What I'm saying is that evil characters are people too and they should have the same level of complexity as good guys. They should have moral dilemmas and those moral dilemmas should be as hard for them as they are for goodies. They should have honor or at least a reputation for keeping their word they should have good qualities mixed in with the bad ones. Once you get that apply the same principle to the good guys and you get realistic characters that easily create moral dilemas.
Totally agree. I have put a lot of effort into making character motivations believable and realistic. No one is trying to destroy the world. People are motivated by the same things as in reality, greed, revenge, loyalty to a cause, personal advancement, etc. I want to create characters the player can understand and identify with, even if they don't agree with their actions.
Coolio. About the skills, can non-dialogue skills play part in dialogue? (Example; in Fallout 2 if you had enough science skill you could talk to Myron about the details of Jet making, find a cure, etc.)
Most definately.Torque comes with a very powerful scripting language and almost all of the mechanics are accessable via that script. It is easy to check non combat skills, player gender, an attribute such as strength, even whether they are carrying an item or have completed a quest. The dialgoue system is a dialogue tree, and every branch of that tree can check whether any number of conditions are met before displaying. So for example you can set it to only show a specific line of dialogue if the player is male and has a strength greater than 20. Or if he has a high Divination magic skill.
Also, do you plan on using skill synergies within the categories, AoD style? Assuming combat skills are mostly weapon based, it seems like a diplomatic character would be at a disadvantage without them, you have to master 3 or 4 skills, while a combat guy only really has to master one (unless skill points are more "potent" for dialogue skills or something.)
No skill synergies. There are actually more combat skills than there are social skills, and the social skills don't cost as much. I've purposefully set it up so that each of the skill categories (Combat, Magic, Trickery, Social and General) are NOT equal in cost. Magic for example has the most skills, and they are the most expensive. To be a good overall mage you need to sink every skill point you get into magic skills. Which reflects the archetype of a mage, if you want to bend reality you need to devote yourself to it fully. But if you wanted to make a character similar to a D&D rogue, you would pick skills mainly from trickery and social, with a few combat skills thrown in.
The final skill cost balance isn't set in stone yet, but for example the melee skill costs 5 skill points and the bluff skill 2. I'll post up a list of the skills sometime soon in the future for discussion.
@ Denizsi : I should have mentioned, the combat is real time, direct FPS style control, ala morrowind or oblivion. I know that might dissapoint a lot of people here, but it's my preference. I -might-, and this is a big might, implement a 3rd person comera. It's harder to make a decent 3rd person offering than you might think. They tend to get stuck in walls or act stupidly.
@ cardtrick : Thank you
And yes, if people are interested in more details about the technical side or design process, and you can handle ugly test art, feel free to check out my GG blogs, they go back the 2 years I meantioned. Please note, you will see cartooney graphics, lots of magic effects, test dialogues, orcs/elves and very little discussion of storyline or gameplay design.It isn't a reflection of the final game, merely discussions of the functional programming components.
The dialogue editor :
http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/49499/11161
Quest system and Events :
http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/49499/11424
Quest, Journal and Scrpt editors :
http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/49499/12199
Special Effects and drag 'n drop inventory :
http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/49499/13083[/quote]