs work, including MERC. Who said I was talking about MERC? Many code bases handle things differently and with different loads because of certain processes in-game, but my point still remains. I also understand the workings of a MUD, as they are little more than an online database with value interaction and client commonication. It has to chunk through a lot of data, at the same time, and surprisingly enough they were able to make these run on computers that are far outdated by now, with hundreds of users.

So I was merely using it as a reference point for engine back-ends and what they were capable of then and even 12 years ago. I posted examples and facts. Apparently you've not heard from them nor gleaned enough from Google to pay attention to them. That is how I can tell you're faking your part of the conversation, because you have jack shit for understanding the context I was discussing this point in.

Just to give you something to chew on and ponder about, check mailing lists and source code for some 3d shells for rogue-likes. And (sanity check follows) try imagine selling some ugly looking game in a box? You wouldn't happen to think that slogans like 'breath-taking pathfinding', 'scrupulous financial management, material resources shortage and perfect timing of NPC interaction' will suffice for a publisher/marketing dept?

You're right. Why should I expect anywhere near the same kind of development that was around...1992? Programming constraints seem to have gotten more severe, and somehow it takes a lot more to do what used to be relatively simple back them. It might be due to bloated code and people who probably have no idea how to do anything except by subcommittee.

Sorry, kid, the "graphics take up everything" doesn't fly with me, especially when BioWare was originally the ones using a huge fucking bitmap as the background.

Crap pathfinding is also a poor excuse, especially when such routines have been around for...hell, probably longer than you have been alive. I know at least prior to 1980, and they were at least able to get the mouse across the map, which is often quite a challenge for BioWare's pathfinding. And, as others have noted, the lighting change for 3d engines really is as simple as a flick of a switch, and Ultima 7 even had something similar because it's as easy as flicking a switch to run that. Scripting around a flick of a switch so people act differently or go through different routines shouldn't be that hard to accomplish, and it really wasn't in Arcanum and Ultima.

In fact, if you need to see how people were able to manage this before you graduated grade school, check out the editing commands for Ultima 7, both parts, and play around with the time set function. OMG! Such innovashun! It also was fairly simple to set up as well, because it was logical.

So, please keep going on about how graphics are far more important than knowing simple programming basics that were used years ago, and worked on computers not even a hundredth of current gaming systems. You call me a fuckwit when you try to use those straw man fallacies? Nice try, kid, but Sheriff_Fatman was just as poor at using Google to debate with as yourself. Actually, he could fake it a bit better, but eventually it became old hat. So is your ignorance of basic design and programming.

Judas, it might help if you actually read what I wrote. Yes, there are mean words, but I assure you, it helps to pay attention to the context.

DGaider, that is why I have no respect for you. You come up with bullshit, then fold spineless. I know it's easy for you to pretend the Ultimas didn't exist, but try to have the few computer capable people there instruct you how to use MS-DOS. Oh, and before you guys start crowing about innovating reputation systems, you might want to check out Ultima 4 and the seven distinct stats involving it. Keep an eye out for where BioWare innovates with eight!

I do agree with you, though, David. Day/night cycles in BioWare's hands are not needed, though "wasted" would definitely be more applicable but also "mean'.

 

[EvoG]

EvoG, branch your routines with a time manager to run through scripts separately based upon certain conditions, and you'll find that the scripts become less heavy and the idea behind night/day cycles becomes very clear how to implement simply. From a programming standpoint, all you need to do is give a visual impression and if you program right, the cycle change is relatively painless and goes neatly into the night-time script with little problem, and with a pretty little sunset. Gothic's developers managed to add in day/night cycles that matter, and it helps the world design come alive with the other things they developed into the game. I don't consider a few oddball party characters to really give the setting and game depth when the rest usually falls flat.

Err, I wasn't talking about the difficulty of the task; I already have it implemented. Its about 'workload' of lighting and object managment for efficient engine performance. Keep in mind I also said Then I came across a method for doing our lighting in realtime yet maintain that 'look'. Show me a game thats does day/night with the lighting sophistication evident in those screens. Wont happen. Doing day/night with dynamic lighitng is easy but doesn't look ANYWHERE as good. Graphics are still important for the mood I wish to cast in my world, and dynamic lighting can't possibly achieve it yet compared to prerendered lightmaps. To note, I value day/night cycles more than you can imagine. My dream is to do one huge world-sim rpg that never breaks, loads or drops to cutscenes, so this isn't about NOT wanting day/night...as I desperately do.

As for the NPC scripts, having them go from house to work to tavern is simple but rather limited, and I wanted more random but 'needs/wants-influenced' system so they behaved a tad more like people than robots, and did things a little more organically. Fine maybe its overkill, but remember again, my team is small and I'd still have to set up my nodes for the pathfinding for ALL the npc's in the entire game world. On a singular level its not THAT big a deal, but when faced with making the entirety of a CRPG, its just one more task keeping us away from release and one more thing to worry about breaking.

All this, and as I also said in my last post, if it isn't going to be done right, why do it at all. Mind you this isn't an excuse for Bioware...they have hundreds of people to my three...I was merely speaking for myself.


Cheers